Biography

Michele was born in the 70’s and has lived part of his life in a little village near Siena in the Tuscany region of Italy. He graduated as an electronic technician in high school and he was first licensed in 1989 as IW5CGX (VHF & UP). He upgraded to A Class license and became IK5ZUI six years later.

He has enjoyed the challenges of VHF Contesting since being introduced to this aspect of the hobby by Luciano, I5ELQ. Since 1996 he has enjoyed Oscar and Radio Sputnik satellites and HF DX operating. He is a technical writer for some italian magazine for amateur radio.

When he moved to Madagascar in 2010 he obtained his callsign 5R8UI and set up his own modest station with a multi-band dipole and a 100W japanese transceiver. Today he is on air from 80 to 6 meter on CW, phone and digital mode with yagis and wire antennas and 500W output.

Michele has operated from a few DX locations and has held the calls: 8Q7IM, IK5ZUI/HI9, FH/IK5ZUI and now 5R8UI. He also operated with IZ8CCW and Mediterraneo DX Club as 5R8M in 2014 DXpedition and during the Mediterraneo DX Club 20th Anniversary in 2017 in Nosy Be, Madagascar.

He is a diving instructor and is currently working as CEO at Madaplouf Diving at the diving center in Nosy Be, Madagascar.

Michele has many other interests including sea and whitewater kayaking, stand up paddling, sailing, mountain biking, 4WD driving and ecology. He is also very active in the local Malgasy community affairs helping kids on track to be successful students.

Equipment

Currently my home station consists of:
2 X Elecraft K3/100 transceiver (a truly GREAT radio)
ACOM 1011 power amplifier, 500W
10/15/20m TET Nagara TA33 3 element yagi, thanks to 5R8DN (IK2VFX)
12/17m MOMOBEAM MB4 dual band WARC antenna
12/17/40m hight multiband home brew parallel dipole (@15m)
30m full size dipole (@10m)
40m delta mono loop
80m full size dipole (@15m)
5 elements Antennes FT F9FT 6m yagi (improved gain with PA2HJS project), thanks to IK5RLP and I5ELQ
Low bands Diamond-Shaped Loop antenna, thanks to IK4MTK
MacBook Pro running RUMlogNG by DL2RUM http://dl2rum.de