About

OH1MAC Virtual HAM Shack – Grid KP01tn, Finland

I have been a hobbyist shortwave listener since 1984. Never a hardcore DX chaser, and certainly not a professional. It all started with a Selena receiver and a simple long wire, with no real understanding of antennas or radio systems. Just curiosity, static, and time.

Around 2012, the discovery that the inexpensive Realtek RTL2832U could be used as an SDR receiver changed everything. Suddenly, the idea of building a remote SWL DX station at my parents’ house became realistic and affordable. This mattered, because I had moved from a house in Pori to a city apartment in Helsinki back in 1997, where antennas are more of a theoretical concept than a practical one.

Since then, the station has gone through several iterations. Each year brought expansions, rebuilds, experiments, and occasional failures, all of them part of the process.

Today, I am a licensed amateur radio operator with the callsign OH1MAC, and the hobby has grown far beyond silent listening. In 2024, another chapter of my radio life began when I started operating my own AM station on the legendary Pori shortwave frequency of 6120 kHz.

My approach

I am a DIY nerd. I will never reach the professional level of a trained radio or antenna engineer, and I am perfectly fine with that.

This is a hobby. This is for fun.

I do not present instructions or opinions as absolute truths. Everything here is based on my own experiments, observations, and practical results, shared as workable ideas rather than definitive answers.

My working method is simple and repetitive:

plan → design → build → test → fix → test again → eventually succeed.

Most things here are born from hands-on experimentation, late-night thinking, and the occasional stubborn refusal to give up.

73

OH1MAC