I’ve had an interest in radio communications since I was a youngster in the Air Cadets, through my teens I was always put off of getting licensed mostly because of the large amount “work” involved in getting started, not to mention the requirement to learn morse code.
During the COVID-19 pandemic I started to mess around with a cheap DVB-T USB stick, SDRSharp & an antenna made from the telescopic elements of an old TV aerial. At this point there was no real objective other than to have something to tinker with and distract from what was going on around the world.
After a couple of hours of tinkering, I had myself a dipole antenna for the 2M Amateur Band that would happily pick up local FM Broadcast stations. I spent many hours watching the waterfall in the SDRSharp looking for something, anything.
One evening with the dipole hanging in the window, there it was signs of life on 2M FM. The signal was weak but audible, I won’t bore you with the details of the conversation I was listening to, but from that moment I wanted more, I didn’t just want to be listening. I wanted to know more and started to research getting licensed.
