How it all begun

Hi Friends if you have found your way here then you have either herd me on air or we have spoken,

Whether you are a SWL or fellow amateur thank you for taking time to look me up!

I like a lot of the modern radio amateurs first became interested in radio via AM CB radio in the early 1980s at which time I also became aware of Amateur radio and all its advantages, so decided to hang up my CB Boots so as to speak and with a friend take the RAE. Two thirds of the way through the course due to personal family problems I was forced to give up, my friend sailed through his exam well done Andrew, I gave up radio completely and kept away from the hobby until November 2004.

How I became involved in Amateur radio again was to say the at very least bizarre one of my clients who I help with there web solutions wanted some web pictures or art of as they put it "high Tec consumer equipment with a difference not your usual DVD players and plasma TVs" so I scratched my brains amongst other things and thought what could I find for them that would be high Tec with lots of lights, dials, switches, LCDs with of course the added magic of being to the layman a little bit magical, any ideas?

No? me neither so I gave up with that but did however fall in love with the modern Yaesu radios and decided that I had wasted enough time and should have taken my RAE years ago (if Andrew could do it then anyone could) only joking Andy he was always the clever one I was always the good looking one :)

The first step was to find out were the Colchester Amateur Radio club Met that was the club who trained me for my RAE in the 80s it used to be at Severals Hospital and was run by a very knowledgeable guy called Frank G3FIJ to my surprise Frank still helped with the training courses but they were now held at the St Helena school in Colchester so I enrolled for this new format called the Foundation course?

At the end of an enjoyable day I had passed my M3 exam and upon receipt of my validation document became M3ILM.This however had only wet my appetite I wanted more, my next step was to take my intermediate test to become a 2E0. Unfortunately I was unable to take the course offered by the Colchester Amateur radio club because it clashed with my wife’s college course. I found a course being run by the CARS which got me through my 2E0 and then my M0, so now i am a full licence holder I plan to increase the size and content of this site to hope fully act as a community where fellow amateurs can find things to assist them in the best hobby in the world, so if you want to see any new parts to the site please let me know.Also see bellow for my online log book search

I NOW HAVE THE FORUM SECTION OF MY SITE UP AND RUNNING THE SHACK complete with for sale section

It is in early days so please give it a chance to take off.

Also new my DX log book this is a couple of months behind at the moment however will be updated very soon!!

I have now started a new page which I call the HALL of SHAME this is for any one who has been ripped off by so called fellow amateurs in all things Radio, let me know if a fellow amateur has taken advantage of you and I will post there details so the genuine amateurs can avoid them. If there are enough rip off merchants listed then I will add a forum to the site but hopefully it’s just the odd idiot.

For info on propagation and Radio weather please have a look HERE