When the war started, I immediately offered ukrainian hams to evacuated their family to Holzminden. Facebook helped to spread this info and I got in contact to ukrainian ham fellows.

The mayor of Holzminden ask the inhabitants of my hometown to donate cloth, sleeping bags, medicine etc. for a convoy to the Poland/Ukraine border. And Holzminden really collected plenty of things. A facebook post resulted in more medicine and powerbanks, brought to my house, just before departure. Well kept warm, also the strong stuff which was collected be Round Table HX/Hol. Trailer shows helping to bring the donations from one collect point to the central storage at the town hall. The planned truck was already fully. I picked medicine, winter clothes and 50+ sleeping bags as I thought that would be needed quickly at the border. My car was full from top to bottom.

The conflict has grown every day and I got notice that there were 7 family members going toward Poland. I thought, it could be a good thing to pick them up and bring a car load full of medicine, first aid and sleeping bags towards Ukraine. It was difficult to bring the medicine there by the organized trucks because it must not be stored unter 0 degrees celsius.

So I started alone on 10th March 2022 towards Lublin(SP). I got in contact to Pawel SQ8MFQ who waited for me until after midnight with a warm delicious meal and a place to sleep. This is ham spirit, this is connecting people. strangers help strangers.

It was a long trip of 14 hours continous driving (4 short gas stops) and 1300+ km

Meanwhile, travel plans for two pick ups changed. They got a place to stay at other places near the ukrainian border, but i got in contact to others who wanted to come to Holzminden.

On friday morning, Pawel made a delicious rich breakfast for us. After that we went to Dorohusk Border. The polish border patrol allowed us to park right at the turnpike. Pawel, speaking polish and russian was asking the very few cars passing the border towards Ukraine where they were going and if they want to take anything fromour car into Ukrain. there weren’t many cars going in. but within 15minutes and I think it was the 4th car, we found a small truck who was going back to Kyiv. He was in Poland to buy food and other stuff. And he agreed to take all what we had in our car. He understood that there were real strong pain killers, first aid etc that must be taken care of. Also the 50+ sleeping bags……He just came from Kyiv, was shopping food and medicine in Dorohusk and going right back to Kyiv where was severe fighting. What must he have seen……..

After a short break in Dorohusk, we returned to Lublin with sad thoughts. I saw a coach from Aurich and didn't know that this bus with many refugees would be at a colleague's door in Aurich in 20 hours. She took them in for a short time before they could move to the district accommodation. the world is small

Pawel likes to fly Drone and so we went onto a hill in Dorohusk to take some videos.

The medicines and donations were handed over and we knew they would go directly to where they were needed. The burden on my shoulders had eased a little
The front spoiler was broken and threatened to tear off completely. But Pawel has good friends who helped immediately. 4 screws and a metal sheet should be enough for the return trip.
Also, the mobile HF-Antenna (Tarheel) was broken (motor cables inside) and we had to replace it what will be known later as the "partisansky antenna". Polish people and especially ham operators are great !







For dinner we went to Pawel's favorite restaurant with my first two passengers. We had steak on a hot stone. That was great and we were able to get to know each other and answer a lot of questions. After all, the journey will be another 1300km to the east.


On saturday, pawel prepared a rich polish breakfast again. Then it was time to say good bye. We just needed minutes to become friends, and we made plans to meet again in the future. In Poland or Germany. And we have plans to help our friends in Ukraine. With the ham radio network we have.

On our long way home, we picked up two more guest in Wroczlaw. A beautiful town and worth a visit at a later time. As all Poland is.

On our way, we met many other trucks, busses, small private cars with #supportukraine flags on their windows. We met at the gas station. sometimes speechless, sometimes exchanging words.

nodding silently to the other, both knew it was worth the effort. And Europe wishes peace together

Sunday meeting in our neighbour city and listening to Ukrainian Hymn. All Orchesters in Germany were playing it at 5 PM. in all citties……. DL1QQ at the drums 😉

QRZ.com and CQ causa: Opinion de DM9EE:
With all the support I give, I still believe that amateur radio must remain apolitical and that any punishment of the two radio countries is wrong.I object to radio operators being banned from a contest. I reject that any contest or radio operator should be boycotted.But I sincerely hope that the RDXC taking place at the weekend will be canceled by the organizers, or if it cannot be canceled due to pressure, the host radio operators will not take part and the contest will therefore be canceled indirectly. That would be respectful.I wish the CQ would reconsider their decision. We are all the same. We don’t care about gender, religion, race, skin color, nationality, etc. I wish that the countries mentioned would not take part in the contest as a sign of sympathy and humility. As far as I’m concerned, we’d all rather not take part this year. What sense does it make to be a winner in a year when many big stations don’t even take part? First place wouldn’t be representative at all…or would it?Bei aller Unterstüzung die ich leiste, bin ich nach wie vor der Meinung dass Amateurfunk unpolitisch bleiben muss und sämtliche Abstrafung der beiden Funkländer falsch ist.Ich lehne es ab, dass Funker von einem Contest ausgeschlossen werden. Ich lehne es ab, dass ein Contest oder Funker boykottiert werden sollen. Ich hoffe aber inständig, dass der am Wochenende stattfindende RDXC noch von den Veranstaltern abgesagt wird, oder aber , wenn er ggf. wegen ausgeübten Drucks nicht abgesagt werden kann, die Gastgeberfunker nicht mitmachen und der Contest somit indirekt ausfällt. Das wäre pietätvoll. Ich wünsche mir, dass die CQ ihre Entscheidung überdenkt. Wir sind alle gleich. Geschlecht, Religion, Rasse , Hautfarbe, Nationalität, etc sind uns egal. Ich wünsche mir, dass die angesprochenen Länder den Contest nicht mitmachen. Von mir aus machen wir dieses Jahr lieber alle nicht mit. Welchen Sinn macht es denn in einem Jahr Sieger zu sein wo viele große Stationen gar nicht mitmachen? Der erste Platz wäre doch gar nicht repräsentativ….oder?

STATEMENT OF CQ COMMUNICATIONS, INC., REGARDING CQ CONTESTS AND THE RUSSIANINVASION OF UKRAINEFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 17, 2022Contact: Rich Moseson, W2VU, Editor(Northport, NY 17 March, 2022) – CQ Communications, Inc., publishers of CQAmateur Radio magazine and sponsor of the CQ World Wide DX and WPX Contests,announced today that in light of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia andBelarus, it will not accept competitive entries in any of its sponsoredcontests by amateur radio stations in Russia, Belarus or the separatistDonbas region of Ukraine (unofficial D1 prefix). Logs submitted by thesestations will be accepted only as checklogs. In addition, contacts withthese stations by other participants will have zero point value and will notcount as multipliers.This is in line with a similar action taken by the Radio Society of GreatBritain, following the lead of other international sports federations aroundthe world.“We regret the need to take this action,“ said CQ Publisher Richard Ross,K2MGA, „and recognize that the vast majority of our fellow amateurs who areaffected by it are innocent bystanders who had no role in their government’sdecision to invade another sovereign country. However, in light of the greatsuffering being inflicted without cause on the people of Ukraine by Russia’sleaders, we cannot in good conscience stand by and do nothing.“The CQ policy will take effect with the 2022 CQ WPX SSB Contest on March 26and 27. Future events will be considered on a case-by-case basis, dependingon the situation at that time.

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