Biography

I was born in London in 1950s. My late father was an avid Short Wave Listener and built his own valve receivers to start with, so I got an interest in radio and electronics from that. I moved to the Isle of Wight in 1960s with my parents.
My QTH is Cowes, and have been here since first licensed. I am 1km from the sea in a residential area about 50m ASL. WAB : SZ49 I do not have a clear take-off from NE to SE as my antennas are below nearby house roofs. I used CB in 1980s and got my Amateur Radio license in 1990 as G7GXK (UK Class-B VHF and up only). I started on 2m FM, then in 1991 got a Kenwood TS680s and a few months later a 6m 6 element yagi that I still use today.
I was very active on 6m and joined UKSMG #2131. In 1993 I started using Packet a lot on 2m, this continued until 1995 when the "Internet" started!
In 2002 I obtained the call M3ERI which allowed 10W on HF. I used M3ERI on HF until 2003 then after that the regulations changed and I was allowed to use HF with G7GXK.
I have not been very active in recent years but in 2020 I started to try WSPR and then in June 2021 after obtaining a PC to Radio interface I started using FT8.
I find Pskreporter useful for seeing where I am being heard.
I upload logs to LoTW, Clublog, eQSL fairly often after I have been active. I recently spent some time converting my old logs from 1991 onwards so they are now uploaded too (although I had a mix up with date format - month and day got swapped in some cases). I was involved with a local Amateur Radio Club G3IW but it is now inactive. For several years I also helped with Marconi related commemorative stations and used the call GB4JAM.
Paper QSL cards.
I have not sent any to the RSGB bureau for many years as I have not been active until 2021. Recently I have recieved quite a few cards via bureau so I am in the process of getting QSL cards sorted. I will update here when sent. I prefer LoTW and eQSL.

SWL QSLs.
I welcome SWL reports but please tell me my signal as received by you and who I was in QSO with. Your antenna information would also be useful.

Worked DXCCs:

Equipment

Antennas
1. 50MHz 6ele double driven log yagi by Elite 4.2m boom, 10 dBd gain 6m AGL (main photo)
2. 28MHz 4 ele yagi (cut down Lemm D4) 4m boom 6m AGL
The yagi is on top of a home made fold down pole mast with Kenpro K250 rotator. Initially it was 8m high and I could fit a second yagi on same pole.
This was too much load for the rotator and tilt system so now I only fit one yagi and swap between 1. 2. or 9. The main rotator pole broke in a storm a few years ago so now Yagi is only 6m AGL.
3. 2m/6m/70cm vertical 2.4m tall 3/6.2/8.6 dBi gain Comet GP-15 at 6m AGL
4. 144MHz 2m 4 element cubical quad Jaybeam Q4_2m 1.5m boom 9.5dBd gain 3.8m AGL manual rotation. Not in use at the moment.
5. 14-29MHz 90cm dia mag loop Cap Co AMA 3 at 1.5m AGL. Not in use at the moment.
6. 14 MHz home made full size 1/4 wave vertical with 3 ground plane radials. 4.5m AGL.
7. 21 MHz 1/2 wave wire dipole sloper, top 6.8m AGL. Replaced by 8 on 20/8/2021.
8. 18MHz and 21MHz 1/2 wave wire dipole sloper, top 6.8m, bottom 2,5m AGL put up 20/8/2021 in place of 21Mhz version.
9. 2m 10 element yagi 6m AGL put up 26/8/2021, taken down 8/9/2021.
10. 1.8 to 10MHz. 30m end fed long wire 7m AGL at highest. The wire (16/0.2 PVC covered) broke at mid support so is no longer available.
11. 1/4 wave 24.9MHz vertical with 3 radials 3m AGL. Put up 7/10/2021 taken down 12/11/22.
12. Inverted V fan dipole. Fibreglass fishing pole on top of pole from 11 as centre support about 8m high. 24/0.2 PVC covered wires for 30, 40, 60m. 1/3/23 reasonable match on all bands. 20/4/23 - coax feeder has failed so only in use for WSPR.
13. 70cm HS-GP714 14 step coax co-linear. 10 dBi Base 2m AGL. Mainly used for APRS Rx.
14. 70cm 18 ele yagi. Jaybeam PBM18/70 14dBd gain. For APRS experiments.

Transmitters
FDK Multi-FX 25W FM only 2m not used now
Kenwood TS680s 100W HF, 10W 6m (from 1991) backup only
Icom IC706 100W HF + 6m,10W 2m (from 1996) used all the time
Zachtek WSPR desktop transmitter 1.8-14MHz and 18-50MHz 200mW (2 units).
Receivers
SDRPlay RSP2
Interface
Microham DXP
APRS : OLED LoRa32 ESP32 V2.1 0.96" 433MHZ Wifi Bluetooth Development Board