About G4ILO
I'm Julian Moss. I am aged 57 and live in Cockermouth, a small market town in the north-west of England, in the county of Cumbria, on the edge of the English Lake District. With my wife Olga, I run Tech-Pro.net, a website that reviews and recommends computer utilities such as anti-virus, anti-spyware and data recovery software. Tech-Pro provides the web hosting for the G4ILO's Shack website and my other two ham radio websites: Ham Directory and Wainwrights On The Air, so I hope you'll pay it a visit the next time you are looking for software!
I was first licensed as a radio amateur in 1974, as G8ILO, when I lived in Essex. This was a class B, 144MHz and up, license. I upgraded to class A, all bands, in 1979, when I got my current call G4ILO. But my interest in radio goes back way beyond that. My late father was a hi-fi enthusiast in the 1960s when the cheapest way to get a stereo amplifier was to build it yourself. As a child, I was fascinated by this equipment - the glass tubes with their strange internal construction, the small resistors with their coloured bands - and this sparked my interest. For years I built radios and listened on the short wave bands, never having any particular desire to go on the air myself. Even today, I probably spend more of my radio time tinkering or listening than operating.
When I do go on the air, I enjoy a good chat. I'm happy when, at the end of a contact, people make a point of saying how much they've enjoyed the contact. Sadly, much of the operation today seems to have degenerated into a form of electronic lotto. It's nice to make a DX contact in order to see how far your signal will go, but I can't see the point in spending hours in pileups just so I can tick a country or prefix off a list, especially when it seems to cause such a lot of bad tempered behaviour.
I think it is a shame that so much emphasis is placed on the competitive aspects of the hobby instead of the joys of experimenting with radio and talking to different people from all over the world. That's not to say that I don't like contests. I do enjoy operating for a few hours in some of the CW contests such as CQ WW if I can spare the time. It's fun to see how far I can work and whether I can log some exotic prefixes, and it's nice to be able to join in a worldwide activity and give away a few points. But I think that the hobby has far more to offer than the opportunity for sport.
My radio station
My radio station is 100% Stealth. By "stealth" that I mean that I have no visible amateur radio antennas at my QTH and try to keep my ham radio activities a secret from the neighbours.
My main radio is an Elecraft K3, which was self-assembled from a modular kit. This is powered by a Diamond GSV3000 power supply, and is used on the HF bands and 6m at powers of up to 100W. On VHF SSB I use an Icom IC-910H which also runs at up to 100W, while for FM and APRS I use a Kenwoord TM-D710E.
My antennas are all located in the loft (attic) of our very small house. Currently I am using an MFJ magnetic loop covering 40m - 15m and a multi-band shortened dipole for 80m, 40m and 20m that also works on 15m with an ATU and has been modified to cover 10m and 6m too with the addition of extra "fan" dipole elements. Despite the apparent handicaps of using low power with attic antennas, my HF station puts a good signal into Europe and I have made DX contacts as far afield as South America and Antarctica.
On 2m SSB I use a rotatable SuperMoxon beam, while for FM I use a Slim Jim made from 300-ohm ribbon. There is not a great deal of VHF activity in this part of the world - even the repeaters are dead most of the time - and the Lake District mountains block any chances of working DX during normal propagation. I have, however, worked into Spain and France during Sporadic-E openings.
Other radios in G4ILO's Shack include my prized Elecraft K2 which I built from a kit in 1999 and ran as a QRP station for many years. I also have a 20m MFJ Cub transceiver built from a kit, a Yaesu FT-817ND and several hand-held FM radios that operate on 10m, 2m and 70cm.
Modes of operation
I am sometimes on the air during weekday afternoons while taking a break from work. My preferred mode of operation is PSK31 so look for me around 14.071MHz. With only low power I have had solid contacts with stations on the other side of the Atlantic and have even had Stateside DX reply to my CQ calls.
I also like to work CW during contests. As mentioned earlier, I do not compete seriously in contests but I like to come on and see how many stations I can work and try to contact some DX.
Due to using low power in order to avoid RFI with my attic antennas I don't often use phone, but now that I have the K3 with 100W I do use SSB a bit more often.
I am interested in Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) and often leave my 2m radio running as an APRS internet gateway when it is not being used for anything else.
I also like to take a hand-held radio and go out for a walk on the local hills. I started an Adventure Radio scheme called Wainwrights On The Air to encourage more radio activity from the hills of the English Lake District. When I am out and about you can check my position using APRS.
Blog
On this website you will find articles I have written about various aspects of the amateur radio hobby that take my interest, as well as the descriptions, documentation and downloads for a number of radio-related programs I have written.
For news of what I am doing now, and other thoughts about ham radio, please visit my blog. You might also enjoy reading One Foot in the Grave, my latest blog about the trials and tribulations of live in present day Britain from the point of view of someone who would be approaching retirement if they didn't keep increasing the retirement age.
