Amateur Radio

I first became interested in radio as a young lad during the second world war. With my father's help I made several crystal sets all of which worked well.  A school chum, whose father worked for RCA (the Radio Corporation of America), was in a position to obtain parts and designed a short wave radio set.  I assisted with the chassis work, my father having a well equipped workshop.  This too worked well.

Over the next few years my interest in electronics developed, mainly in the field of audio and the then new invention of tape recording.  In the 50s I started playing around  mending radios and record players and eventually decided to make electronics my profession. 

Subsequently I studied to become a radio amateur, commonly known as a 'ham'.  I sat the Radio Amateur Examination around 1960 and the Morse test a year later, finally getting my licence in 1961.  Over the next many years I operated regularly, but my main passion was building equipment rather than operating.

In the late 80s and early 90s I became interested in putting back into the hobby something of what it had given me over many years and I joined the Radio Amateurs Emergency Network, Raynet for short.

Raynet was born out of the East Coast flood disaster in 1953.  Traditionally at the time of major natural disaster the first information to leak out to the outside world has come from radio amateurs.  Subsequently an organization was set up to formalize the provision of back up communications for the emergency services.  Today similar organizations exist throughout the world.

We train by providing communications at many charity events such as bike rides, walks, major gatherings, anywhere where health and safety is a necessity.

To become a radio ham today is relatively easy.  You need a training session in order to understand the licence regulations and have a limited knowledge of the technical side of the hobby.  A number of radio clubs throughout the country run these training sessions, the location of these can be found on the web site of the RSGB, the Radio Society of Great Britain.

This first level of entry into amateur radio is the Foundation level and gives you limited access to the radio spectrum.  To progress onto the next highest level, the Intermediate Licence, you will need to learn more about the technical aspects.  The highest level is the Full Licence for which you have to sit a multiple choice exam paper.  To get this level of knowledge you can again find courses at evening classes.  Alternatively visit the online course at www.ukradioamateur.co.uk.  This course was originally put together by a group of radio hams, me being one of them, to provide ready access to the information needed by someone wanting to get a full licence.  Over the years this site has expanded to include the Foundation course and the Intermediate course.

Recently I have begun to become more active in the hobby, other than just Raynet.  I have just erected a long wire antenna that is around 50m long and some 5m high.  My Kenwood TS950SDX has its own built in antenna tuner and seems to load up on most LF and HF bands, with very low SWR.  I have a regular sked , one a month, with other members of the old Clifton Amateur Radio Society G3GHN that used to meet in New Cross, South London, back in the 60s and 70s.  The club only exists now as a contest group, but we old timers still chew the cud about old times!  As time progresses I expect to find others to talk to on a regular basis.

The picture on the left shows some of the radio shack.  The main rig is on the left while in the top right hand corner can just be made out the Icom IC810H VHF/UHF rig.  Next to the main rig is the power unit for the 810.  On the right hand side is the workshop PC which does not appear to interfere with either rig and is used for log keeping amongst other things.  For additional information on the antennas click here.

If you are using a beam antenna, when operating on VHF/UHF, as well as some HF bands,  you will need to point this directly at the station you are working.  This is especially important during Raynet operations.  If you have a map that covers both your operating location as well as the station you are working you can take a reasonable guess.  If no map is available but you know the National Grid References (NGR) of both locations you can work out not only the antenna bearing but the distance between the stations.  This involves trigonometry and does have a number of pitfalls.  To avoid this I have written a computer program to do the calculations for you.  If you would like a copy click here.  This will not work on any PC running an operating system earlier than XP and only then if you have Framework installed and the latest service packs.  Both of these can be downloaded for free off the Microsoft web site.

The links above will take you to other sites devoted to amateur radio and Raynet in particular.