Biography - Dr. M.J Willis, BSc, PhD, MIEE CEng

I am one of the older people on the net, having been born in early 1964. So old I can remember when the Sinclair ZX80 was pretty neat, £100 and able to run a nuclear power station. I can't remember what I was doing when John Kennedy died, I am not that old. I do remember going to see the film 2001, when it first came out. I didn't understand it at all.

I was born in Whitehaven, Cumbria, (Note for USA readers - this is in England) and was brought up in the nice part of the Lake District. My favourite lake is Wastwater. Apart from the rain, the area where I grew up was idyllic. In those days, it was safe for children to cycle all over the place. It still is, but the parents worry more. I had to cycle as there was no other means of getting about because the area is sparsely populated and friends would often live several miles away. Everywhere was open country with fields, fells, lakes and the beach. Exploring the countryside was a good way to pass the time. We went fall walking often on school trips so I have climbed most of the local peaks.It only rains half the time on the fells, every other hour.

After school, I went to University, at University College London. As all ex-UCL graduates know, this was, and still is, the best University in the UK. I enjoyed it very much. London was a great place to be a student. There was always something to do and excellent public transport made it easy to get about. I lived in successive years in Camden, Wembley and Bloomsbury.

My family moved to Horwich, near Bolton, Lancs in the early 1980s and I lived there for a while too. I moved South in 1986 to the University of Surrey, where I stayed until moving to the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in 1996. I now live in South Oxfordshire which is a nice area. I used to live in the North West of England, where it is nice too. It rains much less here in Oxfordshire, but the cost of living is higher.

By profession, I am an Electronics and RF Engineer. As in the UK an "Engineer" means someone with a spanner and an oily rag, I am employed as a research scientist. I have an Honours degree in Electronic Engineering. My doctorate is in satellite communications engineering. Specifically, Rain fade counter measures for small satellite earth terminals using the millimetre wavebands. I am also a chartered Engineer and a member of the IET.

I am now working on modeling things pertinent to radio wave propagation and on radio systems engineering. My main hobby is amateur radio. I enjoy building equipment more than using it, so I am not very active on the air. I mainly go for VHF upwards, but I recently started on 10m as my site is not good for VHF.