13/08/2026
The Background: Echoes on London 2358 and 2E0 Steve
I had officially fallen out with 2E0 Steve. To understand why, you must look at the history of our interactions and his increasingly problematic behaviour within the amateur radio community. Let’s make this very clear: this is not about Steve's repeaters; this is about Steve himself. I have tried my absolute best to understand him and have been incredibly accommodating, but things have gone too far.
The Foundation of the London Community
Recently, I have been deeply focused on building a dedicated radio community in London. This began with migrating the Phoenix network back to the BrandMeister network via the London 2358 DMR talk group. The project has been progressing beautifully. The core of this group consists of a mature circle of trusted friends who have been by my side since the early days of getting my radio licence.
They followed me through my first analogue repeater project, GB3OK, which was an absolute success story and helped me build an extensive network of friends over the last 20 years. Today, that success continues on London 2358, which routes traffic directly to GB7LO London on static Time Slot 2. This setup allows operators from across London and around the globe to connect seamlessly.
The "Crash Bandicoot" Era
Years ago, when Steve first obtained his Intermediate (2E0) callsign, he found his way onto the GB3OK repeater. He quickly developed a bizarre operating habit: he would abruptly break into ongoing conversations by shouting, "Break, break, break!"
The active users would politely acknowledge his transmission and pass to him. Curiously, whenever they did, Steve would completely vanish.
This happened so frequently that it became a running joke.
One day, an old friend who had helped me set up GB3OK in its infancy called my mobile phone. The conversation immediately turned to Steve's chaotic operating practices. My friend compared Steve’s erratic style to the video game character Crash Bandicoot. I explained that there was only so much I could do to correct him over the air, hoping he would eventually learn proper protocol from the more experienced operators.
He never did. To this day, his operating technique leaves much to be desired. Steve simply wasn't everyone’s cup of tea, but despite the friction, he developed an intense, borderline obsession with both my work with GB3OK.
The Digital Shift and Unwanted Shadows
Steve's fixation with my activities intensified as the local radio scene transitioned from analogue to digital modes like D-Star, DMR, and System Fusion (C4FM). He followed my every move. When I hosted the YSF20456 and YSF20458 reflectors, Steve was right behind me, linking his own hardware to them. Later, he replaced his standard MMDVM hotspot setup with a Motorola-powered Hytera DMR repeater, purely to establish himself as a permanent, static fixture on the London 2358 talk group.
Other operators quickly noticed this copycat behaviour. People on the air began openly asking him, "Are you just trying to be exactly like Tony, Steve?"
The Licensing Loophole and Technical Disasters
As time went on, regulations allowed Intermediate (2E0) licence holders to run internet gateways like EchoLink, AllStar, or digital hotspots. Soon, Steve became obsessed with running a full-scale repeater system. However, he faced a major hurdle: he did not hold a Full amateur radio licence.
To bypass this restriction, Steve searched for a loophole. He actively hunted for a Full licensee who would agree to sign the official paperwork and hold the Notice of Variation (NoV) on his behalf.
He actually approached me during this time, but I firmly declined. It wasn't long before he found someone else willing to sign off on the scheme. Eventually, the licensing framework modernized anyway, officially permitting 2E0 Intermediate operators to run duplex repeaters with a maximum power output of 5 Watts.
With his paperwork secure, Steve began branding himself as the local "expert repeater keeper," aggressively offering his technical services to anyone who would listen. The reality, however, was an absolute disaster. Steve could never provide a reliable service. Even with all firmware updates and MMDVM upgrades, and they rarely worked properly.
His own workspace became a personal graveyard of fried MMDVM boards and melted power amplifiers mostly Motorola GM340s. These equipment failures were caused entirely by Steve running excessive power way beyond his legal limits from VX50 to a high gain X-510N Antenna Motorola Based MMDVM superseded for Hytera 50watt DMR repeater so his repeater could be heard much better now.
He would tweak his kit until it became completely unrecoverable. On multiple occasions, it was only through the generosity of my friends that his equipment was salvaged and brought back online.
