Biography

Hello from Christchurch, New Zealand.

I was licensed in January 2018, and became active on HF on July 24 2018. My interest in radio dates back to the 1990's as an avid Medium Wave and Shortwave DXer. Life got in the way in pursuing an amateur radio license; so fast forward to 2018.

On HF I use a DX Commander Signature 9 vertical antenna with a maximum of 100 watts; also 17m and 10m separate dipoles. HF radios are the Yaesu FT-DX10 or Yaesu FT-991A. The Signature 9 has been in use since July 2024, prior to that the first 50,000 or so, HF QSO's in my logbook were achieved using the fantastic Chameleon MPAS2 portable vertical antenna.

On 6m, 2m, 70cm antennas are an Arrow Alaskan 10 element UHF/4 element VHF crossed yagi, 4 element 6m beam, 6m dipole, Diamond V2000, and Diamond X300N. For VHF/UHF I use an assortment of Yaesu fusion and analog radios, also on DMR.

I enjoy all modes: Voice, SSTV, CW (poorly) and Digital (FT8 to VarAC). Previously I was active on satellites, however the current QTH makes this too challenging.

QSO's are logged to QRZ.com, ClubLog, eQSL, HamQTH and HRDLog.net in real-time, and LoTW hourly. The preferred QSL method is LoTW. I do not use the bureau, or provide QSL cards anymore and offer verification by these electronic methods only.

I am on X, mostly radio related @ZL3GAV.

73

Gavin
ZL3GAV/E6SP

Worked DXCCs:

Equipment

Yaesu FT-DX10
Yaesu FT-991A

Various other Yaesu digital/analog radios.