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Courtesy of RigReference.com
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In around 1999 I was licensed in Turkey as a C class amateur radio operator, with a TA2 callsign.
Then I moved to England permanently, and obtained a reciprocal license. Eventually this license gave me full license access as an M1 callsign.
Meanwhile Ofcom brought in M3 licenses so I decided to have a proper UK license as well, so I got my M3 license. Now I had three licenses.
Now I'm working upgrading that M3 to an Intermediate license level, then eventually pass the full exam and be a full license key once more. Then I will have had five callsigns. I do this to keep myself involved and interested in the hobby, and prove to myself that I can get a full UK license directly, w/o going through reciprocal routes. Why? Why not...
I haven't been operating much, I'm more of a SWL guy to be honest, but I kept a number of radios around.
My first ever radio was an FT-23R. Fantastic piece of kit. A taxi ran over it and it only experienced a small crack on the battery case. This eventually died and sold for pieces. It was something like this on the left.
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Stole from
RigReference.com again
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So, once I landed in England I started looking for an "upgrade" and went for another Yaesu, an FT-11R. This wasn't as solid as the 23R. It worked well for a number of years, but finally it couldn't cope with the antennas I was putting on and off it and the BNC connector failed. I soldered it back on a couple of times but after repeated issues, I parted with this too as spares.
On the way I obtained a Storno mobile. I think it was a Stornophone CQM-6000. This worked well apart from continually turning itself off... I used it for a number of years as a mobile radio, and then parted with it.
Meanwhile I had some unexpected inheritance. So I decided to spend it all for fun. I ended up with a lovely, brand new FT-847 I still own. FT-847 has been a fantastic radio. Easy to use, endless possibilities, satellite operations. Everything is ready to be used. I used it a lot when I was living in Cambridge and St. Ives, but when I moved to Wycombe in Jan 2008, I suddenly found that my operational status wasn't optimal. The place I'm living in since then is at the bottom of a valley meaning there's only very local VHF/UHF comms, and probably due to the construction of the place, the HF is extremely attenuated, and rubbish in reception.
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My wife is trying out the FT-847 as she's getting ready to her own foundation license.
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For a period I ran WSPR on this and collected excellent contacts across the globe, I had heard people from Brazil to Hong Kong. It was fantastic for a while.
I also had an FT-101B I had picked up for £120 from a radio rally in Kings Lyn.
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| My Radio Sheep is not impressed with the SNR |
FT-101B is an incredibly lovely piece of antique kit. I gave it away like an idiot. I truly loved that radio. I don't think it could do more than 10W output anymore, but the audio quality, feel of the buttons and simply the weight of it was just fantastic. I miss it dearly..
I also picked up an FT-200 during another radio rally. As you can see I am not good at NOT spending money at these events. Luckily COVID-19 put a stop to those.
At another radio rally, must have been the Huntingdon one in Godmanchester, I picked up a 2M all mode radio, IC-211E. This was once more a lovely piece of 80s engineering, and I still miss the way the dial button would release its clutch and spin faster as you'd turn it faster and faster. This one developed a minor fault and at that time I was trying to reduce the number of hardware I had so I donated it to a colleague who was also a full license. He fixed it and to my knowledge still uses it in his caravan for portable work.
I also collected another piece of kit I still own. This is yet another 2M all mode radio, but this time a mobile one. It's a Standard C-58000E. I had a love/hate relationship with this since it always had a dodgy TX button and if you trigger it twice it would transmit a tone which was awfully annoying since I never used it with repeaters ever. Also slowly it started to have faults, and these days it can hardly transmit over a couple of watts and SSB/CW is very very warbled. FM still works though so I am planning to recommission this radio somehow. Low power mode is a measly 1W, and high power is 25W and if you have an antenna with high SWR, then things don't work well.
I had purchased a 2nd hand Yaesu VX-7R 3-bander which worked quite well for listening to all sorts of things, I even chased satellites with it using an Arrow antenna. Last week somehow we lost this. I hope it will turn out from some stupid place. I suspect the bottom drawer of the vegetable tray in the fridge...
I also had purchased a Baofeng UV-3R for peanuts, and then gave it away. People rubbish Baofengs but they are actually extremely good. The problem is the copies - you can't spot one from Ebay but one thing for certain, cheap stuff will not be the real deal.
I also have a Baofeng UV-5R. This is actually quite a good piece of hardware. The only complaint I had for all these years is the trigger-happy TX button. Put the radio into your jacket pocket and start doing a hike, suddenly you'll realise you've been TX'ing at 145.500 for the last 20 minutes huffing and puffing. Not very nice.
Then I got married which meant that I no longer had the spacious work room (which got converted into a bedroom) and my little bedroom got converted into the study - now shared by two people. There was absolutely no space for the radios so they got packed up. This continued approx 4y like this.
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Now trying new things
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Finally I've decided to get back to the hobby and convinced my dear wife to join me as a foundation licensee. Also convinced her that "if I had a portable HF kit, then we could take it around and not have the problems with reception, noise and TX RFI problems.
So I splurged on a brand new Yaesu FT-818. Lovely thing. Took it out. Lovely, it works. Came back home. Got out of the car. Picked up the backpack. The radio came out flying, ending bouncing on the floor.
The radio is very well protected at the back, but not at the front, and the brunt of the bounce was taken by the dial button so now it's bent very nicely. I almost cried. After being depressed for a day, I tried it out, it was working fine, so I started to try a couple of things.
Now I'm going to concentrate on the rather easy task of getting the intermediate license. I've been using radios for more than 20 years now, even though I have had some quiet periods, I have forgotten a lot about some of the technical bits like baluns etc. I'm retraining myself,
I've also ordered interface cables for the FT-818, programming cables for both the Baofeng and the VX-7R (it will turn up). I've dug up everything I need to connect FT-847 up.
I even dug out my almost-20y old books! Things couldn't have changed much since 2002, right?
WRONG! Things have changed A LOT since 2002 matey.
So... What's happened during the last 4-5 years in the amateur world. Looks like brand new digital modes like FT-8 have taken over the world. There's also more similar things. Now I need to get a Linux laptop working with all of these.
One thing I'm NOT interested in is the digital modes in VHF/UHF. Anything that involves an internet repeater is also not interesting to me. If I want to talk over the internet there are dedicated apps for that, I really don't need to use over-the-wave other than WIFI to do that. There are interesting Raspberry Pi boards and software which can create a 10mW gateway... It is technically interesting, but I really don't need that. I'm more interested in getting the waves bouncing around the world.
