About G4ILO
Hello! I'm Julian Moss. I am 56 years old 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 spend more of my radio time tinkering or listening than operating.
When I do go on the air, I enjoy a good conversation. I'm happy when, at the end of a contact, people make a point of saying how much they've enjoyed the chat. 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.
I think it is a shame that so much emphasis is placed on the competitive aspects of the hobby instead of the joys of learning about 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 the big CW contests such as CQ WW. It's fun to see how far I can work, and whether I can log some exotic prefixes. 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 I 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. I also use the K3 on 2m at up to 50W output using a Spectrum Communications transverter and Microset linear amplifier.
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, a dipole for 10m and a multi-band shortened dipole that covers 80m, 40m and 20m. 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 Moxon beam, while for FM I use a Slim Jim made from 300-ohm ribbon. There is little 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. I also have a 20m MFJ Cub transceiver built from a kit, an HB-1A portable QRP CW transceiver made in China and a Yaesu FT-817ND.
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 particularly 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.
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, .
