Biography

Hello from Ottawa, the capital of Canada. I am in the rural part of the city about 43km or 26 miles outside of the city. I am best known as VE3SVQ from 1990 and I have another call which was used for contests VA3KEI.

I was a long time political staffer and spent decades working in politics as a senior advisor for five party leaders and ended my career as the Deputy Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister. Today I am supposed to be retired, but I am enjoying my time selling real estate. I still follow politics and I am a political blogger and pundit and still do some TV and radio as a political analyst. My political blog is www.atory01.com.

I was pretty much off air for close to a decade as work took up my time, now back on and enjoying radio again.

Pretty basic system here. Rig is an ICOM 7300 which has recently replaced my Kenwood TS-430S. The Kenwood replaced a Heathkit HW-101 which was my first radio and used for many years through the 1990s.

The antennas are pretty simple a Ringo 2M up 15 feet and a MFJ 1796 antenna up 10 feet on a pole. You hear a lot of negative comments about the 1796- yes the instructions to assemble were awful, however if you are on a small lot it is a decent option. It covers 6 bands- 10-15-20-40 and 2M and 6M. This is my second one and replaced one that was damaged in a major ice and wind storm. It has been up since 2005. My aim is to either get it up higher in 2022 or replace it entirely. Right now, I am going to try out a 31 foot fiberglass pole with an MFJ-1984 MP 1/2 wave multi-band end fed. If it works as hoped, I can use a similar set up for POTA and QRP.

I enjoy working contests, not to win, but to give other hams the points they need. I only run a 100 Watts so getting contacts requires patience and some skill.

I have recently started a small Blog called the Shaky Key. It is along the lines of a column I used to write for the Canadian Amateur magazine in the earliy 1990s. Its aimed at the beginner ham who is nervously just starting out or the public who might be checking out what we do. Nothing complicated, I don't build my own equipment.

Thanks for stopping by and if we have contacted each other on the air, thanks for taking the time to talk to me.

Have a great day, 73

Worked DXCCs:

Equipment

ICOM 7300, MFJ 1796 MULTI VERTICAL, also a MJF 1984MP on a 31 foot telescopic mast.