My contest results from year 1992 up to now on my Radio club RK Cerkno, S50E web page.

Call sign: S50U
First & Last name: Danilo Brelih
Year of birth: 1965
Permanent address : Gorje 14A, 5282 Cerkno, Slovenia

Short Ham history - When did you get your license, calls held, where,etc.

I got my first HAM license in 1979 when I was still in the elementary school. I started with the local QSO's especially on 80m SSB. After only a few months, with a lot of help from Brane, S51B, I got involved in EU CW roundtables. I mainly used the club sign YU3IXY and after 1983 when I passed exam for the second degree I begun using my personal callsign YU3HA.When Slovenia became independent in 1992, I got S59WA. In 1996 I finally choose S50U.

In my hometown Cerkno, the amateur radio started with the arrival of Miran Voncina, curently S50O. In 1978 he organized an amateur radio course in the elementary school. After we successfully passed the exams, Miran and his XYL Adelka gratefully offered us a room in their apartment. In that room Miran taught us everything about operating techniques and many times this was prolonged late in the night. Without Miran, S50O, I don't imagine the existence of the today's club S50E where he is a chairman.

So far I haven't been on any contest expedition. You should remember the fact that our contest location is at 1300 asl. and the equipment has to be carried by yourself, even with a lot of snow. If I can get some sponsors in the future, I will gladly participate in some DX or contest expedition.

My contest location is the same as my club location S50E. Three towers are equipped for competitive work of all ranges throughout the year. The aerials are maintained a lot because of the difficult weather conditions. A new location at Gorski Vrh with the emphasis on the lower bands with lots of wires for RX antennas is build. I especially enjoy to compete on 160m CW. Please look at a few photos on my Internet home page.

What about WRTC 2000? How did you become involved?

I became interested on the WRTC in 1996 during the extra ordinary visit of numerous S5 OPs in San Francisco. Due to financial difficulties I wasn't able to attend the show. According to my excellent contest results, I was chosen as a leader of the Slovenia group for WRTC 2000 on Bled. I think this is a very special challenge for every contestant.

The trend will most probably head towards extremely professional sophisticately prepared contest station and well trained crew, "A Formula One era approach by OH2BH" where the operator concentrates on the driving of the station only, and the team does everything else. I cooperate with the European HF contest committee. The year of the first license is sent there together with RST. Thus I have information which shows that even in the recent period of Internet, mobile phones, PC games etc. the number of new HAM licenses doesn't decrease as shown in the following table from 1999 EUHFC results :

1960-1969 740
1970-1979 1291
1980-1989 1486
1990-1999 1481

It's obvious, that 24 hours contest format is very dynamic, have high QSO rates and all this attracts younger contestants unable to build new "BIGGUN" stations or travel long distance to the high-tech contest station at an optimum DX location. The participation in the contests might be greater if people respect the rules regarding the power limit and multi op./single band. Namely, there are some people who sacrifice fair play for a better results. Something should be done in this direction too.

It can be seen in the contest how much work one has to put in the improvement of the location and operation techniques in order to achieve the top results.