Biography

SKCC: 23715

Hi my name is Barry and I live in a town called Ipswich in Suffolk UK just 12 miles from the port of Felixstowe on the east coast.

I have always been interested in radio from when I was given a crystal set by my uncle way back in 1956 and carried on with pulling apart and try to mend old radios amplifiers and TVs until in 1981 when I passed the test for my B License of G8WVY, later to go on and sit the CW test for 12WPM at North Forelands and obtain the A License of G4LVD. From then on I never touched CW again until mid 2020 during the Covid-19 lock down when I started to gain interest while working hard to improve speed and head copy.

I sometimes work voice and SSTV mode but mostly interested in CW and can be normally found on 80 or 40m CW portion of the bands. SSTV is also used but very little, It seems CW has taken over my radio interest for now and totally enjoy it, most days I take my little dog for long morning walks with an iPod mp3 player and listen to CW Morse tracks helping to slowly improve. I have also been working on VBAND and CWCOM both of which are helping to clean up my cw.

In the 16ft by 10ft shack that sits in my rear garden has a collection of radio equipment both HF and VHF/UHF. Also as it’s used as a music studio a section of audio recording equipment including a vocal booth used for band rehearsal and personal fun as I need to stay ahead with my guitar work being the lead guitar player in a band called the HOUSESHAKERS.

Equipment

Ham gear includes

Kenwood TS2000, Icom 756 Pro II, Yaesu FT101B, National NCX-3, Trio TS-711E, Anytone AT-778, Ailance HD-1, MFJ-9933 Tuner

CW keys used

Bencher paddle, Old post office straight key. Ukraine straight key

Antennas are

HF = G5RV Half Size with 80m coils on both ends (works very well), Diamond X200 Collinear, Home brew duel band collinear vhf/uhf