A92GE

I became interested in electronics and radio when I was very young. My Uncle Ray built his own radio and television sets. Well before my time my family watched the coronation of Queen Elizabeth on a home built green and white (yes green phosphor) television receiver. The set was still working when I was four years old and I can remember it being pressed into service in an emergency for "Lunchbox" (an old favourite of my grandma's).

 

 

He encouraged me to become interested in radio, and helped me build my first crystal set sometime in the late fifties.

 

My first solo(-ish) project was a single valve battery powered receiver. My father did the "chassis bashing" and helped me erect a longwire antenna. It was with this radio that together, he and I heard our first a.m. amateur radio signals one Sunday morning on 160m. Quickly I learned to find the same signals on our family shortwave radio on 80m and 40m. This caused some problems and before long I was given an Eddystone S640 for my birthday.

 

 

My father introduced me to Ken, G8BEO, and I spent many happy Friday evenings at his house for the 2m "Leicester-Sutton Coldfield" net. Some great personalities participated in this net including Jack Hum G5UM and Tom G3BA keeper of the BBC Sutton Coldfield television transmitter.

At school I found a fellow enthusiast; Jim Lee. We both were avid readers of the Short Wave Magazine and participated in the Listener Tables

 

 

I passed the City and Guilds RAE when I was fifteen and shortly after joined the amateur ranks as G8ERM, livening up the entire neighbourhood television network with my crystal controlled 10W a.m. transmitter. "CQ CQ CQ 2 metres, this is G8ERM tuning high to low".. those were the days. The transmitter was based upon an old Pye Base station chassis, using the power supply and modulator, but after months of tvi the rf chain was replaced completely with a QQV06-10 pa valve and put into a smart new cabinet.

 

 

My old school friend Jim Lee took the RAE with me and together we sought out the licenced amateurs in our district. Graham G3YTW gave us slow morse lessons and we spent many hours listening to him work the world with his KW2000A transceiver and Heathkit SB220 linear. His patience at trying to teach me morse and sort out my TVI problems was amazing. Jim was subsequently licenced as G4AEH.

 

 

The Eddystone went, an AR88D graced the bedroom as a replacement and I spent a fair amount of time constructing valve transmitters for 160m and 80m even though it was to be some time before I passed my morse examination.

 

 

College and work intervened and although I built an SSB transceiver using the Plessey series of Integrated Circuits I did very little operating. In my absence my mother took over the AR88D and took up prefix chasing. She featured prominantly in the listeners section of the "Short Wave Magazine".

 

 

Work took me to Abu Dhabi and Dubai where I met my wonderful wife Pat, and subsequently in 1982 I moved to Bahrain where I have been ever since. When I realised that I would be able to get a licence in Bahrain I programmed my Sinclair Z80 to generate random morse and during one summer leave went to Burnham on Sea to take the 12 wpm morse test at Portishead Coastal Radio Station.

 

 

This resulted in me getting my present U.K. callsign G4UQU. Despite this a very young family and golf occupied all my free time until 1992 when Sheridon Street A92BE joined our company.

 

The rest as they say is history, getting my A92GE callsign almost immediately and being active ever since.