Assembling the new shack

Today I started to collect all the remaining kit from the old building shack and set it up in the new QTH.  The large pieces of test gear are the easy bit. It is all the boxes and bags of "these might come in handy some day" components and crystals that are the problem. Also wire: I have so many reels of "useful" wire! My plan is to continue this over the weekend and get most of the useful stuff moved and other, less useful, kit boxed and stored in a box should I ever need it.  I am really hoping that I can be a lot better organised going forwards. Once I start an electronics building project the workbench goes from orderly to chaos very quickly!

When I was an RF engineer (not a very good one BTW) we used to keep resistors and capacitors in little open topped brown envelopes in a box on the bench. This worked very well and was easier and less space intensive that racks of storage drawers. I may go back to this for the more common non ESD sensitive components.

Moved to new QTH

Although still without internet and phone - thanks Virgin Media - we have now moved to the new QTH. I have still to erect my V2000 vertical but hope to have this up over the weekend. Amateur radio is taking a back seat whilst teething troubles with plumbing and electrics are sorted.  Until we get internet at the new QTH these blog postings are likely to be few and far between.

Moving tomorrow - emotions mixed

So, after 37.5 years in our current home, we move tomorrow to a newly renovated bungalow in the same village.  Emotions are running high this evening: this has been the place where our children were born and raised, where our grandchildren have stayed and played, where I have enjoyed all sorts of fun on the radio. The new home should be lovely and better in many ways, yet this evening my wife and I are feeling rather sad at having to say goodbye to our "old" home.

Actually we are not quite saying a final farewell as we still own the old property and intend to keep it for some years to come. At the moment we are deciding whether to rent it out on long lets or to furnish it for weekly holiday lets. The house is in a quiet road on the edge of the village overlooking pleasant countryside and the local church. If we decide on holiday lets we could even come back to stay for a few days or at least use it for the family for a few weeks each year.  These are decisions for the weeks ahead.  More immediately we have to get ready for the removals men arriving at 8.45am in the morning.

This morning I went up to the chimney of the new home with the builder who was fixing a cowling. The view from up there is spectacularly good confirming it should make an excellent VHF/UHF/microwave location. This is something I shall look forward to!

Virgin Media cock-up

This evening I am VERY annoyed! 

A day before we are due to move we have been informed by our phone/TV and broadband provider (Virgin Media) that they cannot now do the installation at the new property until (at least) Sept 2nd and not on Aug 15th as promised a few weeks ago. This means we have no home phone, no internet and no TV (other than Freeview) for at least 2-3 weeks. What annoys me is that had I known this 2 weeks ago I might have decided to go elsewhere. They apparently need to dig a hole in the road to get the cable through and need local authority approval to do the digging. Let's hope we don't get a "job's worth" who takes a month to process the approval to dig.

I asked several people at Virgin Media if I could have my phone redirected to my mobile ("no, we can't do that") and if I could be loaned a 3G dongle so I could get internet connectivity ("no, we can't do that"). Why ever NOT?? What a total shower they are!

So, if you need to contact me please do so via my mobile number which I have emailed to some of you.

Also, do not expect to see blog updates for some weeks until I manage to get internet services at the new home and replies to emails are likely to take some time.

To add to my woes today, this morning I managed to knock a tin of paint all over our bedroom carpet when painting a piece of furniture.

All in all, today has been quite stressful what with packing for the move on Wednesday and trying to sort out everything.

The Chinese HF SSB/CW transceivers are REALLY coming.....

Steve G1KQH has alerted me to a new QRP HF multi-mode transceiver from China that is available on eBay. The English translation leaves a lot to be desired, but this again signals that the Chinese are starting to get very close to marketing credible HF transceivers that we can expect to see sold by the likes of Martin Lynch and Waters and Stanton. In my view we are 12 months away from this point, but when some really decent HF rigs become available be prepared for some VERY tough times for Yaesu, Icom and Kenwood.

See: http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Whole-ham-kn920-kn-920-utrashort-wave-ham-radio-station-equipment-shiortwave-SW-free-shipping/926979_1075987935.html

On the same theme, Hamshop in the Czech Republic has announced it is the EU dealer for the single band KN-Q7A SSB transceivers from CRKITs in China. These are neat little single band 40 and 20m transceivers available as kits or ready built. They are getting rave reviews on eHam.net.

Rotatable mast bonus

Regular readers may remember that I was asking about rotators some months back. Well, I have just realised that the place where I intend to fix my 2 inch diameter mast at the new QTH is such that I can rotate it by hand by opening a window about 10 feet from my new operating position. This means, if I so choose, I can erect a small beam for 2m and 70cm, or a combined 2/70cm beam and turn it 360 degrees very quickly using the trusty "Armstrong" method. So, initially I'll erect the V2000 vertical but may well add some small (not too sharp) beams for VHF/UHF contest and tropo work. Turning a beam by hand is quicker than a rotator and allows signals to be peaked by ear.

