31 Jan 2009
HF Maritime radio and CW?
Topo Lighthouse EU-175
QRPP 80m QSOs with G3XIZ
30 Jan 2009
Listening to G3XIZ's 15mW 80m beacon
Here is the sound clip of his signal at 10.10am today, 30 Jan 2009.
29 Jan 2009
RQ or CQR call for quick report only?
Is this a good idea or a daft one? Let me know what you think.
VHF AM Yahoo group
Many blog readers are already members of the Yahoo VHFam group. To join visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VHFam/ and follow the joining instructions.
At last VHF AM operation has got a mention in the latest UK VHF bandplans with the agreed "centre of AM activity" being notified in the footnotes as 144.55MHz. This spot in the European all-modes area is also used by some other users - I hear SSTV here sometimes - so it is NOT an exclusive spot, rather somewhere to look for 2m AM activity in the first instance. There's some AM activity on 145.8 still in Scotland but it would be good if users there would move to 144.55 so this became a UK-wide spot on which AM activity is likely to be found. Users can also be found on 70.26MHz on 4m.
VHF AM gear can be very simple to make and AM is an ideal mode for QRP building and experimenting. There's plenty of ex-PMR AM gear still to be found for next to nothing, ripe for use on 2m/4m AM.
28 Jan 2009
More FETers around
Rockbound?
....and radio is only just over 100 years old.
27 Jan 2009
GQRP Club and SPRAT
Join the GQRP club and receive the excellent SPRAT magazine every 3 months. The fee is only £6 per year (or equivalent in other currencies) which is excellent value. See: http://www.gqrp.org/join.htm for details on how to join. You can now pay with Paypal too if you prefer. BTW, if times got hard and all other radio mags had to go then SPRAT would be the one I'd keep.
Every quarter SPRAT is packed with circuits, ideas and news of interest to those who enjoy QRP. Back issues of editions 1-132 are also available on a GQRP club CD for just £5 if you are a club member.
25 Jan 2009
Help in the shack?
He was fascinated by the morse key, so there is hope that a future radio ham is in the making.
24 Jan 2009
Update from W2UW on his 20mW transceiver
Dear Roger, I was surprised to see your little article in the sprat mag about your FETer, it was interesting. I am glad to see that you credited me.By the way, you might be interested in knowing that I have made 451 QSOs with my little rig. I have not met my goal of working all of the states east of the Mississippi river. HI I still have 4 to go (Fla., Ala., Geo., and Miss.) They are way down there! I may have to wait until the next "peak".I am 81 yrs. old and still think radio is "magic". HiGlennW2UW
20 Jan 2009
2-way transatlantic QRP
19 Jan 2009
2m AM now on the RSGB band plan
Still this is better than nothing and people interested in 2m AM now know that 144.55MHz is the place of preference to centre AM operations. There is still interest in 2m AM as (a) simple gear is easy to build and (b) there is a lot of surplus ex-PMR AM gear around going for almost nothing. Also it is interesting to compare AM and FM as part of self-training.
It would be good if the AMers in GM-land would migrate off 145.8 down to 144.55 now so that all AM in the UK was on/around one common frequency.
18 Jan 2009
HUGE 160m 3el yagi antenna
This is certainly not my idea of ham radio, and the complete antithesis of QRP, but you have to take your hat off to these guys for the engineering of this monster beam which weighs tons. I wouldn't fancy scraping the ice off in mid-winter!
16 Jan 2009
Long-term HF deterioration?
Can anyone point me in the direction of any definitive references to this theory?
13 Jan 2009
AA1TJ's 1 transistor transceiver
http://mjrainey.googlepages.com/reggie
Update 19/1/09: Mike tells me he has measured the MDS as -87dBm (using a sig gen and a stepped attenuator/20dB pad) which is pretty remarkable for essentially a passive RX using a switching mixer. It implies Mike can hear around -90dBm clearly in his ST3 headphones.
12 Jan 2009
The spots return...
See http://www.solen.info/solar/
11 Jan 2009
Some off-air historical ham recordings
http://files.myopera.com/davews/files/vp8.mp3 A recording of Bob McLeod VP8LP in Goose Green on the 20m amateur band on the evening of the Argentine invasion in the mid-1980s made by Dave Sergeant G3YMC.
http://files.myopera.com/davews/files/zl3gq.mp3 A short recording of a CW contact with Peter Watson ZL3GQ in Christchurch, NZ made by Dave Sergeant G3YMC on 4th October 1977 when using just 10W at Dave's end.
http://www.qsl.net/wa5iyx/ra/zk1aa69a.ra ZK1AA 6m keyer/beacon in 1969.
http://www.dxzone.com/catalog/Internet_and_Radio/Sounds/ has many different audio clips spanning many years and many bands.
