Biography

The name's Mark. Although I've settled in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, I was born and raised in Scotland. I've lived in Australia since 2000, and prior to that, I lived in Mexico City, Mexico (Hola amigos espero que algún día podemos encontrarnos en las bandas).

I've had an interest in radios since I was young. When I was 11 years old, I had my first CB radio. I used CB for a number of years and whilst doing so, I became interested in SWL and also scanner listening. As a SWL, I'd often listen to amateur radio operators, mostly on the 20m band.

Fast forward 30 odd years and I've just recently become interested in the hobby again, probably something like a midlife crisis kind of thing, and this time I decided to at least take the Foundation license. My license was granted on the 26th October 2018. At the moment, I'm restricted to 10w, but I'll probably give the Standard licence a go sooner or later.

I have a background in IT so digital modes have attracted me. I'm usually hanging around the 40m, 15m and 10m bands using FT8.

I previously operated using the old callsign, VK3FDGO but found that the additional character in the callsign was too restrictive when using digital modes such as FT8, I'm now using VK3DGO.

On Australia Day, 26th January, Anzac Day, 25th April and International Telecommunications Day, 17th May I will be using the callsign AX3DGO.

I have very limited space and have been restricted to using mostly vertical antennas until recently when I was able to erect a 20M longwire sloper, a 15m T2LT halfwave vertical dipole up a 10m fibreglass pole, a 10m Stationmaster, and a 10m Sirio 2016.

I'm a huge advocate for LOG4OM which automatically uploads QSO data to QRZ, Clublog, HRDLOG, eQSL, & HAMQTH. There is a 1-2 minute delay before it shows up in the other logbooks. I also manually upload my logs to LoTW, QRZCQ and HAMLOG.

I still own a couple of CB radios, UHF and a 27MHz rig, of which I'm still quite fond of using.

I live at home with my XYL and 2 sons.

Worked DXCCs:

Equipment

Radios
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Yaesu FT450D
Yeticom Optima (10m)
Yaesu FT7900R

Antennas
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20m, 40m & 80m - 20m Long Wire Sloper & 9:1 UNUN
15m - T2LT Vertical Dipole
10m - Station Master (1/2 Wave)
10m - Sirio 2016 (5/8 Wave)