Regulatory Warnings and Network Disruption
When I directly confronted him about the danger of running high power, warning him that he risked losing both his repeater NoV and his actual amateur radio licence, he just shrugged.
“What Ofcom or the ETCC don’t know won’t hurt them,” he sneered.
Looking at his burned-out gear, I realized I was completely wasting my breath and walked away. Unfortunately, his disregard for the rules extends past his own workbench. He had already received official warnings from the ETCC for running excessive power on his RF gateway. This non-compliant operation was causing massive, illegal co-channel interference to other legitimate RF gateways across London.
Worse still, the local community has had to endure Steve performing live technical adjustments directly over the active network. He does this daily on our cloud-hosted YSF20456 reflector (which links to our VHF repeater, GB7OK) and on DMR London 2358 (which links to the UHF London repeater, GB7LO). Shockingly, he attempts these live adjustments without owning even the most basic test equipment he doesn't even use an SWR meter or a dummy load.
A Community Alienated
The entire community has reached its breaking point with endless boasting has severely impacted the culture of both London 2358 before that it was YSF20456 users are completely fed up with listening to his daily, monthslong monologues. It is constantly, "My repeater this, and my repeater that," which is ironic considering his actual setup is locked down to a high-powered repeater in the Chatham which wasn’t any benefit to London 2358 but for Steve’s like high powered duplex hotspot bearing in mind there is already DMR repeater GB7FX base in the same borough on his doorstep and on the same DMR network,
Community has reached its breaking point. For months, the once-welcoming culture of the digital voice rooms has been completely derailed by one user’s daily, endless monologues. Both the C4FM and DMR talk group every single day, operators are forced to sit through the same repetitive narrative: "My repeater this, and my repeater that." his repeater in Chatham. It offers absolutely zero practical benefit to the active users in London talk group 2358.
Instead, his entire operation essentially functions as nothing more than a high-powered duplex hotspot for his own personal use. In his local borough is already perfectly well-served by the GB7FX DMR repeater, which operates on the exact same digital network. Fed up with the hijacking of the London take group, local amateurs are left wondering how much longer one person's ego will keep going for.
On the air, Steve’s presence behaves less like an amateur radio operation and more like a one-man demolition derby. He routinely keys up straight into active QSOs without listening for even a second. When he does, he brings along a loud, chaotic background soundtrack of screaming children and domestic arguments. International operators have grown completely weary of his poor open-mic etiquette; it has become an embarrassing global showcase for UK amateurs.
Consequently, the moment Steve logs onto London 2358, the talk group clears out in an instant, magical vanishing act. Left entirely stranded in a ghost town of his own making, Steve quickly turns the radio into his personal therapy couch. "Is anyone out there?” ” Why does nobody want to talk to me?” “Can anyone hear me?"
The noticeable decline in user activity on the London 2358 is directly tied to Steve's disruptive on-air presence, which has successfully driven the community away. After single-handedly clearing the channel, he now scrambles to save face by desperately contacting people on his mobile phone, begging them to get on the radio and talk to him. He will confidently promise whoever is listening that friends are about to join. But just like his technical expertise, these "phantom friends" never actually materialise.
The Final Straw: An Ego Empire Built on Junk
Over time, this toxic behaviour spilled from the airwaves onto social media. Steve initiated a Facebook blitz, sending blind friend requests to almost everyone on my personal amateur radio friends list, as well as repeater keepers up and down the country. Later, he had the nerve to claim to me that he had actually known these people for years.
Lately, he has been on the air boasting that he now has "five spare repeaters" ready to go if anybody wants to put a repeater on the air. But we all know what this is really about: a one-man Ego Empire Building project spanning the entire DMR network.
The real truth is that his "inventory" is just a junk box full of broken bits and leftover scraps from failed projects. None of it works, and it would take a massive amount of technical input from actual experts to make any of it remotely usable or safe for an on-air repeater.
That was the absolute final straw for me. Anything he does for anyone turns into an immediate over-the-air boast, all to project himself as some sort of "Repeater King." To protect my sanity, my reputation, and my radio circle, I have completely unfriended and blocked him on social media, and I have permanently blocked his number from my mobile phone. I am done dealing with the chaos.
