Welcome to the website of G7SYW

Hi, let me introduce and tell you a bit about myself before I get to the radio details. My name is Rod (short for Roger) born and living the UK in the small town of Halstead in the county of Essex. I thought that I'd better add the county in as there are three different towns with the name of Halstead!!
I was born in 1962 so that makes me "ancient", and I gained my amateur radio licence way back in 1994 after a long interest in radio, stretching back to the days of listening to the crackles and pops on the shortwave bands. My first receivers being "old" valve sets which I'd rescued from the local dump and with the help of my mentor, spending time in his workshop getting them working again.
During the early 1980's CB radio was very popular in the UK and this is where I entered into two way radio. Still aquiring the knowledge and skills to not only operate transmitters to the required technical level to gain a licence, but also to carry out repairs, and becomming the local "rig" doctor!

After spending many years and far too much money on my hobby of amateur radio, I have considerably downsized my station from many items of equipment to just a single radio as seen in the picture to the left. Larger view
My current setup consists of a Yaesu FT-857d (originally used as my mobile radio), a Hustler 5-BTV vertical antenna at ground level and a co-linear antenna mounted on my chimney for 2m and 70cms. The radio is connected to the computer to allow full CAT control, also a SignaLink SL-1+ interface is used to allow digi-modes.