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GM4FDM
Tom Wylie
This is me - this is what I look like - born in 1946, I was a war
baby. This makes me just over 50 years of age!
. I was raised in Ayrshire, in the south west of Scotland, but moved
to the outskirts of Paisley in 1955. I am still here and will probably
leave in a fine pine box! I am married to my wife Mary and have
two children. My eldest is Jennifer who is a maxilofacial surgeon
at a hospital in England. She is 23 years of age. My son Colin is
still at College studying sound and audio engineering. He holds
the novice call 2M0AAW. He is 20 years of age.
On leaving High School, I became a police officer where I served
for 30 years before "retiring". When I left the Force
I turned over a new chapter in my book of life and now work for
a Company in the Security Industry. We install Closed Circuit TV
Systems.
I first became interested in Ham Radio at school. I became a short
wave listener on the broadcast bands, when my father bought our
first transistorised radio. I re-located the old family "valved"
radio to my bedroom to listen to Radio Hilversum and The Voice of
America. I remember on a Saturday morning hearing my first Ham on
40m A.M. Not in the morning, but Amplitude Modulation. Yes, in those
days, GM3RPM had a Heathkit DX-40U with and old AR88 receiver. I
was introduced to ham radio and was immediately hooked. I passed
the RAE in 1976 and took the code test the same year and became
GM4FDM. Class 'B' Licences were available in those days, but you
had to be a plumber to get onto 70cms. There were no such things
as handhelds or even PMR. And so I soldiered on with my K.W. Viceroy
Tx and home made Heathkit Rx. Soon I upgraded to a K.W. Vespa Transmitter
with matching K.W. Receiver. I had to learn the art of netting.
I wonder how many people actually accurately net onto other stations
today? I know that unless I keep my filters reasonable wide on CW
I can miss a whole hoard of callers, simply because they are too
far away from my frequency! My first transceiver was the Kenwood
TS520 or the Trio, as it was known in the UK. In those days Kenwoods
were food mixers or some other household gadget. It was then I took
an interest in DX and Contesting. One was a way and a means to the
other. I became interested in DXCC and foun that during the major
contests, such as the CQ World Wide, I could work many Countries.
Unfortunately whilst on vacation my house was burgled and my transceiver
was stolen. The insurance bought the TS530S which I had for many
years. The Countries total began to accumulate and I became interested
in Island Hopping. I purchased a little ICOM 735 which I had for
may years. It travelled all over Scotland, up mountains, cross rivers,
over Islands. I strapped it to my mountain bike and cycled over
Tiree, Coll, Islay, Jura and Gigha. My antennas started with a simple
20m dipole. From then I purchased a second hand TA-33 jnr and this
helped my Countries total above 100. When that disintigrated in
a storm, I went on to cubical quads which I home built. I was totally
fixed on quads for about 10 years, building 3 and 4 element monoband
quads. I still believe my 4 element on 10m during sun spot maximum
worked like a dream! On converting back to yagi's, I purchased a
TET 3 element monobander for 20m and lived for many years on 20m.
Unfortunately two winters ago, after a very sever storm it became
a three element vee beam. I was lucky to pick up a 5 element tyri
bander at that time and put it on my tower at about 50 feet where
it still resides.
I use about 50 - 50 CW/SSB and have no preference for either. I
go where the DX is. I still enjoy contesting and travel down to
the farm of Alex, GM4NFC where we operate as GM6X and GM7X. My greatest
Contesting success was in the 1996 ARRL SSB Contest when I attained
World Number 5 Single Band 20m. Contesting is very difficult when
you are 57 degrees north. Thats half way up Hudson's Bay, or on
the southern tip of Alaska, to you!
Two years ago I purchased a Yaesu FT1000MP which I have grown to
love. I have just returned from the north of Scotland when I helped
operate GM7V one of the first real Multi - Multi operations from
Scotland. You can read how we got on on my home page. For logging
I use a home built 486DX computer which has 4 Mgs RAM and a 700
Mgs hard disk. I use a software package called Turbolog version
3, which does rig control, cluster support,CW, record keeping and
QSL card printing. Unfortunately, I still have to pour my own whisky!I
am a member of the RSGB HF Contest Committee and have helped out
adjudicating the IOTA Contest as well as the RSGB 7Mhz Contest.
Contest adjudication is a very time consuming past time and I could
write a whole book about it too. I love to travel and have visited
most of western Europe, The Canary Islands, Malta (I am 9H3RT).
I have travelled extensively throughout the Western USA, driven
across the Rocky Mountains from Vancouver to Calgary. I have been
to the mining town of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, and driven
all over the south west corner of that vast Continent. I have also
paid fleeting visits to Singapore and Hong Kong. Recently I have
taken to travel again, this time within my own Country. Along with
GM3UTQ, GM4YMA, GM3COB and GM3NIG, we have activated IOTA Islands
such as St. Kilde, Flannan, Shiant, The Summer Isles, Treshnish,
and a host of other non IOTA Islands. As part of GM5VG we have taken
part in the last two IOTA Contests from The Island of Gigha - EU-008.
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