The team consists of the following members (click on each of the links to display a short bio).
Steve was first licensed as G8FEO in 1970 while still at school in England. He received his first HF licence while working in Iran in 1978 - 1979 (EP2SL), after which a move to Sweden in the 1980s led to activity as G4JVG/SM0, with frequent side-trips as OH0/G4JVG. He took part in two expeditions to Market Reef in 1983 and 1987, followed by Cocos (Keeling) in 1988.
Steve lived and worked in Papua New Guinea 1991 - 1994 and made around 45,000 QSOs as P29DX (P20A in contests). During this period he travelled around the Pacific with a 100W rig in 1992 and was a member of the 1993 VK9MM Mellish Reef DXpedition.
After returning to the UK, he worked at the RSGB and was editor of RadCom magazine. He was a founder member of the Five Star DXers Association (FSDXA) and a member of the 1998 9M0C Spratly Islands, 2001 D68C Comoros and 2007 3B7C St Brandon DXpedition teams. Steve was joint editor with G3NUG of the book DXpeditioning Behind the Scenes.
Steve moved to Sabah, East Malaysia, after taking early retirement at the age of 50 in July 2005, and is now active as 9M6DXX. He was a member of the July 2006 9M4SEB Sebatik Island OC-295 operation, an all-time ‘new one’ for IOTA. In addition to Sabah, he currently holds licences in Sarawak (9M8Z), Cambodia (XU7DXX), Brunei (V8FEO) and Thailand (HS0ZHX). In total he has operated from 37 DXCC entities and 34 IOTA island groups.
He is a member of RSGB, ARRL, MARTS (Malaysian Amateur Radio Transmitters’ Society), BARC (Borneo Amateur Radio Club) and CDXC (Chiltern DX Club). Although officially retired Steve is still doing some free-lance book production work for the RSGB, and was editor of the 2007 RSGB IOTA Directory. Steve only operates SSB, plus some RTTY on expeditions.
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John was born in Ayrshire, Scotland, where his father (an SWL) got him interested in ham radio when he was about 10 years of age. He taught himself Morse code and joined the ISWL in 1957. He was first licensed as GM3OOK in 1960. John went to sea as a ship’s R/O in 1963 and later operated as EL0A/MM - a call pirated by many an R/O, but he really did have the proper Liberian licence and still has the documentation to this day!
John lived in Singapore while working in the offshore drilling industry and held the call 9V1RS for about 10 years until 1980. Meanwhile GM3OOK became GD3OOK from 1976-1983, then G3OOK until 2005, with much of his activity in that time /MM, mainly in the Pacific.
He moved to Borneo three years ago and has logged about 60,000 QSOs as 9M6/G3OOK and 9M6XRO. Since moving to Sabah John has also operated as 9M4SEB (the Borneo Amateur Radio Club IOTA DXpedition to Sebatik Island), a couple of times as XU7XRO, July 2007 as A25OOK, 9M6XRO/P from OC-133 and recently V8FRO from Brunei.
John has always preferred CW and even as a young SWL as soon as he learned Morse code he rarely tuned ‘up the band’. Nowadays he mixes it up a bit and he enjoys using the various digimodes, mainly RTTY, and can even be heard on SSB now and again.
He is a member of the RSGB, RNARS (Royal Naval Amateur Radio Society), ISWL, GMDX Group, MARTS (Malaysian Amateur Radio Transmitters’ Society) and BARC (Borneo Amateur Radio Club). Future plans for 2008 include C91 and 3DA0 in July then possibly another go as XU7XRO in December.
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James has been licensed since he was 12 years old. When he is not too overworked at his absurdly high-stress job he occasionally takes a break and goes on a DXpedition. James likes to operate CW and thinks the Packet Cluster[tm] is the root of all evil. He lives at home with his lovely YL, Lee Lian. They also share the house with a big brown dog, two turtles and a fish.
