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About M0PWX

I first became interested in radio and electronics back in the mid 70's when I was given one of those 30 in 1 electronics sets with the spring terminals and wires where you could make a crystal set, a oscillator and various other circuits.

At secondary school we had an electronics club and I became an active member, somebody at the club had a parent who was a radio ameteur and I became more interested in radio and started reading more about radio design, antennas and interesting modes like slow scan TV

Unfortunately being at school I couldn't afford a radio of my own, so never progressed and took the RAE as it was then

I went on to study electronics at college, and then moved to a different part of the UK, Kent where i still live

I have always maintained my interest in computers and electronics, having numerous Raspberry Pi's and Arduino's, as well as a 3d printer I bought for my birthday back in 2018, it arrived as 3 boxes of mecano and wires, which took 2 days to put together and get the first print 

Fast forward to march 2020, My daughters asked what I wanted for fathers day (my kids always ask what I want for xmas, birthday etc so I give them several things, that way I get something I want but don't know exactly what) I asked for an SDR dongle as wanted to see if I could get images off the weather satellites or SSTV from the ISS with it and a raspberry pi, as an article in a magazine showed it working

Fathers day it duely arrived as did the SDR Dongle and my love for radio was back on, I soon made a QFH antenna for weather satellite reception and discovered I could get reasonable images from the ISS, I was hooked again

I then ran a long wire antenna halfway down the garden and got a down converter so I could list to HF with the SDR dongle and almost immediately was listening to hams all over europe

It was at this point my son in law told me the RSGB was doing remote invigilation exam with no practical for foundation level exams due to lock down and corona virus stopping clubs meeting

I looked into it and decided I could do it, but could I find a radio that did all mode HF for a reasonable price so I would not lose to much if I got bored with radio

I then started to look for how much a HF transciever would be and found adverts for a chinese 20 watt SDR based radio called Xiegu G90 in the RSGB exam manuals, I researched this and found it would be affordable, unlike HF rigs from icom, Yeasu and kenwood, and decided to proceed with getting my license

Looking round as you do, I found one for sale 2nd hand with all the interfaces and cables for digital modes, I bought it and drove 200miles to collect it, I built a home brew fan dipole with common mode choke on my fence and was off

After some research I joined the Essex Ham online foundation course in September 2020 and took my exam in october 2020, I passed with 100% ( Foundation Online - FREE Amateur Radio Course | Ham Train (essexham.co.uk) )

The RSGB had announced the intermediate exams were available online as well so after I passed foundation i immediately booked my intermediate exam, and enrolled in the GM6DX course Amateur Radio Courses by GM6DX (thinkific.com) and passes my intermediate exam the end of november 2020

In late 2020 the RSGB announce the full exams were available online as well, so I set myself a target of having my full exam by my birthday in march 2021

The step from foundation to intermediate is relatively small, but the step from intermediate to full is much bigger with a lot more on how circuits work, RFI, propagation and of course more on licensing conditions

I booked my exam for feb 28th 2021, and set to work using youtube videos from the "cornish radio amateur club" Cornish Radio Amateur Club Training - YouTube, the RSGB exam guide and exam secrets books

I took the exam thinking i might scrape a pass but was pleasantly surprised to get 80% and a pass with merit

So here I am, fully qualified from start to end in under 6 months, I did find it easier going level to level quickly you build on knowledge at each level by going into the same topics in greater detail

For my birthday and passing my full exam I bought myself an FT-991a, so I could do digital on 2m and 70cm bands as well as having a bit more power on HF

I am discovering amateur radio is a never ending journey of learning, discovery and experimentation

Currently my main interests are digital modes like FT8, FT4, QRSS and WSPR,  I do some local voice comms on 2m nets, 

I have QRZ and eQSL accounts for logging and QSL's

In the near future i am starting to learn morse

After that i am thinking of exploring satellites but we will see where that leads

Peter

M0PWX

Previous callsigns

Intermediate 2E0PWX,

Foundation M7PGW