As of August 2026 I'm a full-licensed radio amateur (call sign DC8RIS). I work entirely portable and like doing POTA. It's such a thrill setting up my equipment in a new park, turning on my short-wave radio and hearing people chat from all over the world. All without relays or the Internet, just direct broadcasts. It's very addicting. Currently, I mostly operate on 70cm, 2m FM and 20m and 40m SSB around Karlsruhe, Germany.

While I dislike having another equipment-heavy hobby next to photography I like amateur radio for three reasons: According to the Amateur Radio Act (Gesetz über den Amateurfunk — AFuG) § 2 (2) "amateur service [is] a radio service carried out by radio amateurs for the purpose of intercommunication,

1. experimental and technical-scientific investigations, further self-training,
2. international understanding and
3. the support of relief operations in cases of emergency and disaster."

And those are pretty much my reasons for doing amateur radio:

1. I do informatics, I work with digital computers, which nonetheless communicate through analogue radio waves. Understanding high frequency electrical engineering at least a little helps diagnose problems with wireless computer networks, including my favourite: space systems.
2. I believe we must be critical of other countries' actions, especially in the case of violations of international law. However, I'm also afraid of, as part of a people, focusing too much on criticising other countries' governments and forgetting the ordinary citizens on the other side. I believe having a shared technical task, for example, achieving a direct radio connection from, say, Germany to Belarus, is a fundamentally good thing, which I want to be a part of.
3. As we've seen in 2026's blackout in Berlin, our infrastructure does fail at times. Having ordinary people, able to communicate across vast distances without grid power or the Internet, is quite a helpful addition to official relief operations.

Below you'll find my logbook, arguably in a rather clunky Wavelog iframe. Though, Wavelog is pretty great software regardless.

73,
DC8RIS

PS: Thanks Chris (there's another one) for the hero image. I'm literally on the air.