About us

The history of ham radio sport in the town of Stribro commenced back in 1962 when the freshly licenced OK1KUW club station opened its logs by its first QSO in the 80m band. For a long period the club's main activity was devoted to 2m, 70cm and 23cm band contesting but as time passed the operators started to be more and more interested in shortwave bands since 90'ies.

The breaking point came when Zdeno OK1XUV got hold of a ground near our town - a former sheep pasture. Our first HF antenna was a 2 element quad for 10, 15 and 20m bands placed on the top of a 12m (40ft) concrete mast. A basement of concrete for first real antenna tower was laid on in the period of '98 to '99.

We were awarded a licence with our special contest call OL7R in 2000. We built and erected a 3 element yagi for 20m band, a HB9CV beam for 10m band and dipoles for 160, 80, 40 and 15m during following years. We enjoyed a wonderful HF operation experience during the solar maximum period with these antennas. Several contests in a M/S low power category with 100W input and one radio had motivated us to next development of our station's equipment. The antenna farm has been changing and and our team developing in the time as well with operators coming and leaving. Erection of a 16m (52ft) steel tower with three 3 element nomoband yagis for 20, 15, 10m bands and an erection of 23m (75ft) high vertical antenna with 128 radials for 160 and 80m bands were two importatnt milestones in antenna improvement.

A new 15m (50ft) high antenna tower was put into operation in 2002. Later in 2005 it was extended to 24m (79ft) to bear stacked yagis for 10m and 15m bands.
In the period of 2002 to 2004 our gang grew and we added second room and a porch to our hamshack cottage to be able to accomodate more workplaces and more operators in the contests. In the same period, we built several new antennas, for example 5 element yagis for upper bands, FLAG receiving antennas, 4-squares, beverages and similar. In the winter periods, mainly Zdeno OK1XUV built power amplifiers. Other operators participated in preparation of switches, power suplies, antenna rotators and other important equipment.

New antenna - a Moxon beam for 40m - was erected onto a 19m (62ft) telescopic tower in 2003. We were lucky to obtain nearly complete equipment of contest team OL7W after they had to shutdown their contest QTH. We are in process of step by step installation of the "inherited" equipment into our QTH now.

Our team, equipment and antenna farm are instantly developing and you can find an updated information mapping the current state in the sections EQUIPMENT and OPERATORS.