I first was licenced in 1980 with an Australian Novice Class Licence . As a Novice I was restricted to 30 watts PEP on SSB or 10 watts on Morse Code or AM mode. I had 3 Bands in the HF spectrum to operate on, it was an incentive type licence making you improve your knowledge of Ham Radio in order to upgrade and have more Bands and power output. I was a Novice for 13 years and made many friends on the radio and I eventually upgraded in 1993 to VK5XE then changed my Call sign to VK5CZ some time later. Both of these two letter calls have a nice sound on Morse this is the main reason I chose both of them but Charlie Zulu is a better SSB call sign having more drive in its “Talk Power”.

I am a student of the old Morse code and really appreciate I never gave it away once I learnt just enough to pass my licence test. I am now 70 years old, with 42 years on air experience.  Retired from working and still enjoying cycling and ham radio in my spare time. You will see in my Blogs some tales of both activities, best two hobbies in this world IHMO.

    Bike Touring for SOTA

 Bike then Hike SOTA

 This is as good as it gets.

This is VK5CZ Ian on activation number 400 on the 10 years anniversary of SOTA in vk5 October 1st 2022.

I post on Facebook some of my activation photos and videos.

(sota) summits on the air

I Hope you enjoy my Blogs ..

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