DX Videos and DVDs – professionally produced broadcast-quality documentaries by team member James Brooks, 9V1YC.
Ham radio wasn’t the first choice for Pete. After reading a magazine article about shortwave listening in 1969, Pete became one of the youngest BC listeners in Sweden at the age of nine. In 1973, at the tender age of 14, Pete managed to get his C-class licence, giving him the right to use a 10-watt input crystal controlled radio on 80 and 40m. At that time, the licence tests were tough and the CW had to be 100% correct or else no licence. Today he is grateful though, as CW is his main operating mode.
His callsign, SM5GMZ, is an original one first issued in 1974. Between 1974 and 1981 Pete was one of the most active hams in Sweden, operating a large number of contests. He was also the Contest Manager for the Swedish national society SSA for many years and took part in managing the SAC contests.
In 1982, Pete started to study mass communications at the Berghs School of Communications. To get life as a student running, he sold his beloved Drake C-line, the linear and all the antennas and went QRT.
After exams in journalism at the University of Stockholm and at the Swedish Institute of Film, Pete worked as a reporter and columnist for a variety of newspapers and magazines for many years. After a short period with commercial radio, he decided to change path totally and started his own publishing company. This was also the time when he switched the pen for a camera.
Today Pete works as a full-time photojournalist, affiliated with AP, Reuters, AFP and WpN. During the last 10 years, Pete’s pictures have been published regularly in most major newspapers world-wide.
As well as SM5GMZ he also holds the Swedish contest calls SM5X and SK5A and is a member of the SSA, CDXC (UK) and CDXC (France), and the Swedish Lake Malaren DX Group. Recent activity has been as XU7ADI (2004 - 2007), HS0ZFI (2004 - 2007), 9M6/SM5GMZ (2006 and 2007), 9M8Z (2007), 6V7F (2007) and 3B7C (2007).
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Jay has been a ham since 1954, age 14. His ‘Elmer’ then, John, W5BEQ (SK), was a CW op only and never owned a microphone. His influence is one reason why CW continues to be Jay’s favourite mode. He was active off and on over the years as school and work requirements permitted, but didn’t really start chasing DX in earnest until the mid 1980s. He retired in 2004 after a number of years working for the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and now has much more time to devote to amateur radio.
Jay is a life member of ARRL. He is also a member of the Central Texas DX and Contest Club in Austin, and was president of the club in 2007. DXing is his main passion in ham radio. He holds DXCC Honor Roll on CW, but lacks a couple of confirmations for Phone Honor Roll, and is short of a few more for RTTY Honor Roll. For DXCC Mixed he lacks only three for working them all: North Korea, Heard Island, and Glorioso.
DXpeditions he has operated on include KH6 in the late 1980s, an IOTA operation from a Texas Coastal Island group, and A25SL in 2007, where he met and operated with John, 9M6XRO. Most recently he operated on a 100% CW single-op DXpedition from VP5 in March 2008. He is joining a group to operate from C91, Mozambique, in July 2008. Jay operates mainly CW, and RTTY or PSK at times, but also enjoys SSB as well.
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QSL MANAGER: M0URX - TIM BEAUMONT
Tim was born in Warwickshire, England, in 1967 and has been a Postal Worker since 1988. He has enjoyed this amazing hobby since he was a lad in school days and eventually became licensed in 2002.
He operated from the South and North Cook Islands as ZK1SDE in 2002 and 2005 and as MU3SDE in 2005 and 2006. Tim very much enjoys DXing and contesting from both home and away. He is a member of CDXC (Chiltern DX Club) and the RSGB. He is also a helper at Dorridge Amateur Radio Scout Group promoting Radio Scouting and a team member of the MU5W, MW5W and MW9W contest operations.
Tim says, “I have a passion for QSL Manager work, providing high quality QSL cards and providing you guys with a QSL service that you expect and demand. I work closely with the ON5UR QSL Print Service for the complete QSL service.”
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