Tribute to Bernhard Buettner

Tribute to Bernhard "Ben" Buettner - DL6RAI
1963 - May 18, 2023

Ben was at his QTH (the past P49V QTH) in Aruba for antenna work and to participate in the CQ WPX CW Contest and died in a tower accident. The tower was rusted thru and buckled with him on it.

Ben was inducted into the CQ Contest Hall of Fame at the 2023 Dayton Contest Banquet.
Avid contester and contest administrator who has operated from 49 different DX entities. Co-founder and past president of the Bavarian Contest Club (BCC), Ben helped develop and maintain the club's DX cluster, the first in Germany. He is also a past director of the Worked All Europe DX Contest (WAEDC). In that role, he spearheaded the conversion from paper to electronic logging and the introduction of electronic log checking. Ben is also a former member of the CQWW Contest Committee, served as IT manager for WRTC-2018 in Germany, and has been a beta tester for Win-Test contest logging software.

"It is with deep sadness that I inform you that our friend Ben, DL6RAI, passed away this morning in an accident while working at his QTH in Aruba.
Ben and I were preparing for the upcoming replacement of the masts in his QTH in P4. Ben was working on the mast when it unexpectedly buckled and fell to the ground. Despite first aid and immediate help from the ambulance, we could not save Ben.
My deepest condolences to Luise, DL2MLU and the family.
In deep sorrow,
Martin, P4/DL5RMH"

I too am deeply shocked. Our thoughts are with his wife Luise and family.
RIP Ben.
73s Chris DL1MGB
President Bavarian Contest Club

From Ben's QRZ.com Page

DOK: U08. HSC #1133. VHSC #114. CWOps #2776. FOC #2163. LoTW and Clublog User.

Continuously QRV since 1980. I enjoy operating contests from home and from abroad (visited 73, operated from 45). A list of my activities over the past years:

GU5EAH Aug 1981, 4U1ITU Sep 1983, LX9BV Oct 1985, C30AAN Sep 1986, HB0/DL6RAI Oct 1987, HB0CZS Oct 1988, LX8A Nov 1988, LX7A Oct/Nov 1989, TA4/DL6RAI Jan 1990, SV9/DL6RAI May/Jun 1990, IS0/DL6RAI May/Jun 1991, UH8E/DL6RAI, RH2E Oct 1991, 9H3XX May/Jun1993, UA2/DL6RAI Oct 1993, SV5/DL6RAI May/Jun 1994, TK5EL Oct 1994, CT3/DL6RAI, CQ3X May/Jun 1995, TK2C Nov 1995, TK/DL6RAI, TK1A Oct 1996, OL2R May 1997, EA3/DL6RAI Sep 1997, EA9/DL6RAI Sep 1997, ZB2/DL6RAI, ZB2JS Sep 1997, TK5NN Oct 1997, K3WW May 1999, S533G (WRTC2000) Jul 2000, GM/DL6RAI, GM3TKV Sep 2000, CN8WW Oct 1999 & Oct 2000, OE2/DL6RAI, OE2S Nov 2000, LY/DL6RAI, LY6M May 2001, EA8ZS Oct 2001, IY4W May 2001, IQ4A Nov 2001, AL7NJ May/Jun 2002 and May 2012, VY1/DL6RAI May 2002, 9Y4/DL6RAI Feb/Mar 2003, 9N7BCC Nov/Dec 2004, A61AJ Aug 2005, EA8ZS Feb 2006, UR/DL6RAI May 2006, VR2/DL6RAI, VR2BG Nov 2006, 5B/DL6RAI Sep 2007, IN3/DL6RAI Jun 2008, OY/DL6RAI Jul 2008, EA8URL Nov 2009, V31RI Feb/Mar 2010, 4O1OTA Jul 2010, TK4W Nov 2011, KL7RA, AL7NJ May 2012, OH0W Nov 2012, EA6/DL6RAI, ED6A Nov 2013, 3V8BCC Sep 2014, P4/DL6RAI Dec 2014 until today, OE0HQ Jul 2015, P44X May 2017/Nov 2022/May 2023, P40X May 2019, IV3/DL6RAI 2021. QSL cards are still available for most operations.

How it all started...
One day in 1978, as a SWL, I caught DL9LD, “Luck”, a local ham (now sk) on my tape recorder. I wrote down the dots and dashes in slow speed and decoded the message. I was fascinated by the way he communicated with the world using CW – and so I wanted to learn how to do it.

