G3TYR

My Profile

My name is Keith Davis and I had lived in Guildford, Surrey for some 24 Years. I have two daughters and a son. I have now moved to Sleaford in Lincolnshire and find the area very much different to the hustle and bustle of Surrey. My own family have now all flown the nest and after losing both my parents in 2000, I am being forced into semi retirement due to a health problem. I have added Genealogy to my Hobbies list and that has taken up a lot of my recent time.

Whilst I was born in Guildford, I grew up in South London and was a member of the very active South London Mobile Club. I come from a Telecommunications background originally employed as a Radio Engineer in Mobile Radio systems. Responsibiliies included emergency services communications and the first public mobile telephone systems in the UK. I have worked at transmitter sites in the most remote area's in the UK. When digital elecronics started to creep in to telecoms, I moved into the new area's of speciality and then into computing.

Amongst my hobbies, I enjoy Computing and the Internet. I had a Cable Modem through NTL in Guildford but the move has meant going back to Dial Up. Its a very painful backward step. There is no ADSL in this area. It has its drawback when trying to run FTP sessions on my local Web Server, but I get by.

I am an IT professional with NT and MS Exchange management / administration experience along with data security and data communications skills. My extensive technical skills have been used in IT and Technical Support Management roles.

My last major contract involved moving an International Banks data communications system from inhouse to external international circuits. A lot of scripting languages were involved. Although not a programmer, my earlier experience with compiled Basic, C++ and Pascal helped here plus my deep knowledge and understanding of hardware.

A further advantage was the Data Communications work I had previously been exposed to. I have also been a service manager, network manager, electronics teacher and held other associated positions. I am also a registered Quality Auditor.

With Electronics as another outlet for my curiosity, I have enjoyed all the Digital and Electronic projects I have been involved in. I have both designed and had a Modem approved for use in the UK.

I also developed several procedures for secure transmission and reception. A major milestone was in a wideband 'Bug' detector which also used a 'linear detector'. My hamradio station is mentioned elsewhere.

After being heavily involved in the Tandy models 1, 2, 3 and 4 along with other various 'Micro's' on the scene in the early 80's, I wrote a book on the Floppy Disk Operating System of the then BBC Micro. My first exposure to the 'PC' came in 1982 and I have not looked back since. I have stayed with it whilst it, and I, matured.

My first modems operated at 300bps using very primitive software with manual up / down-load operations. Then came Bulletin Boards and other ways to talk to other people over the 'Information Exchanges'. Indeed, 'CIX' started its life in Guildford and I knew Frank and Sylvia Thornley well.

After an endless procession of people wanting help and assistance with PC hardware and software problems (both calling at my home and phoning at all times), I started the Guildford PC User Group in 1987 with a few other local enthusiasts. The club is still going very strong in 2000 and holds its meetings on the second Monday of each month.

I love Aircraft and do try to attend the Air Fete events at RAF / USAF Mildenhall each year as well as the every other year events of Farnborough Airshows. Shown is the new F22 Raptor. I was also an ATC Civilian Instructor with the 261 Squadron at Guildford.

We have friends who live in the Mildenhall area and that makes it easy to stay there during the shows. With my Telecommunications hat, I have worked at Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, Glasgow and Prestwick airports when I was with Pye Telecoms (later Philips). I had a great time and have many stories (or yarns!) to tell. I often went to Heathrow just to relax and watch the Aircraft. My VX5-R makes a great Air Band radio.

I have been introduced to the PIC family of Microcontrollers and whilst maybe not proficient, can program them for all the applications I have so far wanted to use a microcontroller for.

When I was commuting to London each day, I came across an excellent article by John Becker. This was a supplement in ' Everyday Practical Electronics'. It was a complete tutorial on the 16x84 PIC range. If you want to know what the PIC is all about or think you might want to see if you can learn it, then I can really recommend this article. I have no idea if its still available but you could always try the EPEmag website at www.epemag.wimborne.co.uk . It certainly helped pass the train journey time then. As of April 2003, an updated PIC tutorial is being published in this magazine, again, by John Becker.

With Ham Radio, Electronics, Internet and Computing what else does one need?