19th radio amateurs’ meeting Królewskie Źródła

A red jacket you can see from the other end of the clearing

Adam is hard to miss: a red jacket, camo trousers, a warm cap and the smile of someone who’s just finished a week at the mic. Because he had — the “Szalone Lata 90-00” event wrapped up on the evening of 31 October, and the last of his 1226 contacts is in the log at 19:17 UTC. A week later he was already standing by the campfire in the Kozienice Forest.

The spring “Syrena” was the strongest: thirteen SES stations, ten days, and at the top of the operators’ table — SP5RZL, ahead of second place by almost eight hundred contacts. Anyone who’s ever called CQ in a pile‑up knows how much throat, coffee and patience that costs.

And lest you think he only transmits: in the “100th anniversary of Polish Radio” event Adam was on the other side, as a chaser — and also finished in first place. If you hear SP5RZL on the band, answer. He’ll be in your log before you can repeat the callsign.

A fixture in the calendar

“Królewskie Źródła” is an autumn meet‑up of radio amateurs in the Kozienice Forest, this year already the nineteenth. It’s called together by two hosts: Piotr SQ5EF and Mariusz SQ7HGN; the idea of the meetings the organisers credit to our colleague Paweł SQ5LTL. Sign‑up via the website isn’t mandatory, but the list of registrations grew to 133 callsigns — last year there were 96. If you had a camper, you could arrive as early as Friday evening.

The heart of the event is a large wooden shelter on the edge of the clearing — according to the Kozienice Forest District it holds about a hundred people — and a stone firepit with a grate hung on chains. At the tables, handheld radios and cups of coffee circulated, and so did conversations that on a repeater would have had to fit into a time‑out. Here they didn’t. Above one of the tables hung a banner from antenna builder GXP Antennas (sp7gxp.pl).

Marian SQ4MN on the field line

At one of the tables Piotr SP5MOR set out field telephones — kit that needs no repeater, coverage or internet: a set, a handset on a coiled cord and a wire to the other end of the line. The first to volunteer for testing was Marian SQ4MN. In the photo next to this he’s checking the connection, coffee set down on the bench and, judging by his face, hearing the other side very well.

Marian is a former IT specialist and programmer, and for years an excellent antenna builder. His dual‑band antenna for 2 m and 70 cm with a folded dipole made of copper tube and the 70 cm with an extra support have separate entries on this site. A programmer tends to verify everything in practice, and a field telephone is the simplest test line there is. Marian was in his element.

I’ve written separately about how these telephones work, where they came from, and what a 16 Hz bell sounds like: Field telephones: talking with no signal →

Between one sausage and the next you could take a ride in a vintage Nysa — the van older hams remember from the post, the ambulance service and the militia, and younger ones know from photos. For a radio amateur it’s also the ideal van for a mobile station: plenty of room for gear and a roof that just begs for an antenna.

A forest that sounds different

After the campfire we set off along the path. An avenue buried in maple leaves, then marshy meadows and Zagożdżonka — narrow, dark, tranquil, reflecting the November sky like a mirror. It is the longest river of the Kozienice Forest, 42 kilometres, and the reserve protects the headwaters that feed it.

Piotr SP5MOR took on the role of guide: at every footbridge he would stop and present it with a wide gesture, like an exhibit. I paused on mine for a different reason — for the first time since morning there was nothing in my ears but the sound of the forest. No QRM, no switch-mode supply. If you put an HF receiver here, the noise level would be the dream of anyone living in a block of flats.

• Path — approx. 3 km, 2–3 h to walk, also accessible for people with reduced mobility
• Boardwalks — approx. 500 m along the river
• At the spring — a protected natural monument: a maple about 220 years old