About Me

I was born on the 29th March 1968 in Mosborough, close to Sheffield in the center of the UK.
I was educated at Mount Saint Mary's college in the small village of Spinkhill.
I left School in 1986 with an average collection of what were then called O and A levels and of course an Amateur Radio Licence. Whilst working as an electronics engineer at a small local company I continued my education on a part time basis at Loxley College in nearby Sheffield. Part way through my HNC I switched jobs to my present employer Zycomm Electronics Ltd of Ripley. Zycomm is a small supplier of 2 way radio equipment, employing around 25 staff. I joined as a junior PDI engineer, I've been there ever since and now sport the deceptively impressive title of 'Director of Engineering'. If you are interested in leaning more about Zycomm have a look at www.zycomm.co.uk and for details of our recent move into the crazy world of wireless broadband www.w3z.co.uk. Whilst working at Zycomm I've obviously learnt a great deal about radio, in particular about MPT1327 trunked systems - a sort of half way between cellular telephones and 'conventional' 2 way radio - an area the Zycomm specializes in. I've also picked up a smattering of knowledge of GPS, basic IT skills and a little bit of 8051 assembly programming.

My amateur radio activities tend to center around the microwave bands, that is everything above 1000Mhz. I'm not sure if this is why or because I enjoy building my own radio equipment, whatever it's a lot of fun. The largest part of my shack is devoted to construction, being equipped with a collection of creaking old test gear mostly from the 1980s or before. This lot allows my to carry out basic measurements of power frequency and spectral purity from 0.1Hz to 18Ghz. It sounds and looks more more impressive than it is, believe me!

As far as actual amateur radio operating goes everything is done using transverters driven from either and IC-575 or an FT-736. This gives me some sort of presence on all bands from 1.8Mhz to 3.4Ghz + 10Ghz. Hopefully this presence is one band at a time rather than all at once, if you see what I mean.

The Shack

The Workshop

The Loft

As you can see from the photograph this results in a rather underwhelming operating position, just the 2 radios and a couple of control boxes for the transverters which are all up in the loft to keep feeder loss to an minimum. The photograph of the loft shows that whilst the shack is relatively tidy owing to a noticeable lack of equipment the loft looks somewhat like a bombed out communications site, still since it's only ever seen by me nobody will ever know.

I've been a member of the Bolsover Amateur Radio Society for many years, for more information on this organisation see www.g4rsb.org.uk The radio club organses various events, including 2 mtr. 'foxhunts' these are great fun and feircly competative, if you ever get chance do give it a try.