About M0SBF

The KSL Technical Portal was established by qualified and experienced electronics engineer, Steve Larkins - a licensed UK amateur radio operator under the callsign M0SBF.

The site aims to provide the very best free advice on digital TV problems, set top boxes and Freeview aerials. The site started as my Amateur Radio station homepage and has evolved significantly over time with quality articles regularly added, as time permits.

The Early Experimenter

Steve Larkins I have been interested in radio and TV from when I was two years old! Even when I was extremely young, I built different radio sets (starting with a crystal set) and experimented with different radio aerials. My career started when I joined GEC Telecommunications as a sponsored Technician Engineer. I qualified with an HND in Electronics and Electrical Engineering and re-located to the south, now living in Berkshire.

I first got my Amateur Radio license in 1979, after many years of Short Wave Listening. I was also interested in long distance Medium Wave reception for some years.

I also had an interest in Band I DXTV reception and had an old TV which I modified for long distance reception. I particularly enjoyed listening on 10m and remember the days when the band was wide-open to the USA even late into the night.

In 2001, I finally plucked up courage to take and pass the 5 words per minute morse code test, giving me access to the HF bands at long last.

M0SBF is my new 'Class A' callsign from November 17th 2001, issued after passing my morse test. I still retain my original 'Class B' callsign G8SBF which can now be used on HF, thanks to recent changes to the licensing regulations here in the UK. Since G8SBF uses the more universally familiar 'G' prefix and dates back to 1979, I am now using it on the HF bands more frequently.

M0SBF Radio Shack

Today's radio equipment has moved on from the old Crystal Set days and now features DSP IF filtering and low noise front ends!

I have limited space for radio equipment, so that's really why I chose the TS2000 for HF plus a decent dual band transceiver - the Yaesu FT8800 for 2m and 70cm. The FT8800R offering much better receive performance than the TS2000 on 2m and 70cm.

I most often use a Yaesu FT8800 for 2m and 70cm. The Yaesu FT8800 has a fantastic receiver. It's the best 2m and 70cm receiver I have ever used at this QTH, both in terms of receiver sensitivity and pager interference rejection and cross modulation.

The TS2000 is primarily used on 10m, 15m and 20m HF most often on SSB. I have had a few CW contacts, but I lack the finesse without a lot more practice to adopt that mode seriously.

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