We lived in a 2 bedroom bungalow and I have a 200ft North facing garden. This has enabled me to put up a long wire centre fed aerial tuned with a CAPCO SPC3000 ATU enabling operations on all HF Amateur bands. I am still in the bungalow to this day.

On the roof I have put vertical colinears for 144MHz and 432MHz and for both HF and VHF operations I use a Yaesu FT-747 Transceiver. I also have 50MHz capability using the same rig and a Halo antenna on the roof.

Since April 1999 I was voted in as Hon. Secretary for my local club based in Croydon, Surrey. This is the SRCC (Surrey Radio Contact Club) and I am also the Webmaster for it's WEB site that can be accessed on the link below.

My late wife, Mary, was diagnosed with MS in 1978, but this did not stopped us to go travelling and in the last 10 years we had visited Australia four times. On two of the trips I took out a VK licence, namely VK6BQG and did some operating with a dual band VHF handheld. Our last trip downunder was in 2001 when we also visited New Zealand

After taking early retirment form BT in 2000, I spent the next 2 years with Interoute Telecommunications. I am now self-employed as a Computer Consultant looking after small business computer systems and also repairing/advising on home PC's. A few years ago I joined the RadioFairs partnership which organises the highly successful West London Radio and Electronics shows held twice annually at Kempton Park. Next show is being held on Sunday 18th April 2010.

In July 2007 I took the opportunity to fulfil a lifelong ambition to travel on the Swiss Railways and took a holiday with Great Rail Journeys on their Glacier Express tour. It changed my life and I am now a Tour Manager with them and took out 6-tours in 2008, and 4 so far in 2009, visiting a wide range of Swiss destinations and also Vienna, Salzburg, Koln, Paris, Budapest and Bratislava. I have taken out two crusies, one on the Danube, and one on the Soane/Rhone, along with Glacier Expresses, Golden Panoramic, Jungfraujoch, and The Sound of Music. I have a tour lined up for Christmas 2009 in Edinburgh and Inverness, and a Winter Austrian Tyrol tour next March 2010.

In late 2007 I met my girl friend Caroline who introduced me to camping and the 3-Choirs festival. In late 2008 we treated ourselves to a Motor Caravan and have had many holidays/breaks away in it during 2009. In late August 2009 we moved in together in North Tonbridge.

More info and photos in now contained on Facebook.

73

Ray G4FFY