I got the call G6GVI back in 1982, and used it extensively on 2m and 70cm in the 'eighties, both in my home town of Bolton, and my later homes in Bristol.
After a quiet period from 1988-91, I returned with renewed enthusiasm in 1992, and extended my activities to the 6m and 4m bands.
In the 'nineties, I was the licnece-holder and main operator of G8CXH and
G3KAC, at the University of Bristol ARS.
By 1995, I had got my class-A licence,
G0WJR,
and was operating on all the bands from HF to 23cm, plus
Amateur Television on 13 and 3cm.
I let the G6GVI call lapse in 1995, but then renewed it in April 2003, for its 21st anniversary celebrations. As this call effectively became a Full Licence in July 2003, I now use it exclusively.
As well as operating from my Main Address in Bolton, I can often be heard operating portable or mobile from various hilltop sites, mainly on 4m and 2m. I've also been playing with some 25-year-old radios on 2m, in the Classic SSB net.
Since October 2007, I've been involved in the re-birth of the Bolton Wireless Club, of which I'm currently the Chairman (and Treasurer!).
I also hold the Club Licence G0BWC on their behalf. You may hear me operating G0BWC/A in one of our Monday-night nets, on 2m, 4m, 6m, 70cm, 160m and 80m.
In March 2008, I joined in the Club net on 80m as GW6GVI/A from the Wye Valley in South Wales, where I was staying on a converted farm with space for a 260-ft doublet antenna!
As of April 2008, I've obtained a permit to operate on the experimental 5MHz band.
Since 2003, I've made many thousands of QSOs with my G6 call, the vast majority being on 4m and 2m.
At the start of 2005, I moved back to Bolton, and so was able to enjoy many opportunities to operate from the West Pennine moors. Whilst walking up there at the end of May 2005, I managed to make contact with three Danish stations on 4m FM, using only a low-power hand-portable with a quarter-wave antenna.
More details for these years may be found here:
2003 2004 2005 2006-8.
I've built a tilt-over mast at home, which easily allows me to put up various antennas for testing, including a 6m vertical and beams for 4m, 2m, 70cm, 23cm and 13cm.
Using this facility, I have been pleasantly surprised by the amount of 23cm activity in this area, and I also managed to make my first contact via auroral propagation on 2m.
Listen to an audio file of part of that contact, with my old friend Jack M0PRO near Bath: you can hear the distinctive distortion of the signal caused by rapidly-changing multipath effects.
Another interesting propagation mode which I often experience is aircraft reflections. I've recorded
a series of spectrograms of the signal received from the 2m beacon GB3ANG, which show a number of aircraft in flight. The changing Doppler shifts of the reflected signals can be seen clearly. A more detailed article may be seen
here.
On the aerial front, I've been experimenting with loaded verticals for 160m, a quad loop for 10m, and a Moxon rectangle antenna for 4m.
I'm a big fan of the 4m band, and have had thousands of QSOs (mainly on FM) on this band. I've compiled a list of
stations I've contacted recently on 4m FM.
I am also an administrator of the
Four Metres Website.
I'm also enjoy FM operation on the Six Metre band.
I've recently been trying out some digital modes, including AMTOR, PSK, MT63, Olivia and packet, using a notebook PC connected to the transceiver with a simple interface.
Along with Jack G8HIK, I've been using the WinDRM program to send all sorts of binary (not just ASCII) data files over the air (including pictures, documents and spreadsheets).
Exploring the rear-panel interfaces of my transceivers led to the development of a dual-band talkthrough repeater for RAYNET use.
I've also been experimenting with auto position-reporting (APRS) for fixed links and mobile tracking, and even for Radio Direction-Finding hunts!
Over the years, I've had a lot of success in using recycled materials to make items of Amateur radio equipment.
See this list, and more details of the individual ex-PMR radios which I've modified for use on the nearby amateur bands.
My latest venture is to convert an MMDS band downconverter and a 2.4GHz video sender for narrowband operation on the 13cm band.
