Biography

I live on the south side of Glasgow in the West of Scotland. I am married with three grown up children and four grandsons. I have been interested in amateur radio since I was at school a very long time ago. My physics teacher was GM3YDK and he had a Heathkit HW101 in our class room with a long wire out the window. This got me hooked! This is also probably why I started teaching science to secondary school aged young people.

My first steps in radio were as a short wave listener ( RS43474). I passed the RAE at the nautical college in Glasgow in December 1980 and was first licensed as GM6AWE in 1981. It took me a few years to summon up the courage to do the morse test in Ayr in 1988 to become GM0IVQ.

As a class B licensee, my first transeiver was a Belcom Liner 2 on 2m SSB with a Tonna 9 element yagi. This allowed me to learn operating basics before getting the full class A licence to allow me to get on HF.

In recent years I have been very inactive due to family and work commitments but am just getting back into things having taken early retirement. I am currently using a Yaesu ft-710 with LDG AT-100ProII ATU and half size G5RV wire antenna for HF and a TR751E and collinear for 2m. I also have an Icom ICE-90 for portable 2m and 70cms.

Worked DXCCs:

Equipment

For HF: Yaesu FT-710 with half size G5RV