BCC Member of the Year 2026: DL1MAJ

Im Rahmen des diesjährigen BCC Buffets am 27. Juni 2026 wurde die Auszeichnung „BCC Member Of The Year“ an Alex Noll, DL1MAJ, verliehen. Hier ist die Rede unseres Präsidenten Chris, DL1MGB:

Since 2002, the Bavarian Contest Club is awarding the “BCC Member of the Year” award to honor members with outstanding dedication and commitment to the contest community and to the BCC.

Our Member of the Year started as SWL in 1975 and got his license 4 years later. From the beginning, he was integrated into the life of his local club – whether it was antenna work or the participation in the DARC Clubmeisterschaft.

His interests in amateur radio were wide-ranging. Working on VHF including Meteor Scatter or EME (the old club members tell stories about legendary trips to Monte Nerone in Italy, now home of IQ5NN). Or at a Mult-Multi operation as DA0BV in a CQWW Phone – after the QSO numbers on 160m reached a certain level of saturation – he tuned in – maybe out of boredom or to activate a special multiplier – to the frequency of Radio Vatican.

Because he had a brewery at home – which was run by his father and later by himself – he always took very good care of the club’s life in the Bavarian way. For the fieldday contests, the brewery truck not only served as a shack but also ensured a steady supply of drinks.

It was a QSO in 1981 between our Member of the Year and GU5EAH which is considered to be the kickoff for founding the BCC. Back then, he was member of the Bavarian DX Group located in the greater Munich area. And GU5EAH was no other than Ben, DL6RAI, a member of the East Bavarian DX Association, mainly located in the Eastern Bavarian region. Personal friendships developed, grew stronger, and in 1983, the Bavarian Contest Club was established. With our Member of the Year as one of the founding members.

In the late 1980s, he again joined forces with DL6RAI to establish the first Packet Radio DX Cluster in southern Bavaria. Despite every conceivable obstacle and skeptic also within the amateur radio community and cooperation with the authorities (including pirate operations) they managed to get DB0BCC on the air in May 1990.

A very good friend of our Member of the Year, Wolfgang, DL5MAE, initiated the BCC Meteor Scatter Contest on 2 Meters in 1990 to promote activity during the Geminids [Tscheminids] in December. Supporting Wolfgang in the beginning, he took over in 2002 and organizes the BCC Meteor Scatter Contest until today.

Did I mention earlier that he was running a brewery? For countless occasions he provided special edition beers to the BCC. Birthday editions, World Champion editions for CN8WW, and so on. I remember well when he sponsored the special edition of beer for the first BCC suite in the Crowne Plaza hotel in Dayton in the year 2009. He provided 225 bottles of wheat beer which the BCC travelers imported into the US on their flight luggage. It was the opportunity for many Americans to taste real beer for the first time in their lives.

Besides the plain scores of the contests, our Member of the Year scored for the BCC in different ways. His wonderful attitude—always being there to listen to everyone around him, putting up with all kinds of nonsense, and never letting anything or anyone get him down—are the things we appreciate so much about him.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is a great honor for me to present the

BCC Member of the Year 2026
Alex Noll, DL1MAJ