I have a lifelong interest in Radio (in particular) and electronics (in general), fostered by my Father who was an electronics engineer. I first started listening to SW broadcast stations around the age of 5 - I still have vivid memories of spending hours in front of the AR88 wearing the original headphones with velvet lined earpads and being amazed that I could hear broadcasts from all over the world. When I was a little older, I started listening to Amateur band transmissions (always telephony, never could decode CW!), and was even more amazed as to the diversity of locations I could receive.

I continued as a SWL for a few years, and once I started work in 1979 on a whim I decided to take the City & Guilds Radio Amateurs examination. I sat the exam in May 1980, which I duly passed and was issued the callsign G8XQB in August 1980.

Post 1980

I was active on 2m and 70cm for the first part of the 1980s, mainly using a Yaesu FT-290R and a 70cm tranceiver I can't recall. I also acquired a Trio/Kenwood R300 HF communications receiver for SWL activities. However, by 1987 I was pretty much inactive, as marriage, work commitments and children meant that radio had to take a back seat. At least the money I made from selling the radio gear came in handy - raising kids is SO expensive!

Despite being inactive, I still kept my licence active with a view to one day restarting my hobby. Admittedly, it has taken 30 years but today I am active once more. I have the time (and the money!) to devote to the hobby, and with the advances in technology there are all sorts of new challenges and areas to discover.

Post 2020

At the time of writing this I am (still!) in the process of setting up my home station. For all HF and VHF modes I will be using a Yaesu FT-817ND, for 2m and 70cm SSTV a Baofeng UV-5R, another UV-5R on 2m used as an iGate for APRS and a QRP Labs Ultimate 3S for WSPR on HF. Antennas are problematic because of my location so I will be limited to a dual band colinear for VHF work, and an end fed long wire for HF (if I can get someone to help me install it).

Due to my health issues (I was diagnosed with duodenal cancer in 2018), progress has been slowed, but at the time of writing my weather station feed is live on my website and also on APRS.FI. The weather cam feed is now online, and the next task is to get the weathersat feed available (although going up ladders to mount antennas is somewhat problematic at the moment!). After these tasks are complete, I can hopefully concentrate on setting up the APRS iLink and then start working some RTTY and SSTV.

More details about my station can be found here. If you want to contact me, you can email me on this email address: