Ham Radio All Portable Discussion Zone
Oct 4, 2026 · 1 hr 3 min · 12 segments
Graham G3MFJ has been building electronics since neighbors started dropping off broken valve radios for him to fix as a child. Licensed since 1957, he eventually found his way to the G QRP Club…
The third follow-up is you mentioned top band, or 160, uh, megahertz I think it is.
Um-
... meters.
160 meters, yes.
Uh, that, uh, frequency or that band, I, I've not really had a lot of experience with it, and I didn't even realize how, how much it was a popular band in the UK in the early days until I interviewed, uh, a f- somebody, Mike, G3, uh, TSO.
He was talking about it a little bit.
But apparently 160 meters was, was like where a lot of people spent a lot of time in the early days of ham radio, right?
[laughs]
And, uh, they used to come round and visit you, did the, uh, licensing authority, and they were part of the GPO Telephones company, which of which more later.
But, uh, they used to come and they used to measure how many watts you were running on your, on your transmitter by measuring the voltage and the milliamps to the PA stage.
When we, when we started, we obviously started with Morse, and then, uh, we got a bit cleverer and built an our audio amplifier and, uh, modulated the, the thing in AM.
SSB was something nobody knew anything about in those days, something completely foreign it was.
He was on top band then, but, uh, he was an, a, a local amateur, and, uh, we all on- wondered, "How, how on earth did you copy that?" 'Cause there was no...
The third follow-up is you mentioned top band, or 160, uh, megahertz I think it is.
Um-
... meters.
160 meters, yes.
Uh, that, uh, frequency or that band, I, I've not really had a lot of experience with it, and I didn't even realize how, how much it was a popular band in the UK in the early days until I interviewed, uh, a f- somebody, Mike, G3, uh, TSO.
He was talking about it a little bit.
But apparently 160 meters was, was like where a lot of people spent a lot of time in the early days of ham radio, right?
[laughs]
And, uh, they used to come round and visit you, did the, uh, licensing authority, and they were part of the GPO Telephones company, which of which more later.
But, uh, they used to come and they used to measure how many watts you were running on your, on your transmitter by measuring the voltage and the milliamps to the PA stage.
When we, when we started, we obviously started with Morse, and then, uh, we got a bit cleverer and built an our audio amplifier and, uh, modulated the, the thing in AM.
SSB was something nobody knew anything about in those days, something completely foreign it was.
He was on top band then, but, uh, he was an, a, a local amateur, and, uh, we all on- wondered, "How, how on earth did you copy that?" 'Cause there was no...
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