Biography

MY LOG AND INFO IS ON https://www.qrz.com/ WHERE I DILIGENTLY LOG ALL QSOs!

I am always learning new things in this hobby! QRP is fun, it's easy to cover the world if you throw enough power into it, but the operators I admire are those who QSO over thousands of miles with just 5 watts and a bit of wire!
Happy to receive radio related emails, details on qrz.com
73 !

Equipment

HF RIG:
Yaesu FT-450D

VHF-UHF RIG:
Yaesu FT-7900R

DATAMODE:
Signalink USB, I use FT8 all the time but actually prefer to talk on FLdigi,it's more sociable.

OTHER USEFUL KIT:
MFJ-969 (dead)(blue smoke victim!) and MFJ-929(excellent!) ATUs,
Yaesu FRG-8800 receiver, Radio Shack DX-394 receiver, Cross Country SDR 4 + receiver, SDRPlay.
Stereo amplifier and graphic equaliser: I feed VHF/UHF rig audio output to right speaker and HF rig audio to the left. (DSP is great but the equaliser is fun to play with: it has flashing lights and lots of buttons!

ANTENNAS:
Scanmaster Active Antenna and homebrew miniwhip antenna for HF MW LW reception.
A well-waterproofed Sharman X510 for VHF-UHF and an ever-changing bunch of homebrew antennas for HF: the main ones are a multiband doublet 40 metres long fed with 15 metres of 300 ohm window line to an LDG remote ATU.
The doublet, apex at 16 m, covers all bands from 80m to 6m. Also a 6m 5/8 wave and a bicone.
Latest project is construction of a Magnetic Loop Antenna from copper tube and a Russian-made Vacuum Variable Capacitor. Will be using a pulse-width modulator and an old 12 volt cordless drill motor and its chuck to tune it. When you see blue smoke on the horizon it will be me powering it up!