My name is Andrew Martin and I live in the pleasant and peaceful rural countryside of County Kildare.
The nearest village to me is Rathangan which is about 2km away. The nearest major towns are Kildare and Newbridge and the famous Curragh Racecourse is also close by.
The capital city, Dublin is 50kms away.
My locator is IO63mf. WAI square is N62.
I was an avid listener for many years but after a chance meeting with Fergal Sharkey, a licensed amateur and the singer with the well known Irish punk band The Undertones, I asked him about a couple of radio books he once listed in his choice of favourite books in an interview with him published in the NME music magazine in 1983. He told me he had a ham radio licence and he gently encouraged me to get my licence with the following advice, "get your f*&%ing licence!". I eventually got my licence in early 2005 whilst working in London by taking the Foundation Licence course at the Bromley District Amateur Radio Society in Kent, England. I was issued with the callsign M3IYB and followed this up shortly after with the Intermediate licence callsign 2E0IRL.
I returned to Ireland in September 2005 and took the Irish Radio Experimenters exam in January 2006 which happened to be the first multiple choice format exam run by ComReg and the IRTS. I was issued with the Class B callsign EI3GSB.
In February 2012 I passed the morse test, applied for the Class A licence and was issued the callsign EI8KF on Friday 9th of March 2012. I'm still fairly new to CW and rely on a mixture of MRP40 and my ear to get me through a QSO! If it's a regular QSO I always send by hand on a straight key so please be patient with me and apologies in advance for my poor CW skills!
My current setup consists of the following.
Kenwood TS-850S/AT
Kenwood TS-570DGE
Kenwood TS-790E
Kenwood TS-60S
Kenwood TH-F7E
Icom IC-7000
Yaesu FT-817ND
I use a Heil GM-5 mic with the TS-850 and for a bit of extra power I use a Linear Amp UK Ranger 811H.
Currently the antennae in use are a Comet H-422 or dipole for HF and a Watson colinear for VHF/UHF.
Another of my interests is aviation so please check out my aviation photo website at http://andrewmartin.eu
I'm continually adding more pictures to the site as I continue the job of scanning my old slides which in my collection date back 25 years.
I also have a blog at http://ei8kf.blog.com which I hope to update at fairly regular intervals.
Cheers,
Andrew
I love music and play a bit of guitar and bass. My black Gibson Les Paul is my pride and joy! Here's a few of my guitars.
I also enjoy aviation photography, I currently use two Canon 40D and a variety of lenses. Here's a sample of my work.
Last modified: 2013-05-16 09:30:35, 6923 bytes cached
