Amateur Radio Page of G1YKV

"CQ CQ CQ" from QTH locator : IO83KJ

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.

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

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.

Home shack in process of being made
Changes made with the new to me FT-920

Logbook from QRZ.com