Welcome to the QRZ.com listing for Tony/G4LFU

QTH Loc IO84oq - - WAB NY43 Book 19326 - - GQRP 13432 - - Radio Officers' Association 645

The picture above is of myself operating GB2SAS as part of a Special Event Station for Eden Valley Radio Society in 2011.

Licensed in 1981, my interests in the hobby include cw/ssb operating, homebrew, DXing and QRPing.

If your visit to this page results from a QSO on air, then the chances are that I have been using some of my home made equipment in the contact.

The picture below shows my home-built Picastar HF transceiver which I built in the early part of 2012. (The design credit for this rig goes to Peter/G3XJP, but this version also includes subsystems designed by other Hams - and even a bit designed by myself!). Since this design is not available as a Kit, every builder sources all of the parts, and every Picastar looks different!

I generally use the Picastar synchronised with a Flexradio 1500 so that I can 'view' the part of the band that I'm interested in, and I have the two rigs connected via CAT through Ham Radio Deluxe. That set-up is shown in the picture below. It's also great for working Split-DX because I can 'see where the pack is running'!

My Shack also includes two Yaesu Transceivers - a 200W FT2000D and a 100W FT897D. The FT897D usually comes with me when I am out in my campervan as G4LFU/P, and serves as a 2m/70cm rig in the shack.

I have a couple of home-built 'Softrock' TX/RX software defined radios which give an output of 1 Watt, with which I have had no end of fun QRPing, and when conditions dictate, I have two homemade PA's to boost my output a bit, one at 45W and the other at 140W.

My aerial systems are relatively simple and usually subject to some ongoing development or experimentation. I have a homemade 160m horizontal loop, a homemade off-centre fed dipole cut for 80m and a Cushcraft MA6V multiband HF/6m vertical. I have had good DX QSO's using all of these aerials, and to my great delight the 160m loop was not only the least expensive to build, but it also exhibits low noise and performs amazingly well, all things considered, on all bands from 160m to 10m.

My QTH (pictured below) is in Cumbria in the North of England. This house is another one of my self-build projects, although it took me a little longer to build this house than it did to build the Picastar!

My wire aerials are at the back of the house - nature provided me with some mature trees to hang them on!

(The dog in the picture is my best friend, and is suspected of operating the radio when I am out of the house. So, if you consider my operating to be a bit 'RUFF', Beware of the Dog! Hi Hi).

73 de Tony G4LFU