My early activities were with YU1BCD club station in Pancevo near Belgrade. Ljube, YU7AU was a driving force while Mirko YT7MM did all the paperwork. We designed all our equipment in 60's while studying electronics and telecommunications under the roof of YU1EXY club on the top of the University building. I was intrigued with transceivers and all my RX projects had a big, secret socket for PA tube.
I've been working on computers since 1970, first with ICL, UK where I learned a lot more English and some digital stuff during the initial 6 month training. My London ham contact was Roger G3SXW while Nigel G3TXF was introduced later. Having won G2LB 14 MHz EU CW trophy in 1976, I met fondly remembered late Al Slater G3FXB and G0AAA mainly FOC contest group. Carl K3RV, my former guest in YU, was working in GB with his charming GM lady who taught me a lot about malt whiskey. I later joined DEC and visited USA for the first time in bicentennial 1976. Lot of hams from New England were wonderful hosts like late Howie W1HZ and Jim W2PV, old Laci W1PL, George W1DA and famous contesters like K1MM, K1MEM, K1AR, K1DG. I must also mention later friends Andy K2LE, Pol WS1M, Randy K5ZD who drove me from PA to my first Dayton in 1988. ARRL HQ was visited on a few occasions and I am still licensed as N1YU at Dave Sumners K1ZZ mailing address after passing 3 exams in FCC Boston office in 1978. More recently we established Michael Pupin memorial radioclub and got vanity callsign W1BCD. Later developments brought me all the way to California with wonderful introduction to SF by Rusty W6OAT, Bob K3EST and my countryman Bruno, AA6AD. I traveled the world on computer business and ham radio meant a warmly welcome anywhere in the world. Late Jorge LU8DQ is unforgettable with Arthuro LU6ETB translating, Pedro NP4A and Arecibo dish, late HS1WR with HS1YL, JARL Tokyo office and Akihabara. WRTC-96 with NH7/N1YU Hawaii was the peak of my contesting activities.
In 1972, I build DM2001 TTL keyer with diode matrix and serial number counter up to 1999. It was successfully copied by OM Boris, S58A. With some assistance from an old friend Tom DL7AV, I finished my HF CW 50W XCVR using high power balanced diode mixer, 9 MHz IF and frequency counter for a poor stability VFO. Vlado, ex YU3EZ helped me to fine tune input circuits using spectrum analyzer and sweeper. My later designs were more digitally oriented with a numerous variants of electronic keyers, by now my trade mark! My first commercial rig was ATLAS 210 followed by still alive early model of IC-735 heavily modified by now. Heathkit SB-220 gives me a lot of punch even on 160m. USA hardware is completed with TH6DXX and 402BA. Windom antenna 78m long covers the low bands. I worked many times from my former radioclub "Ljubljana", S53AJK nice contest site at S50L while now I help youngsters in new club "Slovenia", S51SLO.
I learned PASCAL programming language in 80's in order to develop my own on-line contest software. Together with first YU 16-bit PDP-11 compatible microcomputer, it had debut in Oct. 1984 CQ WW SSB contest and works with many bugs in 6.000 lines of code ever since! Now it fully supports DX Cluster, Sound Blaster, various frequency management requirements, Morse sending and own keyer receiving. I did some Ph.D. work on HF Morse decoding and DSP beats me heavily in the pile-ups although I know how to handle them being EU CW champ three times! I went as far as allowing PC to make some 200 QSO automatically in 1 991 ARRL DX Contest and then stopped all further research in order to protect my beloved hobby! I switched mainly to RTTY semi-automatic contesting wining WAE twice in the years 92/94 and CQ WW EU, #2 world SOAB HP in 94/95.
I wrote many technical articles in various WW ham radio magazines and I was the invited speaker on automated HF contesting at Dayton 1995 Contest forum. It was a pleasure to meet a great host Fred Fubar, K9VV and go to Lew K4VX/0 in Hannibal, Missouri afterwards. I also attended German 1995 Friedrichshaffen hamfest meeting again Fred K3ZO, Jim N6TJ, Dick K4XU and many DL BCC friends. Bosnian hams told me many sad but proud stories from Sarajevo
I enjoy music, movies, foreign politics and long walks with two samoyed dogs.