I have been a licenced Amateur radio enthusiast for almost 40 years and was first licence as G8TJP back in 1978. I then took the CW exam in 1986 and became G0EPC , and continue to use the call sign until the present day. During those early years, my main interest was in radio construction, and getting the project working and on the air.
This is my first QSL card dating back to 1978
In those early years I had a great interest in ‘home brew’. Above is a picture of me operating on 10GHz with talk back on 2M. I was in contact with a very good friend of mine and my ham Radio mentor Tim, G3KEU.
The photographs below are of an early ‘Top-Band’ 160m transceiver, that was scratch built and still works today.
I have further updated my equipment and found a new interest in the hobby over the past few years and shown below is my shack from a couple of years ago.
Here is a selection of some of my equipment, however, a few have since been sold for newer mode
This is my trapped dipole that I am currently using for HF. It shows the 1:1 balun which is made from a piece of 4 inch water pipe with 25 meters of RG 213 coax. Seems to work very well
I have also constructed a Magnetic loop antenna that I have shown above. As these antennas have a very narrow bandwidth, I have enabled the tuning of the capacitor to be carried out by a model radio control servo as can be seen in the plastic box mounted below
Me receiving my prize from Ian at the SDARC construction contest. See my blog for more information.
A recent photograph of the shack