While making contacts on the amateur bands, I often found myself in situations where I could hear a distant station very well, sometimes even at 58 or 59, but simply couldn’t get through. Most of the time, the problem was a pile-up. I could hear the DX station perfectly, they were answering one caller after […]
You may be wondering what becoming a radio amateur in the UK involves, which exams you need to pass and what privileges you receive at each stage. Or perhaps you already live in the UK and are thinking about getting your licence. The UK amateur radio licensing system is based on three successive levels: Foundation, […]
As soon as I passed my Intermediate licence exam, I immediately booked the Full exam. I knew that standard preparation courses usually lasted several months, so I decided to set myself a challenge. I wanted to see whether it was possible to prepare for the exam in just three weeks. It quickly became clear that […]
After passing my first Foundation exam, I decided almost immediately that I wasn’t going to stop there. Since I had already started, I wanted to work my way through the entire UK licensing system and eventually reach Full. I booked my Intermediate exam on the very same day that I passed Foundation, setting the date […]
As I started getting more seriously into amateur radio, it didn’t take long before I began thinking that a newer and better radio might be a good idea. Until then, I had been using an older Yaesu FT-897D and a small Xiegu G90, but I wanted something more modern, more convenient and simply better for […]
My name is Dave. I’m Polish, although I now live in Birmingham in the UK, and I’d like to tell you the story of how I became an amateur radio operator. I grew up in Poland, and my adventure with radio began there when I was about 10 or 11 years old. Quite by accident, […]