Members Spotlight
David Humphries - G4ETG
When I was 11 I was given an Invicta broadcast radio together with headphones for use in my bedroom to listen to Radio Luxembourg. This had the usual Long, Medium and Short Wave bands but also a Trawler Band.
It didn’t take me long to find a group of local Amateurs on Top band AM who I listened to every night.
Skip forward 5 years to 1964 when I joined the Marconi Company Ltd as an apprentice and for the first year was full time at Colchester Technical College where apart from getting my 3rd Year City and Guilds Certificate in Radio Communication I was properly introduced to Ham Radio by our Radio Instructor Frank Howe G3FIJ (SK).
I took part in my first ever field day whilst at Tech College. The only other amateur apart from Frank was Peter Chadwick G3RZP, past President of the RSGB, who was also a Marconi apprentice
It didn’t take me long to find a group of local Amateurs on Top band AM who I listened to every night.
Skip forward 5 years to 1964 when I joined the Marconi Company Ltd as an apprentice and for the first year was full time at Colchester Technical College where apart from getting my 3rd Year City and Guilds Certificate in Radio Communication I was properly introduced to Ham Radio by our Radio Instructor Frank Howe G3FIJ (SK).
I took part in my first ever field day whilst at Tech College. The only other amateur apart from Frank was Peter Chadwick G3RZP, past President of the RSGB, who was also a Marconi apprentice
.Interest waned a bit after joining the Army (Royal Signals) in 1968 and it wasn’t until I returned to Catterick in 1973 that the interest was rekindled through joining the Garrison Club (G3CIO) and also the Royal Signals Amateur Radio Society which also had its HQ Station (G4RS) in the same building. There I met Bob Frarey G3DMK(SK), we spent many hours in his shack converting a Pye Cambridge from Xtal Control to synthesiser. He suggested I should take the RAE. In September 1973 I took the RAE, along with my final C&G Radio Comms exams. My licence G8IQB was issued in February 1974 and I came on the air on 2mtrs AM with a converted Murphy taxi radio for Tx and an AR88 and Sentinel converter for Rx. I had two xtals which gave me Tx frequencies of 145.8Mhz and 145.136Mhz, this was in the days when areas of the UK had segments of the band and you tuned across the band to look for a reply to your CQ. Antennas were a home brew set of crossed horizontal dipoles.
I was posted to Cyprus in 1974 and whilst there took the morse test, obtained the call ZC4DH, and purchased a Heathkit HW101 which I built in 3 days. I used this until leaving Cyprus in 1977 when I swapped it, with a Cypriot amateur, for an Yaesu FT200. A trip to UK in 1976 saw the issue of G4ETG.
Posted to Germany and getting the call DA1OZ (The Wizard of OZ) I was active for the duration of my posting including the secondment to Italy where I had the call I0/DA1OZ. I was also a member of the local Radio Club in Herford
Returning to UK I went to Maidstone in Kent to the Ace High Station on Detling Hill. I was living in West Malling with a very convenient Oak tree in the park behind my house so up went the 80mtr trap dipole and for the 18months I was there I acted as net control for the RSARS 80mtr net on Thursday evenings.
I was posted to Cyprus in 1974 and whilst there took the morse test, obtained the call ZC4DH, and purchased a Heathkit HW101 which I built in 3 days. I used this until leaving Cyprus in 1977 when I swapped it, with a Cypriot amateur, for an Yaesu FT200. A trip to UK in 1976 saw the issue of G4ETG.
Posted to Germany and getting the call DA1OZ (The Wizard of OZ) I was active for the duration of my posting including the secondment to Italy where I had the call I0/DA1OZ. I was also a member of the local Radio Club in Herford
Returning to UK I went to Maidstone in Kent to the Ace High Station on Detling Hill. I was living in West Malling with a very convenient Oak tree in the park behind my house so up went the 80mtr trap dipole and for the 18months I was there I acted as net control for the RSARS 80mtr net on Thursday evenings.
In 1981 I joined the Royal Signals Display Team as the technical advisor, fixer and builder of electronic displays but my “real job” was to operate G3SIG as a demonstration station for the public. I had a Kenwood TS520 line up, Tcvr, Ext VFO, Spkr and AT200 Atu, two 8mtr Racal masts and a trap dipole. We spent the summers from May to September travelling the country visiting county shows, large town shows and the Annual Recruiting show at Bassingbourne where hundreds of school children were bussed in over two days.
In 1984 I was in the Netherlands working in AFCENT and living on the Dutch/Belgium border and spent a lot of time as PA/G4ETG working 2mtr sideband and converting CB’s to 10FM. We had a very active 10FM net in the Maastricht area. I was also a member of the local radio club there.
In 1988 a posting to UK (just about) came my way to the Ace High Station on Shetland. Here the trick is to keep antennas in the air as the wind can be quite high. I managed a full size horizontal loop on top band and crossed 9 element Yagi which surprisingly stayed in the air for the two years I was there. It’s quite odd beaming due north on 2mtrs SSB to work a station in Aberdeen but that’s what you do when there is an aurora.
Leaving Shetland I went to Wanstead, East London as a permanent staff instructor with the TAVR and lived in Whetstone near Barnet, no garden so had to survive with antennas in the loft or else using my FT7B when out on exercise with the TA. This wasn’t a problem as the Training Major was also a regular soldier and Ham.
On retirement from the Army I moved to Stevenage where I was lucky enough to have space for HF, VHF and UHF antennas and from here I ran a TCP/IP link GB7IQB for several years but most of my operating was mobile as I was seldom at home as my new employment involved a fair amount of travel both in UK and overseas. I ran HF, 6mtrs, 4mtrs, 2mtrs and 70cms from the car together with APRS.
In 1984 I was in the Netherlands working in AFCENT and living on the Dutch/Belgium border and spent a lot of time as PA/G4ETG working 2mtr sideband and converting CB’s to 10FM. We had a very active 10FM net in the Maastricht area. I was also a member of the local radio club there.
In 1988 a posting to UK (just about) came my way to the Ace High Station on Shetland. Here the trick is to keep antennas in the air as the wind can be quite high. I managed a full size horizontal loop on top band and crossed 9 element Yagi which surprisingly stayed in the air for the two years I was there. It’s quite odd beaming due north on 2mtrs SSB to work a station in Aberdeen but that’s what you do when there is an aurora.
Leaving Shetland I went to Wanstead, East London as a permanent staff instructor with the TAVR and lived in Whetstone near Barnet, no garden so had to survive with antennas in the loft or else using my FT7B when out on exercise with the TA. This wasn’t a problem as the Training Major was also a regular soldier and Ham.
On retirement from the Army I moved to Stevenage where I was lucky enough to have space for HF, VHF and UHF antennas and from here I ran a TCP/IP link GB7IQB for several years but most of my operating was mobile as I was seldom at home as my new employment involved a fair amount of travel both in UK and overseas. I ran HF, 6mtrs, 4mtrs, 2mtrs and 70cms from the car together with APRS.
