DK5BK Manfred Bittner
Locator: JO32xe - DOK: I27 - ITU Zone 28
Welcome to my eternal construction site in Hagen am Teutoburger Wald in Northern Germany.
Hagen is a village with about 13,500 inhabitants and a 500-year-old church St. Martin in the middle -
our village office on the left
I was born shortly after the beginning of 1939 in Glatz in Silesia, today's Klodzko, one of the most beautiful areas of what was then Germany
Klodzko 2021 seen from the fortress. Panorama by Dr. L. P.
My father was drafted into the Wehrmacht, my mother ran our bakery with 11 employees and stood behind the counter herself. I myself experienced carefree childhood days in my grandparents' house on a 2 hectare property on the outskirts. More about this at: http://bittnerbaecker.de
Why has the house where I was born been a ruin for years?
Around 1920 my grandfather installed a bakery oven based on the Loftus-Perkins principle. Highly fashionable at the time and banned today. My father's photo shows the stove.
When I was in Klodzko in 2000, neighbors told me that a dentist had bought the house and wanted to remove the steam oven. The monument protection does not allow that and so the matter remains.
On March 6, 1946,
we had to leave our homes and were put in a cattle wagon. After a 10-day odyssey with an unknown destination, we finally ended up in a lime kiln in Hilter near Osnabrück.
After a few days in the lime kiln, we were transported on a truck to Allendorf near Borgloh and unloaded there at the elementary school.
In those days we lived on water and dried bread, which we took with us as a precaution.
From here we were distributed to the surrounding farms and wage houses, which were already overcrowded with people from the big cities who had lost their homes in the bombing.
So we wandered from house to house and were turned away everywhere until the mayor billeted us with a family.
My mother and my 5 year old brother had come to a Heuer family with 10 children. Our father was an American prisoner of war, we only found out later. I stayed on a small farm with my grandparents.
Here we were morally and economically at absolute zero, without any perspective for the future.
We were the absolute losers.
We were all sorts of things but not welcome.
And then came the hunger winter of 1946/47 - more on Wikipedia
In 1950 we moved to Hagen in the Teutoburger Wald.
It was improving, but only very slowly. A friend had a “KOSMOS Radio Man” kit.
Unaffordable for me and my parents.
I studied the radio man's instructions and got myself components from the garbage can in radio workshops. Finally I somehow got 2 RV2,4P700 tubes and built a 0-V-1 RIM piccolo.
That was in 1952 when I was 13 years old. In our village I was known as a radio hobbyist.
Someone brought me a radiosonde with an RL2T2. What kind of thing was that? Ask the teacher or the parents? - Better not, because the answer was clear: "Better do your schoolwork!"
At that time nobody could have imagined that Firefox or Google would one day exist, at best we had an encyclopedia at school.
So I rode my bike to Osnabrück and looked in the bookstores, but only to read. I didn't have the money to buy.
Later I came across another weather probe with my favorite tube, the RV2,4P700. This probe operated at a frequency around 90 to 100 MHz. My friend had a 78-turn turntable with a magnetic pickup.
I don't need to explain what comes next. The modulation was a mixture of AM and FM, not hi-fi, but clearly audible. On Sundays, at 2 p.m., we were “on air” with marching music and had our audience.
In good time, before the word got around to the post office in Osnabrück, we stopped the broadcast.
In 1954 my parents had built their own house and I got my shack upstairs under the roof. In the same year I got out of school and started an apprenticeship as an electrical fitter.
After work, I repaired radios to make some money. It was the time of defective electrolytic capacitors and selenium rectifiers. In my shack I made a lot of 0-V-1, 0-V-2 and 1-V-2. - Superhet came later.
In the fall of 1956 I became a member of the DARC.
In 1958
I switched from handicraft to a machine factory for brick making machines. As an electrical engineer, I was traveling all over Western Europe for 5 years. Then it was time to start a family.
In 1963
I founded an electrical automation company. But this took such a toll on me that I had no more time for my hobby and I lost touch with the DARC.
One Sunday after the service, I approached our neighbor's daughter about an afternoon walk. We went for a walk and Cupid's arrow hit both of us.
We married in June 1965 and soon had 4 children, Juliane, Ursula, Georg and Karin.
My father-in-law was the village blacksmith and could shod horses.
In 1972
my company got off to a good start. I remembered my old passion and got the big license.
I got the call DK5BK. My radio station.
In 1973
I realized another childhood dream. At the time I had read an article about harvest workers in the USA who live in trailers. Something like that was and is great freedom for me.
More under: Caravan
My dream of flying.
My dream of flying is almost as old as I am.
Only when I was young I didn't have the money or the time.
In 2007, when I was 68 years old but still working in my company, I spoke to my wife about flying.
She said, why don't you get your pilot's license now, now we can pay for it.
More at: Microlight
Capricorn man and Capricorn woman celebrate golden wedding anniversary.
In June 2015 we will celebrate our golden wedding anniversary with our children, grandchildren, neighbors and friends. In the photo the whole family with our 4 children and 4 grandchildren.
In the background 3 musicians - violin, piano and double bass - make real Viennese coffee house music.
The following week I equip our caravan with Truma movers, our wedding present.
Today, March 2022
When I write this homepage, I am 83 and my wife Katharina 82 years old.
We've grown old, worked hard, but also lived.
For this we thank our Creator.