About me
Hi, I live with my partner Marie and my 3 year old daughter Daisy May in the small village of Calvert in Buckinghamshire, not to far from the city of Oxford. I work as a Senior Supervisor on the M25 motorway that encircles the city of London. Apart from radio I'm into road cycling covering around 160 to 180 miles per week, Extreme downhill mountain biking and Surfing in the ocean not the net!
I use an Icom IC-7000 mobile and use mono band antennas for the particular band that I wish to work on HF when I'm mobile. I use VHF/UHF mobile every night when I'm on my way to and from work. At home I use my IC-756 Pro3 in the shack through a TGM MQ26SR 2 element hybrid quad that covers 20 to 6meters, it works very well for such a small antenna.
I also use an end fed wire that covers 160-40m that was made for me by my good mate Phil "G6PHH". For 2m/70cm I use a Maldol VT-320D dual band vertical up at 60ft and a 2m 9 element cross beam that sits just below the vertical. I have been interested in radio for around 25 years when CB found its way into the UK from Europe and the US. Shortly after buying a Midland 40ch AM set I was hearing and making contact with truck drivers all over the US, clearly this was my first experience of propagation and a peak in the solar cycle. I found a SSB rig and was then hooked for some years. I was a teenager and discovered the opposite sex so the radio got put on the shelf for some more years. One day I was down in my garden shed and came across my SSB rig, a 5 element beam, power supply and having some time that afternoon decided to connect it all together. I switched on the set checked the SWR and away I went and to my surprise smack bang in the middle of the solar cycle again. I started having great fun working DX all over the world. In 2001 my line of work took me to Australia so I took my rig with me and worked DX from there. I then returned home a couple of years later and looked into amateur radio and found that their had been a complete revamp to licencing so i booked my self onto the foundation course and obtained my M3RHR call sign. I then passed my intermediate exam on August 5th 2007. I now run MB7IDM Echo Linked gateway on 145.337.50Mhz (CTCSS 103.5Hz) Node No.289997. The link radio is a Yeasu FT1802, rigblaster plus. I would like to say a BIG thanks to Preston (G0UQY) and (Will 2E0GYZ) for all thier help with setting up my link. Thanks for looking and hope to work you again or sometime. 73s Gary.