Who is EI 7 IM?

Born on 15th. July 1950, I am married, with four son's. From 1972 until 1996, I was employed by the Irish Meteorological Service. Unfortunately in 1995, I was diagnosed as having Multiple Sclerosis and now spend a fair amount of time confined to a wheelchair.

While none of my son's are interested in Radio, they are all very active in the field of sport, the elder two Patrick,29, and Kevin,25, have represented their Province, Leinster at cricket. Michael,21, and Ian,17, have played cricket for Ireland. Ian is also very involved in rugby, playing for his school's, St. Mary's Senior team. He also represented the school at the 2000 Penn Relays in the 4x400m at Easter. My wife Anne is very involved with cricket and tennis.

Patrick is currently living in Ko Samui, where he and his friend have an Irish Pub, called O'Malley's.

My interest in radio stems from my grandfather, who was a boy telegrapher in the First World War, and I am the proud possessor of his war medals. After the war he went to work for Marconi and was the operator on duty in England for the first TransAtlantic radio picture.

I always had an interest in Radio, but it was not until I retired in 1996 that I finally took out my licence. i now hold a class-A Radio Experimenters licence. Radio has been a great help to me, in keeping me in touch with the outside world. I used to work all SSB, but PSK is now my favourite mode. CW, unfortunately does not appeal to me. I have been very fortunate to have made some great friend over the air and in 1999 I visited Bahrain and Dubai. While in Bahrain, I visited the local club station and in 2001 I hope to operate from Ko Samui. To date I have worked over 200 countries on SSB and have recently passed the 100 mark on PSK.

My station is very basic. The transceiver is a Kenwood TS-570DGE putting out a max of 100w. My antennae consist of a Cobweb at 12m, a Gap Vertical and a G5RV. Living close to the city, I can only dream of owning an amplifier.