My interest in Amateur Radio first started when I was at school. After building a low power two-valve medium-wave A.M. transmitter, I started to listen to the Short Wave bands at home. At first I only heard the very high power stations that came mainly from the Communist countries. Especially loud were Radio Moscow , Radio Havana and Radio Prague . Even though they were very strong, the "woodpecker" , a Russian over-the-horizon radar system, always powered its way over the top of everything, shifting in frequency as atmospheric conditions varied.

As the propagation conditions changed, so the woodpecker walked it way up and down the shortwave bands. With help from reference books in the local library I improved the aerial system I had by using a longer wire and then taking the time to match it to the receiver being used at the time. I now started to hear Amateur Radio stations as well. The strongest signals heard were from the G3VLX station in Petts Wood, operated by Deryck Buckley [sadly deceased April 2007]. I turned up on his doorstep on Saturday morning and was welcomed into his shack. It was through his enthusiasm that I ended up joining the Cray Valley Radio Society [CVRS] through the 1970's and 80's.

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It was a CVRS club member who improved my station by donating a BC-348 receiver [a W.W. II radio from a B-17 bomber] as well as a homebrew power supply.

http://www.antiqueradio.com/Feb02_BC348.html
BC-348 receiver

I also joined the national society, the Radio Society of Great Britain [RSGB], where I got my short wave listening [SWL] 'callsign' of RS44984. Once I got my Class B Amateur Radio license in 1981 by passing my City & Guild examinations I quickly got on the air on VHF and UHF.

Over the years my shack has made use of the following kit:

Transceivers Antennas
H.F.

Yaesu FT-102
Trio TS-130V
Yaesu FT-101E
Icom IC-7400

6m

Icom IC-7400
Microwave Modules transverter

4m

Microwave Modules transverter

2m

Icom IC-7400
Yeasu FT-225RD
Icom IC-2E
Icom IC-280E
Trio TR-9000

70cms

Icom IC-4E
Icom IC-451E

23cms

Microwave Modules transverter

H.F.

Long wire
Polymorph wire
Cushcraft 5-band trap vertical
HyGain AV-14AVQ trap vertical
Wimo 'WARC' trap dipole
10m HB9CV
80m trap dipole

6m

5ele Trident Yagi

4m

Halo
5ele Tonna

2m

Helical
Colinear
Slim-Jim
Halo
5/8ths whip
5ele Tonna
9ele Tonna
6ele Cubical Quad

70cms

Helical
7/8ths whip
19ele Tonna
12ele XY Cushcraft Yagi

23cms

23ele Tonna

During 1988 I was lucky enough to move into a new house, where I was able to obtain planning permission for a tilt-over tower and aerials. The tower is by Allweld Engineering, and consists of three 20-foot triangular lattice sections, with a 4 foot high rotator cage containing a Yaesu rotator, and the short fibreglass stub mast.


Mast, circa 2003, in its dropped position

Just for fun I looked up the home QTH on Google Earth to see what the aerials looked like from space. I was very surprised to see that the 6m beam is very noticeable!


G6CSY viewed from space !

Although only on the V.H.F. bands with my Class B license at the time, (I had not done the morse test and so was prohibited from operating on the short wave bands), I actively listened on the H.F. bands. I could have taken a 5 w.p.m. morse test and changed to an M0 callsign (a Class 'A/B' license), but I never seemed to have the time. 
Everything changed in the middle of 2003 though, when a Radio Authority announcement was published:

 

"With effect from Saturday the 26th of July 2003, there is no longer a requirement to have passed a Morse code test in order to operate on the HF bands in the UK. All Full and Intermediate Class B licensees are therefore automatically granted their respective Class A operating privileges and may operate on the HF bands using their existing callsigns from the 26th of July. Class B licensees need not take any action to obtain these additional operating privileges"

So, as from September 2003, I started to be active on the H.F. bands. Over the following months, I expanded my stations abilities by upgrading my H.F. transceiver, and by replacing the vertical antenna used for H.F. listening, with something more suitable for transmitting. I continued this work by replacing the V.H.F./U.H.F. transceivers and transverters with a dedicated HF/6m/2m transceiver. I no longer transmit on 4m or 23cms. I will be replacing the 23cms and 4m antennas with a 6m Yagi and a 10m HB9CV antenna, and also adding a wire antenna suitable for 80m.


Current station as of December 2007


HyGain AV-14AVQ ground-mounted vertical

Application screen grabs as used here - click to see the larger image!

DXKeeper used as the basis of the station logging:

 
DXLab DXKeeper

CI-V Commander  works via the MicroHAM router to control the transceiver and provide frequency information to the other DXLab applications:


DXKeeper CI-V Commander

Pathfinder provides the logbook with online callbook lookup:


DXKeeper Pathfinder

DXCC countries worked and confirmed so far.

 

G6CSY Worked QSL cards
Confirmed
eQSL.cc
Confirmed
LotW
Confirmed
2M 14 13 4 2
6M 49 26 28 21
10M 48 25 14 12
12M 1 1 0 0
15M 75 38 37 40
17M 22 8 5 3
20M 103 72 60 56
30M 15 2 6 0
40M 92 57 54 54
80M 50 19 33 30
160M 1 0 0 0
Mixed 121 88 72 76
Phone 100 72 54 56
PSK31 68 10 52 27
RTTY 100 63 64 63
CW 43 0 15 14

I've worked DXCC on 20m, with mixed mode, and on SSB and RTTY

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