10 Jan 2009
Off-air historical ham recordings
Somewhere I have a reel-to-reel tape recording made off-air 42 years ago of G4PJ (Salcombe, Devon) and I also have a recording made at the peak of cycle 22 (I think) when I tuned across 10m SSB hearing stations from Europe, South America, the USA and ZD9 (Tristan) amongst others.
There is an excellent website for SW broadcast interval signals at
http://www.intervalsignals.net/ which I believe I've mentioned before.
QRP DXCC score box
10m QSO (winter sporadic-E)
This year my aim is 100 DXCC countries on 10m QRP, so this was number one. An hour later and I heard G0FWX about 20 miles away so gave him a call and got a 52 report.
So now 2 x DXCC countries in the log on 10m ....only 98 to go this year!
8 Jan 2009
Latest cycle 24 sunspot predictions
Having said that, we have had another extremely quiet period now for almost 6 weeks. Unless a few spots start to appear we may still be bumping along the bottom of the cycle still.
7 Jan 2009
QTH Locator with Google Maps
This site has the useful ability to show QTH locator locations using Google maps. Enter the QTH locator and the map zooms to show where square actually is. You can also use it to find QTH locators in the first place and to work out distances.
Licence-free handhelds in 70cms
QRP - 4 continents today
With the Elecraft K1 with internal ATU and the random 15m wire strung down the garden I can usually work most of the stations I hear as long as they are not buried in a huge DX pile-up. CW is a very effective mode especially if you are like me and have a simple, unobtrusive wire antenna rather than a huge beam on a large tower.
6 Jan 2009
E44M Palestine DXpedition
2 Jan 2009
Z309KNV Macedonia
31 Dec 2008
Best wishes for 2009
My very best wishes for 2009. For a change, I'd like to quote an extract from the last of T.S.Eliot's Four Quartets poems which is called Little Gidding. It reminds me that every year is part of our never ending exploration and journey.
Go quietly on your journey in 2009 and may it be a very fulfilling and joyful one."With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this
CallingWe shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one."
30 Dec 2008
70cms good conditions tonight
29 Dec 2008
Dutch on-line SDR testing new bands
28 Dec 2008
The South Hams and G5BY on 6m
There is a new book of walks in this area called The South Hams Coast by Gerry Miles (see www.devonpaint.nl/ and also available from www.amazon.co.uk). The book is beautifully illustrated with coastal walks covering many of the high spots from where some great VHF DX has been worked. These include Bolberry Down from where G5BY worked the USA on 6m back in the 1940s when the band was briefly available. Today his QTH (see old picture) is "The Port Light Hotel" a delightful place to drink a pint or have a crab sandwich on a long sunny cliff top walk.
27 Dec 2008
G4IRZ Silent key sale - items now sold
25 Dec 2008
Radio Nature
See also his excellent webpages at http://www.vlf.it/ .
24 Dec 2008
Tunnel Diodes rigs
Recently I spotted a similar tunnel diode TX and RX on AA1TJ's excellent webpages on which you can find more data and links to off-air records made at DX distances.
23 Dec 2008
G3XBM is 60 today
21 Dec 2008
Elecraft K1
Within a few minutes of connecting the end-fed wire about 15m long into the back of the rig I had 5 QSOs in the log on 40 and 15m. It is such a perfect CW rig.
More details see the Elecraft website http://www.elecraft.com
£500 silent key sale - a REAL bargain!
The whole lot is yours for £500, buyer collects from Cambridgeshire.
I believe the actual value of the kit FAR exceeds this amount but I am not in a position to spend time disposing of the items individually. If someone is willing to buy the lot from his niece she would be pleased (as would Len's XYL) and the buyer is likely to make a decent profit if the items are then resold separately. It would also make an excellent complete ham shack for anyone starting out.
Remember, £500 buys a huge LOT of decent gear for Christmas.
Dec 27th: Now all sold.
Solar data page - new URL
19 Dec 2008
29MHz FM
At one time there was a lot of activity on 29MHz FM but there is much less these days or is it just around here?
1930hrs update: successfully heard G4NUA at RS56 but he could only just detect my FM carrier (no modulation) his end. Surprised that we were unable to work each other at this distance with a pair of horizontal halos. On 2m he was 59++ and on 70cms 56. Ted was using the FT8900 4 band 50/35W FM rig covering 10m, 6m, 2m and 70cms - nice radio.
15 Dec 2008
Useful on-line distance calculator
Type in the 2 callsigns to get the QSL addresses and the distance, (in miles or kilometers), between them plus miles/watt. Thanks to KD0FNR for finding this one.
The distance of my 2007 6m QRP QSO with K1TOL works out at 5083kms.