Anyone have any recommendations for a combined 2m/70cm horizontally polarised beam with around 3-6 elements, ideally fed with a single 50 ohm coax? I have seen combined 2m/70cm HB9CV antennas but think there are other options too.

First building projects for the new shack

It will take a few weeks to settle into the new home and get things straight, but already my mind is turning to projects for the autumn. Several of these are hang-overs from the current QTH i.e. "gunner" projects (I'm gunner do this or that!) or projects already started but needing to be completed. This is the list so far. You can be 100% certain this list will grow and change.

1. Check the LF/MF/HF noise environment at the new QTH. I have no real idea how this will be. I am more in the middle of the village at the new QTH, so suspect switchmode PSU and other noise sources may be more of an issue?
2. Finish the 10m WISPY transceiver. Both the direct conversion RX and DSB TX have been built and successfully used on air, but I have still to put the 2 bits together as one transceiver in a box.
3. Finish the optics for my G4HJW designed Finningley optical transceiver. I finished the electronics build some weeks ago but the move got in the way of the mechanical parts. I need a new stable tripod for this too.
4. Carry out some VLF earth-mode tests at 8.97kHz from the new QTH to compare results after the QTH move. My baseline earth-electrode "antenna" will be very slightly shorter and the direction more NW-SE (it was E-W before).
5. Carry out some 472 and 136kHz WSPR tests using the earth-electrode antenna. Again, the aim is to see how results compare at the new QTH. The earth-electrode's new loop direction will affect who can copy me.

Whether I concentrate on HF/MF/LF or move more to VHF/UHF will depend on the noise environment. Although there are plenty of things to try to reduce QRM if this proves to be a problem, it may be the perfect excuse to try something new, such as weak signal QRP work at VHF and UHF. We'll soon know.

Starting to equip new shack

Although our move is a few days away still, I am starting to move my equipment across to the new shack. I may erect my V2000 vertical this weekend too, so that I can have a first QSO from the new shack on the East Cambs 2m FM net on 144.575MHz next Monday at 8pm.

I am debating where to put the triband antenna: either on a gable end over the garage or on a longer pole attached to the rear wall of the garage. The latter would make antenna changes slightly easier as the pole would be attached at ground level, so no ladder climbing needed.

My understanding is that outside of a conservation area I do not need planning permission for a second antenna on the house such as a V2000 vertical as long as the linear horizontal dimension is not greater than 1m, which it would not be. A 2m big wheel on the same pole would probably be OK too. I should be able to string a 10m or 15m dipole from this support to a tree at the other end of the garden that would feed conveniently into the shack just below.

All my antennas now dismantled ready for the move

Today was an historic day: for the first time in around 20 years or more, I have NO antennas up outside at this QTH. The Par 10/20/40 end-fed HF antenna and the trusty V2000 VHF/UHF tri-band colinear were taken down this evening. The V2000 has been up continuously now for the best part of 10-12 years and is in remarkable condition still. Apart from a bit of dirt on the fibre glass covers and a little oxidisation on the metalwork, it is like new and electrically still works perfectly. There are several "copies"  of this antenna around, some of which are nothing like the original version.

It will be some days before I get the antennas sorted and erected at the new QTH, but at least the brackets and antenna hardware are now down and available for a suitable moment.

68-76kHz LF band allocated in the USA

Just in from WG2XRS/4.....

"You might have heard a group of us have received a license covering 68 to 76 kHz with 10 W ERP for most all modes including SSB!  Authorization came yesterday and already have W4DEX on QRSS and into W1VD and others with very solid sigs on 72.4 kHz.  Am gearing up for that operation as we speak.Bob, WG2XRS/4."

This is fascinating news. Although getting anything like 10W ERP is a major challenge at 73kHz, much weaker amateur signals have spanned the Atlantic in the early 2000s when the 73kHz band was available by NoV here in the UK. See  http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mike.dennison/index/lf/transcontinental/2001-2/at2001-2.htm

There is no doubt that some of the US stations will be copied in Europe this coming DX season. Since the first few years of this century a number of new weak signal modes have appeared such as WSPR2 and WSPR15 and OPERA. Also, with GPS locked systems and superb frequency accuracy, it is possible to run very slow CW and DFCW modes knowing that the TX frequency can be very accurately set, so the RX can look for the signal in uHz bandwidths to dig it out of the noise over a period of hours. All we now need is for a limited number of 73kHz permits to be again allocated in the UK.

Please note this is NOT a general allocation in the USA: it is a special research permit to a limited number of stations in much the same way as some access to 500kHz and 136kHz has been granted over there. Their FCC does seem to be incredibly slow at getting new bands like 472kHz allocated. I don't know why this is such a problem: perhaps they fear allocating these LF bands will be a threat to homeland security?