Ian Neal

Durham,
England

Email: M0KEO@neal.scot

I'm quite new to this hobby, even though I've been interested for over 50 years!  Let me explain - I first joined my school radio club in the early 70s and was encouraged to go for my amateur exam by my godfather who was a keen operator.  In those days a Morse competency was required and I didn't have it then, so I did short wave listening for a while.  Then of course, life got in the way and O-levels, A-levels, degree, career, children etc etc took first place. 

Then Covid hit and, like many, I used the opportunity (and the lack of the need for a high level of Morse competency) to go for the Foundation exam.  That was supported by Essex Ham (at hamtrain.co.uk) whose course was great.  I sailed through that in June 2020 and got M7IGN, bought the Intermediate book and took and passed that exam in December 2020, gaining 2E0INX, then bought the Full book.  I opened that and realised that I was out of my depth on the electronics and maths stuff and needed help.  Clubs locally were still not meeting so I approached the Bath Based Distance Learning people.  I took their course and passed the Full Exam with Merit in December 2022.  Huge thanks to Steve Hartley (G0FUW), Martyn Vann (G3RLV) and the team for all their help in getting me here!

I work mostly SSB and FT8 between 10 and 20 metres, but have recently been playing with CW (Morse Code), which is great fun.

(See the bottom of this page for an extract from my logbook.)

Current equipment: Transceiver: Yaesu ft-991A Handhelds: Wouxun KG-UV9D Mate and Baofeng BF-F8HP, both with upgraded antennas   Accessories: mAT-125E antenna tuner Yaesu M-70 desktop microphone Sharman LM-40 PSU Tigertronics sound/data interface Kent straight Morse key AV-1000 VSWR power meter
Base antennas: HF - MFJ-1836 6-band (6-20 m) Cobweb V/UHF - J-pole
Logging: LOG4OM QRZ.com
Locator: IO94es         WAB Square: NZ23         CQ Zone:  14          ITU Zone: 27