Club history

Very flat top of the hill at 1030 m a.s.l. - our contest QTH and the 70 & 23 cm operation stand in a caravan on the top of an old military radar ramp

Our OK2KKW history started in 1990, after splitting of the former radio club OK1KRA, a well-known VHF/UHF station in eighties. Majority of our current operators were experienced operators of OK1KRA, and they created a good reputation of that callsign during a lot of contests and VHF/UHF DX openings. Unfortunately, due to turbulent events in 1989/1990 years this club station due to various reasons has splitted into two groups and almost all of the active operators founded the new OK2KKW team. OK2 is of course a Moravian district number, but as we were looking for a good new callsign we were offered this one by a friend living in Brno. The callsign was at that time registered to his company there and not used for some time. Originally we intended to change it to OK1, but after a great success in our first contests we kept the OK2 prefix, although all our members live in Prague. List of OK2KKW results is here.

We would have won even our very first contest on 144 MHz in 1990, but unfortunately we had sent a log with a wrong date. From October 1990 till 1997 we won all 70 cm multi op contests in OK we took part in, except for 1991, when we made an expedition to the Netherlands (as PA/OK1WC), where we took the 3rd virtual place in PA-UHF contest.

We succeeded also in our contest expedition to the IARU UHF contest to France in 1994. We won in both F and OK as well. (log of F/OK2KKW/p) Later on, the representatives of Czech Radioclub Contest Comitee changed rules. The stations are taken into the OK results only if they take part in the contest from the territory of Czech Republic. Our next expedition was to G in October 1998 for the UHF contest. Our good friend G8DWQ is the landlord of a nice pub in Toft Monks near Beccless in Norfolk county JO02 square. We tried the contest from the “other side”. It was an exciting experience. We were surprised by the very low activity there and how important are “big gun” antenna systems in the fix direction to the east (rotators are almost not necessary, HI). We had only single antenna for 70 cm band, so our results were not brilliant, but still we took 3rd place in UK 70 cm multi op category (UK list of UHF contest results). More Contest expedition we managed since that time - see here, here and here.

Our stable contest QTH in OK is located near the Czech-German border in JO60JJ square, at 1030 m a.s.l (near our QTH was placed former village Seifen). It is not any superior QTH, because hills of almost the same high are all around in distances of tenths kms, but we have a small cottage there and relatively low local QRM. Because the famous Klinovec hill (JO60LJ 1253 m a.s.l.) is about 10 kms to the east, we are very screened especially to the OK and SP9 area. We found out that the forest in the very interesting PA, DL direction has grown up in last years and overgrew our masts. Also the activity on 144 and 432 MHz is moving more nad more to the east. Due to all these factors our results in last 3 years are not as good as before.

But still this QTH is not so bad. Our personal best results was in the 1995 UHF contest, when during superior condx we made 700 QSOs at 70 cms. Nobody made similar result on 70 cm in OK list yet. ( Log of UHF contest 1995).

More problems we have in contest s with interference with OL7C (another contest station, placed only 3 km from us in the same locator) and from 23 cm radar applications – but I think it started be problem almost everywhere.

At last we must apologies to everybody, who are waiting to our QSL cards. We are not members of Czech radioclub from good reasons and so we are not able send contest QSL to everybody. But soon at this internet page will be placed our contest logs with possibility downloaded QSL for you. If those internet QSL will be sent to us directly (to OK1DIX or OK1VPZ), we are ready personally confirm it and return to you promptly. Thank you for patience.

If anybody from you has interest to join us, OK2KKW club station is open to invite any new interested hams, who want to work for success of this team at all bands.

We hope meet you in the next contest.

73!  OK1VPZ August 2005