Having passed the City and Guilds of London
Institute Radio Amateurs' Examination May - June 1981 I was
licenced as a Class B UK Amateur Radio Station G6EXC, on 10
September 1981. I operated an FT290R initially into a Jaybeam 4
element Quad on 2 metres. My favourite was working USB, tropo
and aurora into Western Europe. I heard 'E' but never managed to
work it! I later borrowed my brother's IC260E, which had a
better front end (whilst he was in Saudi Arabia earning megga
bucks) and upgraded the antenna to a F9FT 9 Element Tonna and
added a Microwave Modules 100W Linear to the arsenal. These were
very exciting years!
On 26 September 1983 I passed my Morse Test and was granted
my Class A UK Amateur Radio Licence, G4UVB, on 5 October 1983. I sold my FT290R to
pay for my brand spanking new FT102 + FC102 + SP102 line up. I
had every form of HF wire aerial you could fit into a 30 feet
back garden!
The usual marriage thing happened and the computer revolution
began to happen. In fact it was a Sinclair ZX81 morse generator
that taught me morse code, complete with a wobbly 32Kb RAM pack.
Progressed to an Osborne 01 in 1983 and Amstrad PC1512 after
that. Then came the 486 DX33, DX66, Pentium Pro 200, AMD Athlon
750, XP2000, duel Athlon MP2400 (which is old of course) and
current duel core Athlon processor. To be honest I'm losing
track of the numbers as they all seem to do much of a muchness
these days.
Yes, you got
it, computers took over! Building them for other people and
designing / running a voluntary non-profit website the present
day for motorcyclists !
http://www.ride-out.com
After having just twelve QSOs during the 1990s, I am now
returning to the hobby. Still with the FT102 line up, but I've
acquired an old IC-4KL Linear. It wasn't working at first, but
with the help of my brother, G8PFR, it is now
working / firing on all 8 transistors ..... WOW.
The FT102 has now been replaced with an FT-840 and the linear
does most of the work. I also have a Kenwood TS-50 and a Budipole just in case of nuclear war in the boot of the car. A
Yaesu VX-7R provide mobile VHF / UHF comms and a Kenwood TK-3201 PMR446 gives me Motorcycle 'bike to bike' radio!
Alas the FT-840 went on E-bay tonight (21 March 2007) as I
have bought a brand new Icom IC-706 IIG, which is also doing me
for 2M and my 70cm EchoLink node.
It's now 2010 .... a
further 3 years on. I did the Echolink Node for 2 years and
decided it was a waste of my electricity bill! One of two IC-706
IIG's I had went out on E-bay. Very recently I have bought an
FT-221R and an IC-260E again. The old stuff is the best! I've
also got an 80W 2M Lunar Linear Amp to go with them and have a
7
element ZL Special
fixed beam on the garage,
beaming SE. It needs to be higher!!!!
2011 and I currently with lots of 'redundancy' time on my
hands. I have bought a Racal Clansman RT-320 Backpack
(really!!!) to go portable. Lovely for 20M and 'matches' up with
my buddypole. Already worked USA with 30W PEP from home with a
strung up wire dipole (the British MOD supplied kit)!
2013 and back in work after a rocky few years job
hopping. I'm now managing an animal rescue centre. A bit
different to 30 years in financial administration! The Clansman
kit is all gone as soon will be the FT726R, which has been
replaced with a Kenwood TS711, with an FT221R as a fallback. My
2 metre setup has also gained a NAG 400W linear. Managed to work
sporadic E on 144Mhz SSB to the Algarve, Portugal and Capri Island,
Italy whilst
unemployed .... so every antenna does have a silver lining!
2020 - Oh dear I should update this more often! The
bad news is the wind got my 2m stacked 8 ele Jaybeam array that
I hadn't even mentioned here due to my tardy updating. So off
the air on 2M unless you count a poor SWR dipole 'where the
rotator used to be'! My HF is now a Icom IC-746, connected to
IC-4KL. The newcommers to the shack are an Xiego G90 and
matching XPA125B 100 watt linear amp, supposedly for portable
(the IC-706 has died and probaly needs recapping). I have also
ventured into DMR. I have a TYT MD-2017 handy and an Anytone
D578UV-PRO, plus 3 hotspots. Still not quite got my head
around it not being proper radio, but good to listen to in the
car and the rig will also cover PMR for work.
73 all
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