Biography

First licensed as G6VFQ in 1982, then as G4VIW in 1983. I'm a former programme secretary of the Havering Amateur Radio Club - see www.haveringradioclub.co.uk. I belong to the Essex CW Amateur Radio Club - see http://www.essexcw.org.uk/. I am also a member of FISTS - www.fists.co.uk - number 15831.

I operate mainly HF CW using a lovely eZKe single lever paddle key beautifully made by Tom Withers, G3HGE, of TW Radio.

I am aged 74 and retired as CEO of CIPHE - www.ciphe.org.uk- in 2006 and as Secretary of WPC - www.worldplumbing.org- in 2008.

Worked DXCCs:

Equipment

At my home QTH my main rig is an Icom 7300. I also have a Kenwood TS-590s The main antenna is a Butternut HF6V vertical stuck in a tree with four above ground tuned radials running East/West. Considering the poor location it works surprisingly well.

I also have a doublet at 6m agl which I use mainly on 40m. For 160m I have a shunt end-fed loaded wire to a design by G4GTX which certainly gets me around the UK and Europe.

When operating portable, I use a Yeasu FT817ND with Palm mini-key. The antenna is then either a W3EDP long wire or doublet tuned with an Elecraft T1 or dedicated wire dipole suspended from a 7m fiberglass pole.