Photos from my Foreign Service assignments in Helsinki, Finland, 1985-1987 and 1995-1998.
 

The Haukilahti (Pike Bay) hamshack of K8MN/OH2 in 1986 in suburban Helsinki.  The Pohjola Insurance Company,
which owned the townhouses graciously gave permission to erect thirty feet of tower on the second floor roof.
 
 

My wife, Leila.  This photos is from a Finnish women's
magazine from 1986
 
 

Operating as K8MN/OH0 from Brändö, Åland, July 1987
 
 

Having some fun from the same OH0 site in March, 1986 with Martti OH2BH in the ARRL DX Phone contest.
 

Market Reef (Märkets Fyr) as it appeared just before our landing for a week of operation as OH0MD/OJ0
in July 1986.  Ops were OH0MA, OH2BAZ, OH0RJ, OH2BH, W6EUF, K8MFO and myself.
 

During that week of Market Reef operation, a storm, lasting several days cost us a tower
and yagi.  The small white concrete building at lower right in the photo was our toilet.
At one point early in the storm, Martti OH2BH walked into the lighthouse with a roll of wet
toilet paper and announced, "We now have the flush toilet on Market Reef".
 

Dave Propper K2DP was in Finland working on the contract MacDonald-Douglas had for producing
FA-18 Hornets in Finland.  Ville Hiilesmaa OH2MM lived very near me so we were able to get
together often.  Dick Irving K3FK worked with me at the American Embassy and our lunch time mini-hamfests
were legend.  In this photo from 1997, I was showing off a National HRO-500 and a Collins 51J-4
I'd bought at an embassy auction.  They came from the VOA monitoring facility.

Antti Nevantaus OH2KMG allows me to have a turn at one of the rigs during yet another visit to Åland in 1996.

Antti's father, Heikki is OH2KMF.  Like OH2MM, the Nevantaus family lived quite near us in the 90's.
 

Vilho Virtanen OH3VV lives in a lovely cottage by a lake near Parola.  His wife, Irmeli,
in the photo below, is OH3TJ.

Now as to why the Finns are always so loud, I think I discovered their secret.
It wasn't until we moved back to Helsinki in 1995 that I found a product which
overcomes low power and low, small antennas:

The words "Pohjan Poika" translate to "Northern Boy".  I keep a bottle of "Strong 59" here in the West Virginia shack.