Radio
For as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by radio technology. Living abroad in South Africa and tuning into the BBC World Service as a child is a memory that will live with me always. Those voices coming in over the airwaves from my distant homeland seemed magical at the time and over the years that magical fascination led me to amateur radio.
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Radio amateurs are granted licenses by their local governments allowing them to communicate with fellow amateurs all around the world. Licenses are issued according to local requirements but these usually relate to demonstrating (by exam) a required level of knowledge in technical aspects of radio communications, circuit theory and operating procedures. There are over 3 million licensed amateur radio operators in the world today. I have been licensed since 1991 when my callsign G0RIF (golf-zero-romeo-india-foxtrot) was issued. At that time class A licenses (allowing operation on the shortwave or HF bands) were only issued on passing a 12 word per minute morse code test. This requirement was abolished in 2003 but as my primary interest back then was HF and the opportunies this afforded for global communications, I sat and passed the 12wpm morse code test. |
an amateur radio transceiver |
My QSL cards confirming a number of morse code (or CW) contacts are amongst my most treasured. You can view some of these and many more of the QSL cards I have received from radio amateurs around the world in the QSL card galleries linked from the QSL menu above.
typical PSK31 waterfall display |
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My favourite operating modes are digital communications on the amateur shortwave bands using PSK31 and RTTY. I do also operate single sideband (SSB) for voice and good old traditional morse code (or CW amongst us radio amateurs). My morse code is very rusty but I am working to get back up to speed so I can really enjoy the full benefits of morse code which are lots of nice long distance communications with lower power even when conditions aren’t at their best. Given my limited space for antennas I am limited as to which bands I operate on. My sloping wire antenna works well on several bands but I tend to focus on the 40m, 30m and 20m bands as between them these three bands offer a good mix of day and night time propagation and there are usually some stations to be worked. Using my very simple setup I have contacted over 160 different countries in the past three years. |
One of the wonderful things about amateur radio is that there is pretty much something for everyone. You don’t need the best equipment or the biggest antennas to enjoy this hobby. Worldwide communication is possible with simple equipment, low power and very basic wire antennas. This global communications possibility with pretty basic equipment opens up a whole new aspect to the hobby, that of portable operating from all manner of interesting & exotic locations such as a holiday apartment, the beach, a hill or mountain top, in fact pretty much anywhere at all.
My simple goal when I got back into amateur radio in 2005, having been out of the hobby for some 10 years, was 100 countries worked on each of SSB, morse code and RTTY. This I have now achieved and my next target is 200 countries worked (any mode), then 250 and beyond. There are currently about 350 different amateur radio countries (or “entities” as they’re known) so I will be busy for many years to come chasing the new ones!