Radio Nature

A very happy Christmas everyone. One of my presents was the book called "Radio Nature" by Renato Romero which is a very good introduction to the weird and wonderful world of ELF/VLF natural emissions such as whistlers and tweeks. The book, available from the RSGB on-line bookstore, is an excellent read.

See also his excellent webpages at http://www.vlf.it/ .

Tunnel Diodes rigs

Way back in the 1960s I recall making a simple tunnel diode oscillator as part of a lab project and being excited to see such a circuit used to span 160 miles on 80m by a ZL station despite the power being microwatts only. These days tunnel diodes are almost unheard of.

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.

G3XBM is 60 today

Well, another milestone passed - I have reached the age of 60 and get a free bus pass for local English buses nationwide as well as a winter fuel allowance. At least there are some perks for getting older.

Elecraft K1

This morning I fired up my Elecraft K1 CW transceiver not having used it for some time. It is such a good little rig. Mine has the 4 band unit and internal ATU option and covers 40, 30, 20 and 15m. The filtering is excellent and the user interface good as long as you can remember the menu system, which I forget often when I don't use the rig for a time.

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!

Some weeks ago I mentioned that I had been asked by a niece of G4IRZ to help with disposal of his (silent key) radio gear which included an Alinco DX70 HF transceiver in original packing and an FT767GX, FP707 PSU and lots of other ATUs, SWR bridges, BC221, GDO, etc. Several requested the list, but no-one has put an offer in.

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

The Solar Data page has a new URL weblink. If you have this saved as a bookmark in your web browser the new link is now http://www.solen.info/solar/

29MHz FM

Just after 7pm tonight (Friday) I hope to do some tests with G4NUA in Cambridge around 29.6MHz FM. We will both be HORIZONTALLY polarised (Homebase-10 wire halos) running around 10W FM. If there are others in the mid-Anglia area who would like to join us then please do call in.

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.

Useful on-line distance calculator

http://copaseticflow.blogspot.com/2008/12/new-qsl-mapper.html

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.

UK price rises - Yaesu and Icom rigs

Have you noticed that prices of the Yaesu FT817 and Icom IC703 have been significantly increased by at least one of the big UK suppliers in the last few days?

With the falling pound I can understand margins being squeezed more than before but surely, with a VAT reduction and with Christmas coming, this must be the most stupid piece of marketing yet.

Later comment: Several people have explained to me that the yen/pound exchange has significantly worsened so there is probably little the dealers could do but pass on a major part of their price increase on goods from Japan. I also see that most dealers are now holding the old prices on goods in stock as well as offering some good trade-in deals.

SM6BHZ on 504.5kHz - strong

The 3W ERP beacon of SM6BHZ on 504.5kHz is coming in well tonight at 2215z in slow CW and QRSS3. QSB rate is slow with peak to trough being around 1 minute with me.