But I had a hard time learning the code since I knew no hams at all. I had got hold of DL3VD’s book “Morselehrgang”, built a sound generator and then recorded my own CW lessons on the tape recorder using a morse key I had bougth at a flea market. Initially I felt, I’d never learn it - but finally I managed the 12 wpm to pass the test in March 1980, at the age of 16.

DXing and Contesting discovered
Having tuned the HF bands as a SWL for a couple of years, I knew about DXCC and looked out for new countries every day. Working ZL2MM on the other side of the globe one early morning in September 1980 on 15m CW from my modest station at home was a thrill I still remember today.

In 1981, while on a student exchange program, I had the opportunity to operate from the other end of a pile-up as GU5EAH from GU4EON’s home – what a blast! Many activities followed, the most exotic one from Turkoman, when I had the chance to visit Victor, UH8EA (now N8OO) for CQWW Phone 1991 with a group from the Bavarian Contest Club (BCC).

In the 1990s I travelled to several Mediterranean islands with my friend Wolfgang, DL5MAE. Usually we would load up his Mercedes-Benz with HF and VHF equipment and antennas and headed south, visiting SV9, IS0, 9H, SV5, CT3 and 1A0. In 1997 I travelled to ZB2 and EA9 with Peter, DL2NBU.

Other Activities
In the late 1990s I joined Franta, DJ0ZY, developing and maintaining a Packet Cluster like software package for Linux called CLX, which became quite popular for a while. We closed this project 2003, when other DX Cluster software had become available.

The Bavarian Contest Club (BCC) organized a major project to break world records in the Multi-Multi category of the CQWW Contest in 1999 and 2000 from Morocco. My job was to set up the computer network at CN8WW – back then with K1EA’s CT software on MS-DOS. Indeed, we achieved our goal both on SSB and CW. The SSB record from 2000 still stands today.

In 2002 and again in 2012 I had the chance to operate CQ WPX CW from KL7RA’s QTH in Alaska which was a great experience. Also operating from 4U1ITU, HB0, LX, C3, UA2, K3WW, TK, LY, 9Y, 9N7BCC, A61AJ, EA8, OY, 5B, V31RI, OH0W, 3V8BCC, VR2BG provided lots of insight on how signals sound “from the other side”.

Between 2002 and 2005 I was DARC's WAE DX Contest Manager. We spent lots of time converting and fixing logs, since our policy back then was to accept any electronic log format. I became a specialist in contest log conversion. At that time, I was also a member of the CQWW Contest Committee lead by Bob, K3EST. Between 2007 and 2019 I had the honor to be assigned president of the BCC, which is one of the most successful contest clubs world-wide.

In 2014 an opportunity opened up to buy property in Aruba from Carl Cook, AI6V (now sk). Since then you can hear me somewhat irregularly signing P4/DL6RAI or P44X.

Next, I was heavily involved in the organisation of WRTC2018. My task was to provide “black boxes” for collecting online scores of all participants. We designed and built 70 RF-proof devices equipped with a Raspberry minicomputer and a GSM module to continuously report live scores during the event.

Operation Today
My typical operation of today takes place from my home using 100 watts and a 2 x 13m open-wire fed dipole on all bands. Living in the countryside, I enjoy the luxury of almost no man-made noise. You can find me in most major contests, particularly on CW, RTTY and Digi modes. In 2020 I made 11,296 QSOs and worked 175 DXCCs. My current DXCC total is 349 (Mixed Honor Roll since 1991), missing only P5, North Korea. Over the years I have collected several premium awards like 5BDXCC (#1694), 5BWAZ (#1387) and WAZ 160 (#276).

All of my home and expedition QSOs are on LoTW and Clublog. If you are active, I am pretty sure you are already in my logs of the past 40+ years. So, I am looking forward to our next QSO!

Dayton 1999

AA1K, DL6RAI

Dayton 2008

DL6RAI

DL6RAI, DJ0JV, DL2MLU

Dayton 2009

DL2MLU, DK7MCX, DJ4MZ, DL5KUT, KL7RA, DL6RAI

Tributes courtesy of DL5RMH, DL1MGB
Some info taken from Ben's QRZ.com page
Dayton photos by K8CX

Other Activities In the late 1990s I joined Franta, DJ0ZY, developing and maintaining a Packet Cluster like software package for Linux called CLX, which became quite popular for a while. We closed this project 2003, when other DX Cluster software had become available.

Other Activities
In the late 1990s I joined Franta, DJ0ZY, developing and maintaining a Packet Cluster like software package for Linux called CLX, which became quite popular for a while. We closed this project 2003, when other DX Cluster software had become available.