Marcin MARCINIAK (Poland)

I’m a ham radio enthusiast with callsign SP5XMI, listening to shortwave traffic (not only amateur of course), training Morse reception to become a full-blown CW operator. Of course I’m not interested in exchange of 5NNs nor contesting but I want to talk real language also on Morse code. I sometimes chat on CW at moderate speed in Polish and English.

I was a SWL for a long time, mainly interested in receiving DX broadcast stations & marine SSB traffic on an old military surplus R-250 receiver. I got my first license in 1993. Now I’m back on HF, mostly working portable from small villages (usually from Ewelin, grid KO01sv, PGA: GI-04, in central Poland) quite away from big cities where QRM level is high. I prefer high HF bands but I’m interested in 472 kHz band too. I’m looking forward to have 5MHz band available for hams in Poland.

I use horizontal full wave square for 3,5, 7 and 14 fed in the corner, a delta for 14, 21 & 28 MHz, two 5/8 lambda verticals for 14&28MHz and a sloper for other HF bands. I did some experiments with end fed antennas (halfwave with Fuchs circuit), a portable magnetic loop, full size rhombic (2 lambda per leg), 2 el QQ for 14/18MHz and NVIS antennas for local HF connections using high takeoff angle on 80/40m bands. Next step will probably be a new beam and a proper QRO.