Contest Crew Europe’s Rising Star: Sven DJ4MX

Sven Lovric DJ4MX is part of a new wave of contesters and DXpeditioners reshaping what youth, excellence, and ambition look like in ham radio today. At just 23, he’s already logged pileups from Guyana and the remote Pacific outpost of the Marshall Islands. Whether operating as 8R7X or V73WW, Sven thrives in the thick of it—chasing signals from the other side of the globe, running high-rate phone pileups, and mastering CW through sheer commitment and countless hours on Morse Runner.

Our conversation traces his journey from a 13-year-old operating under Germany’s training license program to a top finisher in CQ Worldwide CW from a 100-watt station in the heart of Munich. While his roots lie in family outings and early SOTA activations, his heart now belongs to contests and DXpeditions. He favors single-op low power for the raw challenge—but you can see the glimmer in his eyes when he talks about future high-power opportunities. His most formative experiences—like operating from E7DX with Braco or field-cooking between shifts in the Marshalls—reveal a camaraderie at the core of these far-flung efforts.

Sven’s voice is both young and unusually thoughtful. He champions the live scoreboard as a tool for growth, not ego, and offers a clear call to action: don’t just study radio—operate. That advice, he notes, applies as much to midlife returners as it does to teenage prodigies. And while he isn’t ready to reveal where the “Next Generation DX Team” is heading next, one thing is certain—they’re not done.

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Thanks to DX Engineering for supporting this work—and for helping DXers, POTA activators, and contesters everywhere build the stations of their dreams, no matter where they call CQ.