Welcome to the home page of G4ATA.

Hi, my name is John Hotchin and this web site is to tell you a little about me and my interests.  Hopefully you will find some of it fun and some of it informative.  G4ATA probably means nothing to a lot of people - it is my Amateur Radio callsign, hence G4ATA.CO.UK.

I have three main interests - Ham Radio, my classic Mini and my motorcycle, a Suzuki GSF1200 Bandit.  This list is not exhaustive and not necessarily in that order!!

The buttons at the bottom of the page will take you to relevant sections of the site and it's all pretty self-explanatory.

There are now some links to sites that I think you may find of interest.

My Ham Radio News

I now also have the call G8DYT.  G8DYT was my father's original callsign and I have had it re-issued to me and intend to just use it for contest operations.  I put in a single band entry for the CQ WPX contest 2008 using this call.

4-Square Progress

28th April 2008 - Heard that Comtek have shipped my phasing unit for the 4-Square.  Site agreed and construction is well under way.

29th April 2008 - The first element of the four-square is now up!!  Click on the link to see pics.

2nd May 2008 - The second element of the four-square is now up - two down, two to go ..... or should that be two up, two to go?!!

5th May 2008 - My Comtek phasing unit arrived on Saturday 3rd May.  All four verticals are up now and at the moment they each have 6 radials.  Each vertical's SWR is 1:1 at 3.720 MHz and one of them was used on Saturday night with pleasing results.  I have ordered 75 Ohm coax for the connections to the phasing unit so hopefully I will be on the air using my new 4-Square next weekend.

6th May 2008 - Got home from work and what did I do?...... started laying more radials!  Managed to get another 6 down this evening.  I'm sure that all the hard work will pay dividends in the end though ........ won't it??

7th May 2008 - Got home from work and what did I do? ....... yep! more work on the 4-Square.  Started on the feed lines now and each vertical now has 8 radials.  Looking good to be QRV Saturday 10th May!

8th May 2008 - Got the 4-Square connected up and working.  Results so far very pleasing.

10th May 2008 - Replaced all the feed lines with the correct coax and added some more radials!

w/e 17th & 18th May 2008 -  My son Martin, 2E1FVS, came to visit for the weekend and brought me more stock of wire for the ground system.  Tidied up the radial connections and managed to get another 10 radials down.  Each vertical now has 12 radials.  Still plenty to do but hey!... Rome wasn't built in a day!

For Sale! - Array Solutions K9AY, one careful owner, less than 6 months old, simple construction, will fit in 30' x 30'.  A "must have" receive antenna unless you have a 4-Square!!  Interested?? ..... e-mail me.

DX of note worked in April 2008 includes:  D44AC, 5H9KR, 6V7I, JX9JKA, A41MO, YB6PR, YI7RAZ (all SSB).

As of 5th May 2008 my DXCC total on 80m is 140 - since 1st September 2007 (all SSB).

As of 2nd May 2008 my WAS total on 80m is 36 - since 1st September 2007 (all SSB).  The states I need are AK, CA, CO, HI, ID, MO, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, OR, UT & WA.  If anyone from any of these states would like to arrange a sked please e-mail me

Please bear with me whilst the site is completely re-designed.