I grew up in Vasteras, Sweden, a city with a very active radio club (SK5AA, SK5A). Here I got my license as SM5HEV in 1976. Univesity studies brought me to Linkoping University, Sweden where I eventually got my MSc and PhD in Electrical Engineering. There were lots of CW-contest minded hams (like Lasse/SM5GLC, Dan/SM5IMO, Jan/SM5FUG, Kent/SM5EOS) in this environment and the University Club Station (SK5EU) was in the air in many of the world-wide CW contests in the
late 70’s and early 80’s. There was also quite a lot of experimenting going on in this era, the dawn of microprocessors: RTTY modems, CW keyboards and automatic transmitters for Radio Direction Finding competitions. We were also among the pioneers of amateur packet radio systems in those days.
After graduation in 1984, I doubled between Academia and a startup-company for several years and suddenly there was this opening for full professorship in Wireless Communication in Stockholm at KTH – the Royal Institute of Technology. I was convinced to apply and to my surprise I was offered the job – an offer you cannot refuse at the age of 32. Since then I have been true to KTH and have been doing research and teaching in high capacity cellular 3-4-5G systems. Our research group has since then graduated hundreds of MS’s and some 40 PhD’s with majors in wireless communication. Most of them went straight into Ericsson R&D across the street from our labs. Unfortunately, this meant lots of work. At the same time my wife Lena and I raised 3 sons. Time-wise this did take its toll and ham radio was put on the shelf for almost 30 years.
Today, however, our sons have left the nest and are pursuing their (engineering) careers. I have now mostly left active research and more or less moved into university administration as Dean of the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at KTH. As I did very much miss the hands-on technical activities of the early day, this has brought me back to our great hobby. As of
last year I am back on HF and I again enjoy CW contesting and ragchewing. My new SDR radio (the ICOM 7300) is also great for Digital (PSK and RTTY) contesting. In CWTs and other contests, you will hear me as SF0Z. Special thanks for bringing me back in the air, goes to my friend and colleague Bjorn SM7IUN. His guidance into the new brave world of CAT-control, Waterfalls, RBNs, CW Skimmers and Digital logging software has been invaluable. My next technical challenge is setting up a radio-quiet remote site at my summer-house on Gotland Island (SM1) where I hope to work you all in the CWTs as SF1Z.
Finally, thanks to CWops for accepting me as member! Thanks go also to Lars SM0OY for nominating me and to my friends Ola SM0CUH, Bjorn SM7IUN and Dan SM5IMO for sponsoring me.
This biography is what appeared in Solid Copy when the member joined CWops.