2012 workshop

The photo shows the back of the garage, at the old QTH, where I did much of my building. 

Tidy!! 😉

Autumn jewels - NOT amateur radio

This is the season of conkers. Although now in my old age, I still enjoy seeing them. 

Zoom success

Last evening the Cambridge club (CDARC) had another Zoom talk.  This time it was by Martin G3ZAY, who writes the HF column in RadCom, on the activation of rare Scottish islands for SOTA. 

It was again excellent. By sharing the speaker's screen you can see slides perfectly.  I am totally impressed by how good these virtual talks are. It is good as speakers and viewers can be anywhere without the need to travel. Potentially members could be in New Zealand or China, or anywhere.

Personally I would be happy for these talks to continue on Zoom, for membership fees to be reduced, and a social gathering in a pub or cafe say every month.

Sunspots - Saturday September 25th 2021

 Solar flux is 88 and the SSN 75.  A=8 and K=1.

472kHz transverter fault

Years ago, finding a fault would have been easy. Now, even in small steps, it is exhausting and hard. 

I think the issue is that the oscillator has stopped for some reason: I can detect nothing at 3.2MHz on a nearby RX.  I shall look again at the weekend as now I am so so tired! Just a few minutes is so taxing now. 

This may be as simple as a dry joint. I guess the first thing to try is retouching all the solder joints in the oscillator. It is most likely to be this. I had a diode probe, but I have not seen it for years! I guess I should check the DC volts around the oscillator before doing this.

In the end, the aim is to TX again on 630m QRP. Before the fault arose my measured ERP was just under 10mW. This regularly was spotted on WSPR in Norway.

National Hamfest - virtual again

As Covid-19 is still having an impact, this large UK rally is being held virtually again.

Like many boring old farts (BOFs), I am appalled by the spelling on the main page, which is seen by thousands. Does nobody check?

See https://www.nationalhamfest.org.uk/ .

OFCOM Commonweath Games Licences

OFCOM is issuing licences for communications at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham next year. See the OFCOM website for more details.

Pixies and the Micro-80

There has always been a call to see what can be worked with very little. Among such rigs are the Pixie and Micro-80. I have built both in the past. 

Both use the PA as the mixer on RX. The RX is the compromise although both work. Pixie kits were available as kits from China at very low cost. I bought one for 40m, with a crystal on 7.023MHz. If you get one you may want to consider crystals on 7.030MHz which is the  QRP calling frequency in Europe. These crystals are available at low cost.

See https://sites.google.com/view/g3xbm4/home/hf-mf-and-lf/homebrew/8040m-pixie-and-micro80-transceivers .

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge - NOT amateur radio

 

This college in Cambridge was founded in 1352.

See https://www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/ .

10m FT8 QRP (Friday)

Since 0800z, I have been on 10m FT8. As usual, I was on 2.5W TX for a few minutes, then RX only. It is now 0811z and no spots given or received yet. It is still very early.

UPDATE 0835z: Just a spot of me on TX by G0FWX (160km).

UPDATE 1300z: 11 stations spotted on RX with furthermost D60AC(8211km) on the Comoros Is in the Indian Ocean. 

UPDATE 2050z:  Today is the best F2 propagation I have seen on 10m for some years. So far today, 88 stations spotted  very many in South America.