It all
started back in 1979. I had repaired a TV and was re-installing it
at a house in Wakefield, when the customer's son asked "do you fix
chicken boxes, mate?" (pause) "it's not giving any numbers out".
The "chicken box" turned out to be an illegal Midland 80-channel CB
radio, with (as I found out later) no transmit. I told the lad that
I would take it with me and have a go at fixing it, and this I did
within a couple of days. After a few 'test chats' with other CB'ers
I found myself hooked, so quickly offered the repair at no charge
as long as I could keep the radio on loan for a few weeks. This he
agreed to, as it was only a spare unit.
The hobby took a turn in October 1981, the day
CB was legalized in the UK - we were given 40 channels of FM
(Frequency Modulation). This just did not line up with the rest of
the world, but for local contacts the system worked quite well.
Unfortunately, Santa delivered a lot of CB radios for Xmas 1981...
in fact by the New Year we were left with 40 channels of
kids/teenagers/adults(!!) just swearing at each other. It became
almost impossible to have a sensible conversation with anyone over
the air! Deciding to go back to operating on the illegal AM
(Amplitude Modulation) and SSB (Single Side Band) CB channels, I
purchased a Kenwood TS820s amateur radio transceiver, and converted
part of it to operate on the worldwide CB radio frequencies. A
three-element aerial at the bottom of the garden helped me make
many contacts all over the world during the next couple of years,
with the added bonus of being able to listen to most of the HF
amateur radio bands.
As time went by, I became more and more
interested in obtaining a full 'Ham' licence, so in September 1983
I attended Wakefield College to do the R.A.E. (Radio Amateurs
Examination) course and passed both parts of the examination with
distinction in June 1984. This allowed me a 'class B' certificate,
and the call sign G1IGY, but with no access to the HF bands. For
that I needed a 'class A' licence, and this required a Morse code
pass at 12 words a minute!
So, back to school, and unlike the R.A.E., I
found Morse code very, very hard to learn. However, perseverance
(and a lot of hair pulling ) paid off, for in April 1985 I passed
the test at the Hull coastal station... HF here I come! The paper
work arrived, but not in time to apply for my full licence before
jetting off to Malta, so I took all the necessary documents with
me, and obtained the Maltese call 9H3DZ, which in fact I still hold
today. On returning home, I was allocated the call sign G0BQB.
Over the next few years I had many hundreds of
contacts, both on voice, and on the Morse key, with me becoming
more interested in the latter. In 1988 I joined
The Wakefield & District
Radio Society, where my interest in CW (Morse) flourished, and
I soon found myself teaching that which only a few years ago I had
found so hard to learn! I must admit that the look of glee on the
face of somebody who has just passed the Morse test, is probably
the most satisfying sight I have ever seen - it makes it all
worthwhile. In the early 90's I was accepted as an R.S.G.B. (Radio
Society of Great Britain) Morse examiner with the West Yorkshire team, where I
conducted tests both at 5 and 12 words a minute until July 25th 2003, when the
morse code test pass was longer required to obtain a full class "A"
licence.
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