About

Andy Smith is a professional Systems Engineer (at least that’s what his resume claims) by day who amongst other things likes to dabble in all things RF and talk about himself in the third person.

After a few years of shortwave listening, in 2010 he decided he wanted to risk injury, death and some serious RF burns and sat the exam for a UK Foundation Amateur Radio Licence. In August of that year he obtained the call M6BZT and set about pushing the limits of the 10 watts allowed by the Foundation licence, and by February 2011 had gained an Intermediate licence (2E0VKG) and then a full licence, with the call M0VKG.

Undeterred by an unfortunate incident involving a soldering iron and a Yaesu FT897D, in July 2012 he jumped the Atlantic and landed on the west coast of Canada in the land of VE7. After sitting both the Basic and Advanced exams in one sitting, in November 2012 he added the call VE7CXZ to his ever-growing list of callsigns.

In summer 2019 he – and his now wife – moved to Calgary, Alberta and swapped his BC callsigns for shiny new VE6 ones, mainly using VE6LY.

He can occasionally be found on a weekend working portable on HF and daily on VHF from the affectionately-named Ford Ranger Of Doom (aka VE7CXZ-1 on APRS) as VE6LY-9 on APRS. If you can find him, don’t let him near your rigs with a screwdriver.