Biography

I have always been fascinated with radio. At age 2, I used to twiddle with the knobs on our old valve radio and then run away in tears when the valves warmed up and it blurted out something very loud at me. Living in a cold draughty house, I was often ill but luckily there were several technical books on the bookshelf and I spent many days in bed reading about radio transmission and all things scientific. I even found a crystal set in a cupboard to play with.

At age 13 I saw some self build radio kits for sale in a nearby town so after school I got on the train and went and bought the basic MW/LW kit, cost £2. With the help of my Father and a far too large gas soldering iron we put it together and wow it actually worked! I sold it to my recently married sister for £3 and went back and bought a better model which had SW on it. This worked first time as well and tuning around the SW bands I heard these two chaps talking to each other (you know who you are). I found out these were Radio Hams and thus I was hooked. I passed the RAE and morse test at age 14 but I didn't fancy a G3VD- callsign so I reserved G3VES and my licence dropped through the letterbox along with my birthday cards on my 15th birthday.

I was active from 1966 until 1968 and have been active / inactive in various periods since. I semi-retired in April 2013 from when I have been on HF/6m using an Icom 7200 and an all band Windom antenna. So far managed to work 112 countries in this period although I only have 79 confirmed. I have been trying out some of the digital modes using a RigExpert TI-5 interface. Just purchased a Wouxun 950PL 6/4/2/70cm rig so I am now on all bands 160m to 70cm.

Worked DXCCs: