G3BJ

Episode 139 - Don Beattie - G3BJ

Don Beattie, G3BJ, is a former president of the Radio Society of Great Britain, past chairman of BARTG,  or the British Amateur Radio Teledata Group, past president of the CDXC, the British DX foundation, board member of the RSGB,  and its acting general manager for two years.  The list goes on and on.  Don is currently the President of the IARU, or the International Amateur Radio Union for  Region 1. G3BJ is a leader in British amateur radio and is my QSO Today.

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Show Notes

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Don's Website: www.g3bj.com

​First License: Age 17,1961,G3OZF. Once license class at that time.

Elmers:

• John Curnow,  G6CW
• Terry Kirk,  G3OMK - taught CW in Nottingham
• Roy Martyr, G3PMX

First Rig:

• 5763 beam triode valve transmitter 3 tubes.  Don says about this rig, “It was a home-designed effort – CO-Buffer-PA with grid-block keying. About 12-15 watts DC input.”
• End-fed long wire antenna
• British Army Communications R107 receiver
• Marconi CR100 receiver
• Eddystone 888A receiver

First DX contact: Don says, “After I had just completed the transmitter, I worked a few European stations and was calling CQ. I nearly fell off my chair when VP8GQ answered me! I still have the QSL card!”

Imperial College London, Electronic Engineering,

Marconi Company

Current Rig:
A pair of Yaesu FTDX 5000 with linear amplifiers
Operating SO2R

DXpedition Rig:

• Elecraft K3 with KPA 500 amplifier
• 90’ Titanium Alloy Mast

Favorite ham radio activity: CW running SO2R during contests

Radio Society of Great Britain

BARTG, the British Amateur Radio Teledata Group

CDXC - British DX foundation

IARU Region 1

ITU - International Telecommunications Union

World Radio Congress, 2015 - 5 Mhz allocation

IARU bandplan

3B7C DXpedition in 2007

Keys to success on DXpedition: Get the right team and do extremely good planning.

9M0C Spratly Island - Don’s first DXpedition. “A great learning experience”

DXpedition Lite - small group of 6, to Australian  Islands.  72,000 QSOs with three stations

Top 100 most needed DX entities

Bob Heil, K9EID, my guest on QSO Today podcast episode 72,

Most excited in amateur radio by:

• Now owns a personal competitive station on 4 acres
• Increasing understanding of changes to secure the growth for the future
• New technologies such as digital television in half meg bandwidth

Advice to new or returning hams:

• Join your national radio society:  ARRL, RSGB, etc.
• Join one of the numerous special interest groups locally or on-line
• Don says, “You get out of amateur radio what you put into it”.

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R107 WW2 British Army Receiver

Marconi CR100 Receiver

Eddystone 888A Receiver

Don at the pipe organ