Amateur Radio Page of G1YKV
"CQ CQ CQ" from QTH locator : IO83KJ
QTH Grid Square IO83kj at a height of about 11m (37ft) ASL. I'm not a member of the WAB group but my station is located in square SJ28
I'm a licensed UK Radio Amateur (Radio Ham) with the callsign of G1YKV since 07-Aug-1987. I home studied and passed the City and Guilds Radio Amateur examination (RAE) with distinctions. I was very pleased with that result having also passed my "Radio, TV and Electronics" examinations a few years earlier also with distinctions I would have been disappointed not to get a similar result. I had purchased my mobile 2mtr multi-mode rig a Yaesu FT 290 Mk2 in advance so I was on the air the same day my callsign arrived, made my first contact with Ray G6FDI that lunch time.
How did you get into "Radio" and then became an Amateur?
My grandad (who I never knew) used to dabble with his crystal radio set and cats whisker, I used to have his whisker pointer thingy thing. He gave up when valves came in, saying it was too much for him, he was a mechanical engineer. We always had a valve domestic radio in the house and my dad used have a wooden wedge to push one of the valves into contact (he was a joiner) when it went off. My uncle was an electronics engineer and during WWII was at RAF Defford working on the new aircraft radar. So there has always been a relation to radio. My first book "Radio" (given to me by my uncle) is posted here and he also gave me the "Electronics" book too.
|
|
I then studied after school in Radio TV and Electronics and for many years after qualifying and serving an apprenticeship became a bench and then a field engineer doing the same. It was one of the other engineers at the time G8UWL Dan who encouraged me to take the RAE. As I was playing with CB (27Mhz AM) at the time as one of the other engineers in the workshop had come across a smashed CB Somercamp multi mode Rig and we all spent some time fixing it. He used to say it's fine to play CB but become an Amateur and do it properly. So I did and enjoyed it with a lot of mobile operating, now after a long pause due to work changes and a growing family and now early retired I want to rekindle the hobby.
Current shack and equipment. VHF I still have my Yaesu FT-290 Mk2 for 2Mtrs FM and SSB and the kit built Wood & Douglas 50W amp and the RX preamp. The antenna I'm using a home brew Slim Jim currently loft mounted but really needs to get outside. HF I have an Yaesu FT-920. The antenna is a "UK Antennas" (40Mtr) EFHW (with the shortened extension for 80Mtrs). Due to my high noise level I am trying different positions while attemting to keep my neigbours happy. The boom microphone is a Neewer NW-700 model and a set of Heil headphones. For Digital/FT8 my PC has an external inexpensive USB sound card that works well.
The FT 290 Mk2 only has a low RF power output of about 2 watts. So to improve this I added a Wood and Douglas "kit built" 2Mtr 40 watt linear RF Amplifier and also the complementing receive preamp to bolster up the slight recive "deafness" of the rig.
|
|
|
I mostly operated amateur radio (Ham Radio) on 2mtrs with the kit you see in the pictures when I was a TV field engineer. Making contacts and talking with other field engineers while travelling from job to job using simplex and the few of the local repeaters (GB3MP, GB3MN and GB3LD) that could be easily reached from my service area of Liverpool and up to Banks north of Southport.
After leaving that job my travels went a lot further afield and leaving the radio in the car became a bit of a liability when parking up in hospital car parks for long periods of time. Eventually I stopped taking it with me and the long days away from home also stopped any activity from the shack. And this is how it stands today even as I now work 90% from an office in my home getting time to operate and quietness of the 2Mtr band at my QTH really dampens the enthusiasm.
2021 and on...
I have recently retired just pre-pandemic in January 2020. I have decided to the try and get back into the hobby and started to build the shack.
|
|
|