Biography of PA2S (ex PA2HJS)

The Ham Radio career of Henk J. Schanssema started around 1970. He was very interested in radio, television and everything that had to do with it. Building radios and trying to receive signals from weird places was the word... He was licenced on January 1, 1976. His first call sign was PEoHJS, licenced for VHF only. Soon, VHF and UHF became favourite parts of the frequency spectrum. But still, he wanted his licence to be upgraded to a full permit. In May, 1977, he passed his CW (morse code) exam. Subsequently, the call sign was changed to PA2HJS. On September 18, 2003, the call was changed to PA2S.
Although emotionally attached to the PA2HJS callsign, it is very inefficient in CW...

In 1977, the 432 MHz was activated, followed by higher bands each year:

• 1978: 1296 MHz
• 1979: 2304 MHz (now 2320 MHz)
• 1980: 3456 MHz (now 3400 MHz)
• 1981: 10368 MHz

Opposed to the rising frequencies, in 1978, Henk read an article about 50 MHz. Interesting stories about radio propagation during periods of high solar activity, spanning long distances at that frequency band triggered a new kind of activity: listening on a band which was not allocated to amateur radio in Europe. At first, no signals were heard, except for television signals, which can be observed during the summer months. In March, 1979, the first amateur signal was observed: a strong signal from a beacon transmitter in South Africa: ZS6PW

It took until November 1979, before more signals were heard on 50 MHz. On the 6th and 7th of November, signals from North America and Canada were observed. Later, signals from Central and South America were received. The period of high solar activity lasted until 1981 and numerous stations from the Americas and Africa were logged.

Ever since, Henk has been very much interested in 50 MHz. It was a great achievement that special licences were awarded in 1988 to explore the world of 50 MHz from a two-way point of view. Now, we could raise our voices ourselves!

During the autumn of 1988, the first 50 MHz openings were observed. By then, we did not realize what had to come...

It took until 1992 for PA2S to complete the DXCC award which is ussued to Ham Radio operators who prove evidence of two way communication with amateur stations in more than 100 different countries.

See A Photo Of Me And Other DXCC recipients (36k JPG)

Have A Look At My QSL Library

Henk plans to become more active in the near future, but heavy business load slows down things considerably, as well as other interests do...