I have been an amateur radio (ham) and electronics enthusiast since the age of 13 when I built my first one-transistor radio with help from my uncle, also a ham. A year or so later, I passed the New Zealand amateur radio theory exam, and got my first 'Technician class' callsign (ZL3TIX).
Like many, I built my first transceiver, a 2m (144 MHz) AM transceiver. Back in the early 1970's, AM on VHF bands was very popular and that technology, although considered antiquated now, still represents one of the most efficient spectrum modulation methods for VHF bands.
Within a few years, and with a move to another city, I passed the amateur radio morse test, and received the upgraded callsign ZL1AQW. Fast forward a few more years, and another change of city, and I received my current callsign, ZL2PD which I've held to this day.
Electronics is a great hobby. It's one I was also fortunate enough to turn into a professional electrical engineering career. After graduating from university with an electrical engineering degree, I worked for the Civil Aviation Division of the Ministry of Transport, a New Zealand government department. It was excellent experience, with work including interference analysis on air-sea rescue boats to the design and building of extensive high power HF transmitter/receiver systems for Air to Ground and long distance weather fax systems.
After seven years, however, I moved on to work on contract in Fiji, an island group in the middle of the Pacific, doing some HF, VHF and UHF projects, and a bit of ham radio in my spare time. A few years (and a military coup) later, I returned to New Zealand to work for a mobile radio manufacturer for some years.
With my promotion to the head of the Systems Division of that company, I led the design team responsible for building many hundreds of radio and control systems across the world. I went on to designa nd launch a number of large networks for a US-based multi-national network operator.
These days, I am an independent telecommunications consulting engineer. I spend much of my time travelling, all over the world, helping to design, build and operate a variety of new networks.
Most of these are wireless networks. I've been involved in the development now of over thirty new fixed and wireless networks rnaging from W-CDMA and cdma2000 (3G), GSM and cdmaOne (2G) cellular networks, fixed WiMAX and mobile broadband wireless systems, TETRA and MPT1327 trunking systems, and a whole bunch of others.
I am not so active on the ham bands these days. Part of the reason can be blamed on my extensive travels. Since I prefer operating on the HF bands, it's not so always very easy to take ham transceivers to some of the countries where I work. But I can spend the occasional weekend away from home working on a project or two, writing software or working on some hardware design details.
When I am home, I enjoy spending time in my workshop, designing and building all sorts of electronics equipment. Most of the focus is on things related to amateur radio, but some circuits are built for use on my model railway, or for my family.