G4DCH

About Us

I started in radio when I was about 11 or 12 when my parents bought me a Phillips Electronics Construction set. This had a number of projects in it including a two transistor transmitter. This worked on the medium wave band into an ordinary transistor radio and went about 100m when using a long piece of wire. The excitement of being able to transmit sound over even just this short distance started my fascination with radio.

As my experience increased so did the power of my transmitters. Transistors also gave way to valves and power reached a maximum of 25 watts still on the medium wave band.

By the time I was 18 I had been running a pirate radio station on the medium wave band for some 2 years, but eventually the long arm of the GPO decended on my station and transmissions came to an end.

A four year spell in University saw me graduate with a degree in Chemistry followed by a job as a Science teacher at a Comprehensive School in Weston Super Mare. Encourage by another radio amateur, John Burns, I took my RAE in 1974, passing with a distinction. This resulted in my first call sign G8HXK. John sold me his Heathkit HW30 2m transceiver which I used to good effect, both as a base station and as a mobile using a halo antenna and a transistoriised car inverter. A few years later the age of commercially available multi frequency 2m transcievers arrived with the advent of the Trio Kenwood, TR220G.

Mobile radio took off even more with the start of the repeater era with GB3BC from South Wales followed a few years later by GB3WR on the Mendips in Somerset, a repeater I still use very much today.

By 1977 I had taken my morse and passed, followed by the new call sign G4DCH. Not long after getting my full licence I embarked on the construction of a Heathkit HW101. My first HF antenna was a W3DZZ trap dipole which again was loaned from another local amateur. This was later returned but only after making a copy of it, which is the antenna I still use today. The HW101 lasted many many years of good service, but was left unused for many years whilst I took a break from amateur radio. A few years ago I recovered the transceiver from my loft and have recently refurbished and restored it to full working order. It is again used on what I call nostalgia days and at some outdoor events with my local club the Yeovil Amateur Radio Club.

In 1979 I left teaching to persue a non acedemic career. Having forgotten most of my advanced Chemistry learnt at University, I though I would try to exploit my electronics knowledege. Not being as skilled as those graduates who had studied electronics at university, I tried for a position at a major defence company, based in Bristol, who wanted antenna engineers. I was successful and thus became an antenna engineer, mostly working with microwave antennas. Over the years I have been involved in the design of antennas from 40Khz to 50GHz, achieving the distinction in 1990 of being nominated for Microwave Engineer of the Year for an 3GHz tracking antenna.

Over the years antenna design moved into antenna and propogation, then into RF and Antenna Systems. I now work for another large Defence Company based in the West of England as an RF Systems engineer, with a speciality in Satcom Antennas, especially stabilised platform versions for Satcoms on the Move.

During my absence from amateur radio of between 12 and 13 years I did alot of work for Hospital Braodcasting for both Radio Enfield in North London and Sunshine Radio in Weston Super Mare. My early exploits into pirate radio and hospital radio are now documented in "Radio Enfield - Giving the Patients a Real Tonic" by David Scarff.

I came back to Amateur Radio about 5 years ago acquiring a Yaesu FT102 from an old timer who could no longer continue with the hobby. The FT 102 was obatined as "not working" which when I got it home proved to be the case. A trawl of the internet highlighted the problems associated with the transciever especially the relays. Replacing the relays, the lightbulb fuse in the recieve line and a new set of 6146 valve resulted in a fully opertional FT102. The restoration of this is detailed in "other projects".

Once back into the radio mode I then started thinking about operating mobile. The next acquisition was a Yaesu FT7800 which I bought whilst out in Japan working for the company. Being based in Tokyo for the best part of 2 weeks meant that a trip to Akiabarah was something not to be missed. This got us back on 2m and 70cms, but in some respects I thought that not much had changed since back in the 1970s other than a few more repeaters that there was in the early days. What I needed was a change which was when I started to think about HF mobile.

The thought then started to become a reality when I built my first mobile base loaded 80m whip with little sucess. This failure resulted in new designs and the acquisition of an Alinco DX70TH. The rest of the story is detailed in the designs you can find in the rest of this site.

I have not only looked at the designs of the antennas, I have also looked at cheap ways of making the antennas together with building tips for making them. I hope you find the site useful and if you do please let me know via the feedback form or on the blogsite on www.antennas.g4dch.co.uk.

Thanks and Good Luck