PA0DR - adventures 1937-1953 - War

QSL card from a 1946 QSO.

Years ago I found this PA0DR QSL at a post on facebook. I was immidiatly interested in this station. It has been difficult to find stories and information about this radio operator. But slowly the puzzle is going to get solved. Dirk Rustema PA0DR was a radio operator already before the second world war from my area. He was a well known "illigal" radio operator for the resistance in the second world war. I just discovered that he was also a member of our local VERON radioclub Hunsingo half a year ago. Unfortunately I never met him but the older people in our club do remember him well and already told me stories that have never been published. I want to write some of them down here because in a few decades no one will ever know.

I remember some visits to a schoolmate in the village of Middelstum. On the road from Onderdendam to Middelstum you could look over the land and my interest always were the huge antennas near a house about a kilometer from the road into the land. I was about 18 years old and not a licensed operator but was always interested in radio and a very eager CB operator at that time absorbing all antenna and radio info I could get. I asked around who was living there at that house and someone probabely told me but I forgot the info. Later when I was older I drove by in my car but didn't see any antennas anymore. Searching for info on PA0DR I asked my colleague who lived originally near Middelstum and he told me he knew who Dirk was and told me he lived in that house I always looked at from the road. Puzzle solved...

During some other conversations with my colleague I slowly got to know other stories that eventually lead to a connection.....with me! I will try to tell about that in part 2.

Dirk seems to be a well known radioamateur here in the northern part of the Netherlands and was experimenting with radio already in the thirties of last century. It seems that he was a religious man and when older people in the village could not get to the church he and his father asked permission for a (wired) PA system so older people could still listen to the church service. As far as I can read in an old 1934 newspaper the license for that was granted. This was the first public radio related subject I found related to Dirk as a radio experimenter. He became a licensed radioamateur in 1937.

The next subject related to radio was the second world war between 1940-45. I found some reports from Dirk his work as radio operator for the resistance (codename "Zwaantje" (Little swan)) in some archives, as long as it exists you can find them here. Of course it is in Dutch so I will translate the text I found and was written by Dirk:

At midyear 1942 I was ordered to build a transceiver by the commander of the O.D. (Orde Dienst = Dutch resistance organisation) to contact headquarters. The transceiver should work between 100-105m (approx 3 MHz). It was built and was ready to use. In the mean time I met Mr. Tijdgat (PA0TY) from Groningen who was commander of the radio group there. This group was already preparing but didn't have a transceiver to contact England. At the end of 1942 I got some electronic lessons from Mr. Koning (teacher on the nautical school in the village Delfzijl). After some time we discovered we could both do something for our country. Mr. Koning already got a transceiver from Sweden (smuggled, he tried from his home in Delfzijl but wasn't successful). The transceiver has been installed at my home in Middelstum and the first contacts with England were made. We continued operation till our arrest in August 1943. Through very cautious contacts between the spy group in Delfzijl and the radiogroup from the O.D. I accomplished a 100% good working organisation. We were very happy when we, at my office in Middelstum, heard the message "geen knollen voor citroenen" (a dutch phrase in english: no tubers for lemons) on "Radio Oranje" (Dutch radio broadcasting messages and news from BBC England), a message that our transmission was received. After that we got a radiogram next day with clues how to operate the transceiver, last words of the radio telegram were "Your work is very appreciated by the Queen and allies". I was arrested in August 1943

Nice to know is that Dirk's code name was "Joop". The transmitter was called "Winchester" by the allies. Some more detailed information an a picture of a possible transmitter was found in this file (Dutch):

https://emmywwh.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/1705-zwaantje.pdf

Dirk was in detention in Delfzijl, Scheveningen, Haaren, Anrath, Oranienburg and Sachsenhausen camps till he was liberated by the allies. I found another report from Henk Dulfer who met Dirk in Sachsenhausen, apparantly they became friends. They were both on a luridly death march at the end of the war but were liberated and both did survive the war...

Well, the above reads as a big adventure but I'm sure the war was a dark moment of his life. Dirk had a great radio station before the war but most of it confiscated just before the war. From a interview that was written in the 1986 VERON magazine "Electron" I can translate something about the confiscation of his first amateurradio station. Just before WW2 (2 december 1939) Dirk was visited by the Middelstum mayor, he had to hand over the transmitter/receiver to him immidiatly. When Dirk asked the mayor if he brought a truck with him for transport he denied. Surprised about the big welded racks with all kind of equipment he only took the morse key and mike. Next day he visited again to get the equipment and remarked that the day before there were more meters and clocks in the racks? That way Dirk could hide some vital transmitter components.

After the war Dirk built a station again. Since his occupation was electrician and smith he always
made something nice and soon there were masts with antennas again and even a 80m wire from his house across the street to the church tower. Since there was almost no commercial equipment available he even modified surplus equipment for the coastal guard stations.

Several years after the war he was photographed in his shack to be on the frontpage of a 1953
Electron magazine. A description from his station: up high left to right 2m transmitter and 10m transmitter, Below those left to right 80m transmitter (VFO - 807 - 813), modulator (2x 811A), spare panel for a future 20m transmitter. Below those left to right 2m receiver, 2m converter and a RCA AR-88 receiver,

Dirk had a workshop and blacksmith's forge and also built racks and beam antennas for others at that time. Dirk was a village electrician as well. And...he was the commander from the Middelstum fire brigade...

Another WW2 report I found on the internet can be read here (Dutch) this features a list of HAMradio operators that were active during the war. van Schendel was a employee from the Dutch FCC in Den Haag.

http://www.weggum.com/Verslag_A.S.M._van_Schendel.html


(Permission for photographs: I contacted the chief editor of the "Electron" to get permission to publish the photos for both my blog as well as our local club magazine "Hunsotron". I got permission for the magazine and kindly asked (third time) if permission was also valid for my blog. Unfortunately I never got any answer. But since I am a VERON member I don't think I'm in trouble. If they find it is illigal please let me know.)

Documentation: Electron 1953 (unknown number), Electron 1986 (unknown number), De verzetsgroep Zwaantje. Oorlogsbelevenissen van dr. Allard Oosterhuis, written by drs. J. Klatter