Packet Personalities - David Taylor, G4EBT

How I got into amateur radio..

I guess we all have something that sparked off our interest in this wonderful but quirky hobby of ours. For me, the defining moment for what became a lifelong hobby was at the age of ten in 1949, while on holiday from Nottingham at a seaside Bed and Breakfast in Mablethorpe.

The landlady's son invited me listen on headphones to his one-valve, kit-built, TRF short-wave receiver. Back in those far-off post-war days at an impressionable age, it all seemed so exciting - what were all those Morse code signals? Where were they from? Were they friend or foe - trawlers or spies? (I still don't know!).

At that time, simple circuits abounded in magazines such as the long since defunct "Hobbies Weekly", "Radio Constructor", "PW", and the Babani "Boy's Book of Crystal Sets". Lots of ex-WD surplus shops existed from which to buy components that wouldn't make too big a hole in a child's pocket money.

I left school at 15 in 1954 and joined the "Gas Board" as an apprentice. I still have the first copy of Practical Wireless bought with my first week's wages, featuring a "Short-wave Three" as a cover project.

I became an SWL in my teens, and throughout my teens and twenties I built several simple receivers with varying degrees of success. Eddystone receivers were seen as the pinnacle but at starting prices of £50 when an adults' week's wages was £10 - £15, they were quite out of reach to all but the wealthy.

I vowed that when I grew up, "if I'm really, really rich, I'm going to buy one of those". It wasn't until I was in my 50s that I realised that dream, became a member of the Eddystone User Group and acquired a 940 general coverage and an EA12 ham-band receiver.

Several house moves, two sons and career commitments meant that it wasn't until my mid 30s in 1974 that I passed the RAE and became licensed briefly as G8JIN, then later that year as G4EBT. Sadly, despite my best endeavours, neither of my two sons caught the amateur radio "bug".

The main focus of my interest continued to be construction and experimentation, and I make most of my own PCBs using a home-brew UV light box. I progressed to more ambitious projects such as the PW "Purbeck" oscilloscope, "Robin" frequency counter, "Epiphyte" 80 Metre QRP SSB transceiver and lots of other bits and pieces. I also enjoy aerial experimentation.

In the mid-1990s I was introduced to packet radio via a club project - a Baycom style interface. A glut of ex PMR rigs led to an enjoyable period of modding them for ham radio use for simplex, repeaters and packet. I still take a peek at packet most days, and find Winpack a delight to use and a lasting tribute to its creator, Roger Barker, G4IDE, now sadly silent key.

My local RF packet BBS, GB7HUL, closed down in 2001, but for me all was not lost. Since then I've used telnet to connect from Hull to GB7FCR at Blackpool. Packet users seem to fall into two categories - "purists" who say that packet should be 100% RF, and "pragmatists" like me, who say that a threadbare RF packet network that plugs the gaps with telnet where RF links are non-existent, is better than no network at all.

Apart from reading and writing packet bulletins, my main "radio" interest these days is the collection and renovation of vintage valve radios, a bit of QRP, and constructing of projects from 1960s/70s PW and Radio Constructor magazines.

My other interests are woodworking; DIY, and riding my BMW R80RT motorbike (on sunny days) - a retirement present to myself when I retired from British Gas in 1994 as General Manager for Humberside, after 40 years service.

I'd naively thought retirement would bring more time for amateur radio, but after a decade of practice I've found that being a husband, father of two married sons, and grandfather of three attention-seeking but charming little girls seriously eats into "hobby time"!

See you on packet sometime?

73 - David Taylor
G4EBT

QTH: Cottingham, East Yorkshire.
December 2004.

Other articles by G4EBT
The fascination of packet radio - a personal perspective

David Taylor G4EBT