Popa Ljubisa YU7EF

I was born on June 26. 1949. in my present QTH Pancevo, small industrial town some 15km north-east from Belgrade, the capital. 

By education I am mechanical engineer but was thrilled with Ham Radio back in 1968 in my home town radio club “Mihajlo Pupin” YU7BCD - at that time YU1BCD, very famous and well known for excellent results.

 It took me just about one month to learn Morse code and pass my first license exam. Ever since, I was very active on HF working DX and participating with other club members in contesting. We were very strong team at that time so, as a result, there were several #1 places in CQWW, WAE, ARRL and AA contests as well as world records that were held for years after that period. In 1971. I got my first personal “B” license and call sign YU1PFR (later YU7PFR) which I was using since 1986 when I passed “A” license exam and got my present call sign YU7EF.

 From the very beginning my main interest was low band DX-ing so I was spending a lot of time on 80m and very much contributed to my club 5BDXCC. Later, in 1982. I got my first rig and have built a 3 element wire yagi for 80m that gave me boost to a remarkable results and a lot of exiting hours of 80m DX-ing. This activity was even noted by a “Ham Radio” magazine editor K2RR and he has published data of my antenna and has listed me as a Big Gun station on 80m. Unfortunately, after moving to live in another flat I had sadly to take my antenna down and at a new location I didn’t have any chance to put up any reasonably good antenna for low band operation.

 Some time in mid 80’s I got involved in 2m activity and was amazed with High Speed CW Meteor Scatter that gave me another field to explore and use. Keep in mind, at that time we didn’t have PC computers - the only one available was famous ZX Spectrum 48k - so everything had to be done using home made memo-keyers and modified tape recorders for recording and reading reflections that were sent by 1000-2500 lpm CW. This required a lot of skill both, technical and operating in order to achieve good results and therefore was a real challenge. In just couple of years I did manage to have almost 500 complete HSCW MS QSO’s and over 350 grid squares worked.

 After some time I started thinking about 2m EME so have built 1kW linear amplifier using Thomson TH328 tube and have done several modifications to my TR9000 transceiver in order to improve his performance. With those modifications, from an average transceiver, I have got high performance rig and was able to work some 30 stations on EME using only two 4 WL antennas.

 After couple of years spent abroad working in Libya, Thailand and Ghana I came back home in 1999 and ever since I am using my new FT847 and Cushcraft R7 vertical. As I was very much interested in working 6m band, I have made modification to original R7 (originally designed foe use on 40m-10m) so my antenna can be used also on 50MHz. With this rather simple but very good antenna, mounted on the roof of my apartment building, in past couple of years I have made thousands of QSO and worked all DX Expeditions that were made, including some very demanding from my location from Pacific Ocean.

 Ever since PC computers came to our lives I have started using them, mainly for my hobby – besides professional occupation – and past 10 to 15 years one of my main occupations is design of antennas for myself and my friends. This came from my point of view that main goal is to hear other station rather than building high power amplifiers and not hearing stations calling me. For all these years I have designed and built many different types of antennas for HF/VHF and all of them proved to be very good and successful. However, just few of them I have published but if someone will ask me for antenna design I was always ready to give a hand and help.

 So, if you hear me, keep in mind I am working with low power – not more than 100w. Very rarely you will hear me calling CQ but there is a big chance I am listening to you, working someone.

 For all of this time since 1968 I have learned a lot and this became more than a hobby to me. It became passion I will live with forever. Thanks to this hobby I have learned so much that no school can offer. Also, maybe even more important, I have got thousands of friends all over the world – some of them very precious.

 At the very end, let me say I wish all people of the world are radio amateurs.