3W3RR - Amateur radio adventures

If you are into this radiohobby you probabely do experiment with radio, communicate, have fun and meet interesting people. Well, I like the social aspect of radio just as much as experimenting. However some people you meet along the way of our hobby are more interesting then others. If I had enough money and time I would probabely travel more to see other countries and experience more adventures especially doing DXpeditions from foreign countries, however I got a family to care about and my life is just not that of a adventurer. Some people just go for it and worry later, without doubt you have to take risks. Questionmark is always how do they get the money to travel to so many countries if you don't have a job like for instance a international sales manager, travel agent owner or even secret agent. Well, I would be interested in that. But first this small story about 3W3RR.

No other radioamateur does intrigue me more as Roman Vega aka Romeo Stepanenko. He was very active in the 90s of last century on several DXpeditions, he took his chances even when he was almost exhausted from a earlier DXpedition. Some were more dangerous then others, some seem to be not really happen as they were fake operations. But those that did happen were adventures, transmitting from dangerous and political rough places with fear of being captured. Imagine in a time just before internet. You need to know your ways to get somewhere. Know who is important at a embassy at a business or know people in the militairy from several countries to get a license. I think Romeo did have a lot of people he knew at high places, people that could arrange things for him. When I read that for instance Yaesu did sponsor 3 radios + amps for the XY0RR DXpedition, you need to have friends that work for Yaesu. You need to have a ability to make friends. It seems Romeo has those abilties not everyone has. The list of DXCC that Romeo activated is almost endless. And to write all about his adventures here is impossible. So I've been searching the internet for stories and so far I think I did read all of them. Most of it can be found on his own website that is maintained by his radio buddies especially by NT2X Edward. I gathered some links to things I found on Romeo's activities.

http://www.3w3rr.com  -  Romeo's site maintained by his friends, especially articles and video links are interesting

http://www.dokufunk.org/amateur_radio/personalities/index.php?CID=1175  -  In german

http://hamgallery.com/gallery/R/Romeo  -  Wherefore Art Thou, Romeo, interesting article by K9RHY

Romeo ended up in jail but as far as I know that hasn't anything to do with hamradio. Or was he looking for a alternative fund for future DXpedtions? We will never know...

http://garwarner.blogspot.com/2014/01/roman-vega-carderplanets-boa-gets-his.html

I found out that the .com site is not really up-to-date. The russian language site is different although looks te same. However it is in russian and you need to translate it with google.

http://www.3w3rr.ru

I became a HAM in 1998 and I was able to be on HF since 2003. So I missed all the "Romeo"adventures. Luckely you can obtain is special "jail dxpedition" QSL. I received it on 13 Sept and showed the envelope on my blog to see if anyone recognized the name...this is probabely the only QSL I got from a no-radio-contact.

Romeo might not be a hamradio hero and was even expelled from the ARRL DXCC program for his fake DX operations. But at least I guess he had fun doing his hobby made friends and had some great adventures, If you take a look at the federal bureau of prisons website and search for his inmate number (59198-004) you will find Romeo will be released within 2 years. Hopefully he will be back into the hobby.