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Bor n Gore, Southland,
NZ, 20 November 1962 and educated to University
Entrance level in Christchurch, I was
introduced to radios, as many were, by way of a
crystal set for my 12th birthday and by the time I
left home had progressed to restoring several dozen
valve mantle radios. I was also an avid shortwave DXer from the late 70's to mid 80's. I initially
wished for careers in the Air Force first as a Pilot
(too young) and then Avionics Technician (too
dumb!).
After dismally failing algebra entry exams, and
desperate to leave home (too gain my independence,
unaware that joining a defence force was a sure way
of losing what little I had!), I ducked across to
the next defence careers door and somehow fluked
their entry exams. Suddenly, (drumroll please..) in
Jan 1980, I was enrolled in the Army's Regular Force
Cadet School at the tender
age of 17 and a year later commenced a trade as a
Radio & Electronics Engineer with the Royal New
Zealand Electrical Mechanical Engineers (RNZEME). This was a
lengthy 9,500hr
apprenticeship ending with trade certificate at NZCE
levels. I spent the next 4
years servicing and designing mainly HF and VHF
comms equipment for military and commercial
sectors including many valve and valve/solid state
hybrid equipments, the former I have never lost my
passion for.
In 1984 my professional direction started veering
away from radio to computers after a year or so
earlier learning to use and repair ex US circa
Vietnam 105mm howitzer field artillery calculators.
Incidentally the ENIAC was built for this purpose,
some 20 years earlier. NZ Def Forces got a lot of
US hand-me-downs!.
Known as FACE (Field Artillery Computer Equipment)
these were the size of a large diesel generator
mounted on a trailer. Since then I have been
actively involved with computers in one form or
another owning various early
computers including Clive Sinclair's ZX80's and
81's, ZX Spectrum. Microbee, an Aussie made kitset
about A$399 in 1982 with 32k RAM, 16k ROM basic,
cassette etc and progressing to a Sanyo if800 CPM (in- built printer
and CGA screen, two, yes two! single sided 180K
floppy disk drives). In Singapore in 1985 I bought my first IBM compatible
PC/XT. A Lingo, one of the first successful PC
clones, a then very respectable 20Mb hd, CGA screen,
512k memory, 8Mhz 8088 (later upgraded to a 10Mhz
NEC V20!), Epson FX80 printer all costing over
$10,000!
 I completed my
Electronics & Electrical qualifications in 1983 and
after completing the apprenticeship received my
'civilian' Radio Electronics Serviceman ticket in 1985.
Soon after I was
promoted to the dizzying heights of Sergeant and
rewarded with a memorable trip to the UK with the
British Royal Marines to install Satellite
Navigation and Radar communications equipment in
there RHIB's (Rigged Hull Inflatable Boats - 28ft
with 2x140hp V6 outboard's!).
I started
programming sometime in 1984-85 with Microsoft Fortran-80
and Cobol
developing routines for automated test equipment
(ATE). The computer being a rare New Zealand designed Delphi-Progeny
8080 CPM-80 PC that had a full height 10MB hard disk
and 128k memory. After finding programming agreed
with me (or vice versa!) I also developed many dBase II (CPM),
III and IV (DOS & Windows) applications while with
Defence, several of which I understand were still in
use some 10 years after I left.
After introducing and managing a very large Banyan
Vines WAN, being trained as a Prime systems engineer
and attending dozens of PC courses at various
technical institutes and seminars including IBM,
Compaq and Epson specific technical education, I
left the army in Jan 1991. I was then employed as a
Technical Manager, servicing PC's, monitors and
printers, until two years later, in March 1993, I
left and established my own PC business Teleware
Distributors Limited (now trading as Very Best
Servicing
www.vbs.co.nz
which I still own tho Im much less actively involved now.
In
2003 I made a decision to return to my roots and
once again pursue my first love, radios and
electronics, this site then, is a reflection of that
return to my trade in hobby form which I take up
along with my other passions,
indian
motorcycles and fishing.
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