TA1AC Mr. Çetin was born in May 1936. He completed his 36-month military service in the naval forces as a radio operator. He learned CW (Morse) and the maintenance and repair of vacuum-tube equipment there. He is interested in antique radios and transceiver radios. He held active duties for many years within the Turkish Radio Amateurs Society (TRAC). In the 1960s, he worked as a Morse (CW) communication instructor at TRAC. He officially received his license in 1986. In 1999, he served on the supervisory boards of TRAC branches. He is a lifetime member of TRAC. Lifetime membership was opened for a short period and consists of approximately 30 people. He is a master who has contributed to many radio amateurs in Turkey.
He worked only CW (Morse communication). As you can also see on his QSL card, Mode: CW is fixed. Although he did not focus heavily on DXCC, according to 2017 ARRL records he has 200+ confirmed DXCC.
? Restoration and Interest in Antique Radios
- Mr. Çetin has mastery of the mechanics of “vacuum tube” equipment from the pre-semiconductor era, beyond modern digital radios.
- In Instagram posts it can also be seen that he preserves RCA and similar world-brand antique radios from the 1930s and 1940s, and personally carries out the repair processes to keep them in working condition.
✉️ Cultural Collecting
- He has a thematic collection consisting of special stamps printed in the past by PTT and postal administrations around the world, with themes of radio, telegraph, Morse alphabet, antennas, and radio broadcasting. He also keeps written documents, old radio licenses, and user manuals of the equipment in his collection.
73 Amateur Radio magazine collects QSLs every month and selects one of them to publish in the magazine. Here, the lucky amateur is published in the magazine and wins a 1-year subscription to 73 magazine. TA1AC Mr. Çetin was published in the August 1989 issue. You can read the magazine by clicking here .(Page 8)
TA7H Mr. Furkan describes his visit to Mr. Çetin as follows;
“When I visited TA1W Mr. Aykut, I had seen an excellent collection. During our conversation, he frequently mentioned TA1AC Mr. Çetin and said that I absolutely had to meet him. Upon this, I went to Mr. Çetin’s shop. He welcomed me in an extremely sincere and warm manner. I had the opportunity to listen to the memories he had experienced from the first years he started amateur radio up to the present day. While touring his collection, I was truly amazed. Vacuum-tube radios I had never seen before in my life, hundreds of spare tubes, test devices, wired radios, and many more… Also, receiving the QSL card he gave with his own signature became a very special memory for me. Today, that card is preserved in a very special place in the QSL museum. After the visit, when I told my senior amateur brothers that I had seen Mr. Çetin, my real astonishment began then. Everyone I spoke with said, “Mr. Çetin is our master; he has contributed greatly to me.” At that moment I understood that the museum and collection I had seen were perhaps only a small part of what he owned. He is one of the most valuable elder brothers I have known in the amateur radio community. His smiling face, energy, and knowledge are truly very valuable.“
In the January 2023 issue of France Megahertz Magazine, TA1UH Mr. Çağlar conducted an interview with TA1AC Mr. Çetin and the article was published. We definitely recommend reading it.
The magazine by clicking here you can read (Pages: 34,35,36)
Since the article is in French, you can read its Turkish translation prepared with Gemini support by clicking here .
Mr. Çetin’s YouTube channel: youtube.com/@cetinsener
You can watch the museum tour video filmed in 2000 by TA1MC Mr. Murat from the link below.