About Me - North Backpacker

Havid Adhitama

Travel blogger and licensed amateur radio operator from Central Java, Indonesia.

• GridOI42us
• ITU54
• CQ28
• IOTAOC-021 Java

Hi, I'm Havid. I started North Backpacker more than ten years ago to write about the places around my home in Banjarnegara, Central Java: Dieng, the Serayu river and the back roads in between.

Along the way, radio took over a big part of my life. I'm a licensed amateur radio operator (YD2CLX) and a member of ORARI and AMSAT-ID, and I can't stop building things. If I'm not on a trip, I'm probably at my desk with a soldering iron, working on the next tracker, antenna or sensor I want to try.

What I enjoy most is taking those builds outside to see whether they really work. I've carried a one-watt APRS tracker up Mount Sumbing and watched it reach 80 km, talked through the IO-86 satellite, set up a weather station in Dieng and built an off-grid Meshtastic network for emergencies. When something fails, I go home, fix it and try again.

I work as a civil servant and I'm doing my master's degree at Universitas Negeri Semarang. Everything I learn goes on this blog, the results as well as the mistakes, so that anyone who wants to try the same thing has a place to start.

What I work on

• Radio and satellite communication

  Radio frequency engineering, antenna set-up, satellite tracking and emergency telecommunication. Recent projects include an ESP32-based APRS tracker and a LoRa versus VHF field test on Mount Sumbing.

  Read the radio posts

• Sensors and field experiments

  Internet of Things builds that leave the desk, such as a weather station on the Dieng plateau and decoding seismograph signals from the Dieng volcanic complex by radio.

  Read the experiments

• Travel and the outdoors

  Dieng, the Serayu river and the back roads of Central Java. I write trip reports, practical guides and honest gear reviews.

  Read the Dieng stories

• Essays on society and culture

  Longer, more personal pieces about society, culture and everyday life live on my other blog.

  Visit havid.northbackpacker.com

The path so far

1. 2015 to 2018
   SMA Negeri 1 BanjarnegaraWhere the habit of travelling and adventure took hold.
2. 2018 to 2022
   Bachelor's degree, Universitas Negeri SemarangA new perspective on what I wanted to build and where I wanted to go.
3. 2022 to 2023
   Professional degree, Universitas Negeri SemarangCompleted on an LPDP scholarship.
4. 2025 to now
   Master's degree, Universitas Negeri SemarangBack to study after being appointed as a state civil servant.

Communities

• ORARIMember of the Indonesian Amateur Radio Organization
• AMSAT-IDMember of Indonesia's amateur radio satellite organization
• GenPIVolunteer helping the Ministry of Tourism introduce Indonesia to the world
• Blogger SerayuMember
• NorthAdventureOwner, outdoor gear rental

Why I travel

Travel has given me experiences I could never have had by staying at home: meeting people from every background, learning what diversity really means, and finding quiet, untouched places that remind me to be grateful.

Get in touch

For collaborations, questions about a project or just a chat about radio, any of these will reach me.

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73 de YD2CLX ("73" is ham radio shorthand for best regards)