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 Previous: Youth@HamRadio.Fun: Dayton Hamvention 2006, Happenings Around the Country and More |  Next: European Space Campers Quiz Astronaut on Space Life, Research |
By Henryk Kotowski, SM0JHF
June 27, 2006
An archipelago at the entrance of the Gulf of Bothnia in the Baltic Sea, the Åland Islands form an autonomous Swedish-speaking administrative province of Finland. As the author found, they offer great opportunities for Amateur Radio.
 |
 One of many ferry boats cruising by the Åland Islands. [All photos courtesy of Henryk Kotowski, SM0JHF.] |
It is easy for me to say "go visit the Åland Islands." From Stockholm, Sweden all it takes is a one-hour car-ride to Kapellskär harbor and 2.5 hours aboard a car-passenger ferry to Mariehamn, the main town of the islands. There are a few ferry lines with alternate departures from Sweden and Finland, including downtown Stockholm. As a Swede, I don't need a passport, I don't have to change money and I don't need to apply for a visitor's license. The round-trip ticket for a car and the driver is less than $15 USD.
The landscape and the climate are different from Stockholm; the air seems purer, and the island atmosphere is calmer. The radio propagation seems to be better, too -- it is easy to create a pileup on 30, 17 and 12 meters in particular, using an OH0 call sign. Surprisingly, after many years of very serious and aggressive contesting by countless visiting operators from mainland Finland and other countries, there is still on-the-air demand for this separate DXCC entity.
There are a few permanent HF contest sites on the island owned by Finns -- OH0B in the eastern island of Brändö, OH0Z in the northern part of the main island and OH0V at the second highest point of the archipelago on Geta Hill. The VHF contesting is taken care of by locals.
The Club Scene
I visited the local Amateur Radio club OH0AA for the first
time in 1997. The club station was often on the air, using FM and digital
repeaters, and many club members were also active from their homes. Another
club, OH0AB, which later modified its call sign to OH0AZ, created some healthy
competition.
 Sture, OH0JFP, at his contest site south of Mariehamn, Åland Islands. The green kiosk is the guest radio shack. |
 The chances are high that you'll catch Sture, OH0JFP, climbing a tower. |
 Sture's antennas are overshadowed by the not-so-distant wind power generators. |
 One of many visitors to Åland. Donata from Poland, in Sture's guest radio shack at his contest site in locator KP00AB. She is on the air as OH0/SP5HNK. |
I have visited the islands many times since then, and in recent years I have noticed that club activity has shrunk. Several active members were no longer on the air, and the spirit of competition was not present, but recently a new super-station has emerged. Sture Henriksson, OH0JFP, who became an Amateur Radio operator in early '90s and was instrumental in keeping the OH0AA station in good shape during the rest of the previous decade, started from scratch in 2000 and built a contest site of his own. He found a piece of wasteland out of town, about 5 miles south of his home, where wind power generators overshadow his modest, less than 100 foot antenna towers.
Any Time is a Good Time
I never had luck meeting any of the Finnish owners/operators at their HF contest sites, but Sture, OH0JFP, was easy to meet. He is always there and he welcomes visitors. Most of them come in the summer, but I love Åland in the springtime, and I love Åland in the fall. The month of September is great -- it is warmer than on the mainland and it is calm. The HF contest season starts with All Asian Phone (you can get a good take-off to Japan from here), followed by WAE Phone, and later Scandinavian CW and Phone (the demand for the OH0 multiplier is always endless in these contests). You can negotiate to use any of the existing stations or arrange your own setup.
Market Reef, OJ0, is slightly more difficult to operate from. You need a permit to land, a permit to use radios from the reef and, finally, permission from Lars Nikko, OH0RJ, to use the electric diesel generator in the lighthouse building. I have never been there and I don't have plans to go anytime soon. I like meeting people, and Market Reef is virtually uninhabited. Now that the borders between Sweden and Finland are being revised yet again after 25 years, the status of this little island may change.
Tourist Season
The summer months, June through August, are hectic in Åland. The number of visitors exceeds the local population many times over. There are shows, concerts, a jazz festival and other entertainment to be found on these islands of about 25,000 people. The days are long and the nights very short. It is probably slightly more expensive to be a tourist at that time.
The club meetings of OH0AA are no longer held at Skillnadsgatan in Mariehamn. The new place is called Idrottsgården in the very center of town. Sadly, the average age of those few members I met during a get-together one Monday in April was well over 60. It seems that the club has failed to attract younger members. The current member roster has only 26 names, less than half of what it was when I came there for the first time.
Amateur Radio is a most suitable pastime for this tranquil, sparsely populated, rustic landscape of 150 islands, where the winds of latest radiocommunication technology blow from the east and from the west. There is ample space for antennas, and there is proximity to advanced technicians and excellent operators in the neighboring countries of Sweden and Finland. I predict that this summer there will be many ham visitors from the Baltic countries of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, as they joined the European Union a couple of years ago.
Ferries go to Åland from both Sweden and Finland. If you are in one of these countries and have a few days to spare, plan a side trip to OH0, with or without your radio. You'll enjoy it, guaranteed. The CEPT (European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administration) license is valid, and includes the FCC licenses issued to US citizens.
Henryk Kotowski, SM0JHF, lives in Sweden, but was born in Poland. He was licensed there as SP5AHL, but upon leaving in 1975 for Sweden, he obtained his current call sign. He also holds Amateur Extra class license K6JHF.
Seldom active in Sweden, Henryk enjoys operating from rare places, such as the Åland Islands. While he used to build his own equipment, today he focuses mainly on antennas.
Henryk enjoys the social side of Amateur Radio -- traveling, meeting other hams
and studying the impact of radio on society. He can be reached via "snail mail"
at Sib 28 XI, 16477 Kista, Sweden.
| Previous: Youth@HamRadio.Fun: Dayton Hamvention 2006, Happenings Around the Country and More | Next: European Space Campers Quiz Astronaut on Space Life, Research |
