In Memoriam: Rob PA2R

September 18th we received the news that our member Rob PA2R passed away as result of a diving accident in Madeira. In Rob we lose one of the operators of the first hour at Contestgroep Oude Maas PI4COM and one of the founders of the LLDXT – Low Land DXpedition Team.

After Rob had built up a passion for diving, the time he actively spent on the radio hobby became less. Rob remained a committed member of PI4COM until his death and at CW contests we could always count on him as an operator where he proved time and time again that CW contesting was his passion where the CW speed went up. 
Less than 2 weeks before his death, Rob had enthusiastically told about the diving trip he was going to make with his partner Lysiane on Madeira during the annual COM barbecue.

As one of the founders and QSL manager of the Low Land DXpedition Team, Rob certainly also enjoyed an international reputation. “The LLDXT Method” is a manual from Rob’s hand on how to deal with a European Pile-Up which you can still find on websites of various American amateurs.

Many will have in their collection a QSL card of the many DXpedities that Rob was part of. What started with a try-out in the summer of 1994 together with a number of members of PI4COM at DXpeditie in Liechtenstein as HB0/PA3ERC was followed up in a long series of DXpeditions to sometimes quite rare countries; VP5/PA3ERC, VP5C, FG/PA3ERC, TO5C, J77C, J79RC, FM/PA3ERC, J6/PA3ERC, 9Y4/PA3ERC, 6Y5/PA3ERC, ZF2RC/ZF9, PJ7/PA5ET, FS/PA5ET, V47ET, VP2EET, 8Q7ET,V26ET, 8P9JS,VP2MPA, J3/PA5ET, J8/PA5ET, J38PA, J8PA, TI9M, J75ET, J75PA, VP2MET, VP2MPA, OY7ET, OY8PA, 3D2PA, T30PA, T33C, T33PA, PZ5PA, PZ5C, PZ5C/p and VU7RG.

A few years ago, Rob’s presence at our activities became less after his health imposed a number of physical limitations on him. This situation was prolonged by the arrival of Covid-19 which forced Rob into a period of strict quarantine due to his fragile health. After he was able to stop working earlier this year and now that the world is slowly opening up again, plans had already been made to go out into the world together with Lysiane to do their joint diving passion in special places. It is difficult to comprehend that he dies during his first dive trip.

In Rob we lose a passionate member with a sometimes outspoken vision of our own. During the upcoming CW contests we will have to do without his CW passion.

Rob Snieder PA2R is Silent Key.

Rest In Peace our Friend.

Already 2 weeks since MJ2017

Today 2 weeks ago we arrived backhome after a nice and, we think,  succesfull DX-trip to Jersey in the British Channel Islands.

The many QSL requests received both with the clublog OQRS system and the standard mail proof that we made a lot of stations happy with a new bandpoint or better. On forehand we had not received many specific requests but our wide spreaded field of interest within the team certainly helped to make it happen. The 60m activity stands-out were we look to the reactions and QSL requests we receive.

NO, we could not all we had hoped for. 6 meter propagation was bad and our antenna for that band was limited. Only a handful of qso’s but all except one with local stations. S51AT was worked on digital during the last day. Looking at the demand a dedecated 6m DXpedition to Jersey might be worthwhile again in the ES season.

Loosing the 2 meter amplfier did not help also. We know that there was some demand to work the MJ country on 2m also and we are glad we could give quite a number of stations a new country. But on Tuesday we lost our amplifier whih silently died making an early stop to our 2m activities. Sorry for the station waiting for us on EME, we simply did not have sufficient power anymore.

As promised all QSO’s have been uploaded to LOTW and QSL cards are expected from the printer in a few weeks time. When you have not received LOTA confirmation of can’t find the qso in our clublog logs, please contact Alex PA1AW. He will help you with any log related issues.

We found some recordings on YouTube we like to share with you: