PH9HB/AM

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Here on www.dxcoffee.com, you can find an interesting interview with Jerry van der Goot, PH9HB. Beside being a passionate ham operator, Dutchman Jerry also is a Boeing 737NG captain for a carrier based at Amsterdam-Schiphol. During flights, when duties permit, he often can be found on the HF ham bands operating from the cockpit as PH9HB/AM using the aircraft's HF radio. "AM" stands for "Aeronautical Mobile" and is added to the radio amateur callsign when the operator is aboard an aircraft in flight. Just as "MM", or "Maritime Mobile", is added to the callsign when aboard a ship at sea.

It's always a thrill to work an /AM station. I've done it only once, with ON/GM7DIE/AM on 20m back in January 2014. I also managed to pick up Jerry's signals, but so far I've never had the pleasure and luck of making a 2-way contact with him. Jerry's /AM activities always attract a lot of attention, and getting through the pile-up isn't easy.

Jerry PH9HB (source)

PH9HB/AM take off (source)

As Jerry explains in the interview, the antenna used on the Boeing 737NG airplane is a so-called Shunt antenna. More information on this antenna type can be found here.


See also:

https://www.google.com/patents/US7511674
https://www.qrz.com/db/PH9HB