Our windmill

Just across our front garden wall we have a windmill that is almost 200 years old. It is currently undergoing a complete renovation with new cap, 4 new sails, new external rendering and lots of work inside too. Today, a 60 ton crane lifted the newly renovated (6 ton) cap onto the top of the windmill.

In the next couple of months the 4 sails go back on. The video was shot out of my lounge window today. When fully restored it will be well worth a visit as is a visit to our local museum next door.

From an amateur radio perspective the windmill will be a perfect aiming point for optical comms as it is about 20m from my shack. I suspect it will act as a good reflector for microwaves too.

See http://www.burwellmuseum.org.uk.btck.co.uk/StevensMill for more information.

More antenna progress at the new QTH

After having our little grandchildren stay for 6 days (without their parents) the new home has now returned to normal (i.e. tidy) and all the toys have been put away, mine excepted! So, apart from sorting out and decorating the old QTH, my thoughts are increasingly turning to the autumn ham projects again.

I've just collected my Par 10/20/40 end-fed HF antenna and a 1m solid copper ground rod from the old QTH with the aim of erecting the former and pounding in the latter in the next few days. The Par antenna will allow me to get active on some of the HF bands. The earth rod will form the far end of my new earth electrode pair "antenna" which will be used for a series of tests on 8.97, 136 and 472kHz from the new garden. My 8.97kHz beacon can be fired up in QRSS quite easily so RX tests out in the fens can start as soon as the earth-electrode antenna is ready. It will be fascinating to see how this compares at the new QTH.

My big wheel for 2m has still to be procured or made and erected. When this is in place I shall try some QRP weak signal work as mentioned before.

Something else I want to do is some tests locally on 6, 2 and 70cm using a signal generator connected to my V2000 antenna. Tests with G6ALB suggest just a few uW are enough to reach the next village. So I was wondering what the coverage to a mobile would be like locally with, say, 10uW from my generator? A drive-around test in all directions might be fun.

We are still waiting for Virgin Media internet and home phone access though - due Sept 2nd - to allow proper WSPR tests to begin. I bought a 3G wi-fi dongle with 3GB of data which is being used as a stop-gap. WSPR is my mode of choice when testing new antennas or new set-ups as the internet database (near instant) feedback gives a very good idea of how things are working.

Belgium on 472kHz

Rik Strobbe ON7YD reports that some Belgian amateur classes (holders of a HAREC licence) now have access to the 472kHz band with 5W EIRP and without mode restrictions. Unfortunately Rik's PA failed on TX on the new band and is having to rely instead on a 6W transverter for now with just 20mW ERP.

V2000 erected and first QSOs on 6, 2 and 70cms from new QTH

On Tuesday I completed the erection of my tri-band colinear at the new QTH and carried out some tests over a 3km path to G6ALB to see how results compared between my old and new QTH on 6, 2 and 70cms. I was expecting results "on the hill" to be somewhat better, but in actual fact over this short path the results were identical within the limits of experimental error. Andrew put in various levels of attenuation to see how low he could go and still copy me. On 2m for example he could put in 43dB attenuation and still just copy me. 43dB is an attenuation of 20000 times suggesting just a few uW is enough to cover this distance.

Yesterday morning I was able to work through the Welwyn Garden City 70cm repeater, although conditions were up a bit. Last night I worked several I and HA stations on 6m SSB and CW during an unexpected Es opening, getting good reports with my 5W.  Conclusion so far: the antenna works fine.

I am now considering that big-wheel for 2m on the same mast. I am looking forward to working some SSB/CW stations again on 2m.

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.