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My full name is
Luiz Carlos Belem de Gouvêa. I was born in Rio de Janeiro, in the middle
of 1951. Currently, I live in a neighboring city, Niterói, linked to Rio
de Janeiro by the Rio-Niterói Bridge. My interest in radio began in 1958,
during the FIFA World Cup in Sweden. In spite of Brazil being the champion,
my greatest joy was knowing that I could hear what was happening in Europe
in real time. But I could not understand why the voice of the announcers
sounded like Donald Duck. Some time later I learned that radio
transmissions were made on SSB, from Europe, and retransmitted on AM, by
local broadcasters.
The electronics has fascinated me since I was 10 years old. At 12, I
bought my first electrolytic capacitor (32+32μF X 150V) for the power
supply of an AM radio receiver type "hot tail" (no AC transformer). It
blew up because of the peak AC voltage (120V X 1.414 = 170V). I decided to
study more about it and started a course in assembly and repair of radio
receivers. Two teachers were amateurs and infected me with the virus of
ham radio.
Even before the
legalization of the citizen band in Brazil, wich occurred in 1970, I
experimented with very low power transmitters, operating in the 27MHz band
, because it was seen as the beginner level. There was a tight control
over the emission of radio eletromagnetic waves, as a result of the
government control by the military, since 1964. The power output could not
exceed 100 mW, if there was not a licence, and the antennas had to be
super efficient, to yield some success in experiments.
Even though a rock lover and a member of a band (I played the bass guitar),
I could not abandon the passion for radio frequency and, in 1973, I
started to homebrewing my first tube transmitter: VFO, buffer and a 6DQ6
fed with 400V on the plate, in the output stage. I swear I did not load
more than 30 mA, in order not to exceed the legal limit of power output (4
Wrms). However, to get a license to operate on the citizen band, it was
necessary to purchase a transceiver approved by the competent authority,
the DENTEL. Three years later, I started learning the CW and some time
later I was able to operate on amateur bands.
Re-established the democracy, in 1986, the rules for amateur radio had not
changed much, but I decided it was time to improve my station. I invested
in a 1kW linear amplifier, with 4 vacuum tubes type 572B. QRO is good and
very exciting, but my neighbors did not think so. I was almost banned from
the condominium that I lived.
Because of my job, I had to move to São Paulo, in 1990, and ham radio was
left in the background. I could not mount my antennas on the roof, because
I lived in a hotel. The best I could do was to install a shortned HF
antenna on the outer chassis of the air conditioning set. Although the SWR
meter of the antenna coupler indicated 1:1, the performance of the antenna
was very poor on the low bands. Then, I thought of a long-wire antenna
crossing the street over the power lines, but it was madness! So, it was
time to play a little with VHF and UHF. Surprisingly, I got good contacts
on the 2m band, with distant stations, 400 km and more, using a simple 5/8
λ mobile antenna and the air conditioning chassis as a ground plane. The
hotel manager never noticed it, because I was hosted on a flat at the top
floor!
Back to Niteroi in 2002, I went to live in a house in a horizontal
condominium. Then I thought that everything would be all right and started
to unpack my station. Far from it! My neighbors use TV sets, DVD players
and computer speakers made in China, bought from street vendors, perhaps.
RFI is for sure, even if I install high-pass, low-pass or band-pass
filters on both sides! Moreover, the lot where is my home is barely enough
to stretch a half-wave dipole for 40m. That's the law I did to myself: no
more than 100W on the lower HF bands and 25W on the higher (20m and up).
No way on 6m! VHF and UHF, ok.
It's time to move again. My retirement should occur by the middle of this
year and my wife and I will live in a lot with 1100 m² in size, far from
annoying neighbors, in Itatiba, SP. It's enough for us, our home, our dog,
my rigs and my antennas... and my bass guitar. May be you hear me as
PY2NIT.
To be continued... |
