WELCOME TO THE ME PAGE

Name: Ray
QTH: Worthing, Sussex, on the south coast of England
Locator: IO 90 TT
Favourite drink: Foster's

I've been a radio amateur since nineteen-seventy. Starting out as G8CUH, I finally took the cw test and got my G4. Like many hams of my age, I began with a WS No19. What a great piece of kit that was back in the sixties and seventies. I must have had half a dozen 19 sets, never paying more than 30 shillings each. Yes, one pound fifty-pence. I had 18 sets, a B44 VHF rig I used on 4 metres, a 62 set, a 52 set... Now that was a great rig. An 813 in the final? Bloody hell, that was a transmitter and a half.

It was all good fun, and still is. Although the bands are a lot quieter these days, I still enjoy tuning around and chatting to hams the world over. The 10m FM repeaters are interesting, when the band is open. But top band is probably my favorite. Is this because I was thrown up in the sixties with the medium wave pirates? More than likely! Check my LINKS page for some great pics of Radio Caroline.

What am I doing now? Reminiscing, I suppose. Am I just a sad anorak, or is there something almost orgasmic about a ship on the North Sea sporting a 300-foot mast and a fifty-kilowatt medium-wave transmitter down below? I can still hear the tune Caroline by The Fortunes ringing in my ears. OK, I’m a sad anorak.

Actually, I’m having fun taking part in the Five Megs Experiment. Stuck between 40 and 80, it’s a pretty interesting band. OK, it’s not a band. It’s five spot frequencies. The initial flood of NOV holders didn’t swamp five megs, as was expected. In fact, there are very few amateurs participating in the experiment now. In my youth, a lot of would-be CCF stations used five megs. By would-be, I mean... No, no. I will not use the P-word on my web site! PIRATE... Whoops, I said it.

Now there's a little bit of nostalgia on the right. Yes, it's an 813. What an incredibly simple and yet effective bottle this is. It must be as old as the hills, or the dales, come to that. What was the heater voltage? Four volts at ten amps? Something like that. A shack warmer, not to mention a cloud warmer. The anode would glow red with a purple haze and ... Ah, well. Those days have long since gone. Or have they?

Anyone for sticking 1500 volts on the anode of an 813 and having a QSO on top band? AM, of course. Anode and screen grid modulation. Two KT88 valves in push-pull for the modulation amp, and we're away! Away with the clouds, I reckon. There's nothing wrong with dreaming. OK, back to reality.

A face to the name. Here I am in the shack, on the computer.

Here I am being silly with Martin, my brother-in-law...

And this is what happened when I took my wife on!