About Skip Zone

What this is

Skip Zone is an amateur radio blog, podcast (coming soon), and tool platform. The audience I'm writing for are people like me who think technically and want to understand how things actually work — not just be told what buttons to press.

Most amateur radio content is aimed at people who have been doing this for 30 years and are primarily interested in contesting or DXing. That content is great, but it's not always what I needed when I was starting out. Skip Zone is the resource I wish had existed.

What surprised me most about getting licensed was the people. The amateur radio community has some of the most generous, knowledgeable operators you'll find anywhere — and a lot of that knowledge lives in their heads, passed on through conversations and club nights rather than written down anywhere. Part of what this site is trying to do is capture some of that.

Who's behind it

I'm MM7IUY ( Cam ) — a Foundation licence holder based in Scotland and a software engineer by day. I've been licensed since 2025, which makes me about as new as it's possible to be while still having something to say.

I started on VHF (with a cheap handheld) — 2m to begin with, then discovered how active the 70cm repeaters are locally, which turned out to be a great way to get comfortable on air. I've only recently made the jump to HF, operating on 20m from a loft antenna. I'm learning CW slowly — because I find it genuinely intriguing.

The name

A skip zone is the area between a transmitter and the point where its signal returns to Earth via the ionosphere. Within this zone the signal can't be heard yet as it passes overhead on its way to somewhere else, A dead zone right next to where everything works.

I like the image of a dead zone that becomes propagation, and the sense that sometimes you're right in the middle of something without being able to hear it yet.

Contact

You can find me on the 2m calling frequency (145.500 MHz) and the Edinburgh 70cm repeater. I'm also occasionally on 20m — either SSB or CW, though the CW is a work in progress. I'm still learning, so patience appreciated.

Off-air: the best way to get in touch via the contact form thats ( coming soon )