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M0KEO Ian Neal Email: M0KEO@neal.scot Locator: IO94es WAB Square: NZ23 CQ Zone: 14 ITU Zone: 27
I'm relatively new to this hobby, even though I've been interested for over 50 years! Let me explain - I first joined my school radio club in the early 70s and was encouraged to go for my amateur exam by my godfather who was a keen operator. In those days a Morse competency test was required and I didn't have it then, so I did short wave listening for a while. Then of course, life got in the way and O-levels, A-levels, degree, career, children etc etc took first place.
Then Covid hit and, like many, I used the opportunity (and the lack of the need for Morse competency) to go for the Foundation exam. That was supported by Essex Ham (at hamtrain.co.uk) whose course was great. I sailed through that in June 2020 and got M7IGN, bought the Intermediate book and took and passed that exam in December 2020, gaining 2E0INX, then bought the Full book. I opened that and realised that I was out of my depth on the electronics and maths stuff and needed help. Clubs locally were still not meeting so I approached the Bath Based Distance Learning people. I took their course and passed the Full Exam with Merit in December 2022. Huge thanks to Steve Hartley (G0FUW), Martyn Vann (G3RLV) and the team for all their help in getting me here!
Working
I work mostly SSB, FT4 and FT8 between 10 and 20 metres, but have recently been playing with CW (Morse Code), which is great fun. I've been having a lot of success with FT4 recently. See the bottom of this page for an extract from my logbook.
Currently well over 2000 successful contacts in over 100 countries (LoTW currently has confirmed contacts in over 110 different countries, so I have the DXCC certificate!) Furthest of these is David (ZL2OK) in New Zealand (18,359 km), Anthony (VK6AL) in Australia (14,580 km), Higuchi (JA0FIL) in Japan (12,349 km), Hunsi (YC1JGA) in Indonesia (12,003 km), Luis (PY2VH) in Brazil (9,614 km) and Frans (ZS6FVN) in South Africa (9,405 km)
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