April 2012

First licenced 1971 as G8FFV, 1975 South Africa as ZR5BD,1976 took the CW test in Durban & became ZS5YH then G4GGZ.

QTH is Aldershot, well known as the home of the british army, located on the Hampshire/Surrey border 50Km South West of London-my locator is IO91OF. I'm not ex-military as Aldershot has a large civilian population as well. Farnborough is only 3Km away & famous in aviation history (Colonel Cody) & the bi-yearly air show.

Retired now, career was mainly in radiocomms working for Schlumberger, Storno/Motorola, Barlow Communication & Vodafone in the UK, South Africa & UAE. Specialised in designing production RF test equipment then onto radio system installation, commissioning & operations in the UK, Eire & the Middle East both on & offshore. While in ZS land I met Dr. Wadley several times-famous for the Wadley loop RX design.

I build, repair & modify radios & other equipment & experiment with antennas & was very involved with establishing one of the first 2M UK repeaters GB3SN back in the early 70's.

In 2011 I came back into ham radio after 15 years QRT-current station ICOM 746 original, Cushcraft R5 vertical in stealth mode (up inside a tree) & QRV only on 6-20M at present, 12M especially. I mainly use my shortened name Jerry on the bands.

Prefer morse but will never be a natural CW op unlike my brother Mike G3KMO but keep plodding on regardless-have a slight medical problem that comes & goes with my keying hand so if I dit dit dit a few times in qso please bear with me!

Other interests include fishing, gardening, reading scifi & of course the family with seven grandaughters-the youngest Maysa & Soumayah are with grandad in the photo.

73, Jerry