Snow

Today we had more snow at this QTH than I can remember in a very long time, certainly for at least 18 years. Here is a picture of the G3XBM back garden today. The 15m end-fed long-wire antenna slopes from the house guttering down to a post in front of the tree in the back left of the picture. You can just make out the antenna wire.

FETer airing today

Hearing all about the great success Chris G3XIZ has had with his FETer transceiver, I fired mine up this afternoon and put a few CQs out on 3560. No takers yet, but have heard a couple of 2W QRP stations over 100kms away (G4ARI and G4FQZ) on the 1 FET receiver.

Earlier, G3XIZ worked GM3OXX for his furtherest 2-way QSO with his 15mW transceiver. This is a remarkable distance for such QRPP and such a simple receiver.

HF Maritime radio and CW?

I thought HF marine stations had abandoned CW, yet I heard 3 sending CW IDs today: IAR on 8.418MHz , SVO on 8.424MHz and A9M on 8.428MHz.

Topo Lighthouse EU-175

Just worked CU5T on 18MHz CW in the Azores. He gave me 599 when I was running 5W. This was the S.Jorge DX'pediton 2009 station to Topo Lighthouse.

QRPP 80m QSOs with G3XIZ

Just completed a nice QSO with G3XIZ 45kms away when he was using the FETer 15mW 1 FET transceiver. I gave him RST529. After our contact finished Chris went on to work Richard G3CWI (Macclesfield) and then Pat G0GMA (East Lincolnshire). Great stuff for 15mW! BTW, I was running real QRO (5W). Claude HB9CGL, in Switzerland, copied Chris's 15mW TX some hours earlier - amazing.

Listening to G3XIZ's 15mW 80m beacon

G3XIZ's beacon running 15mW on 3.555MHz to his FETer transceiver was excellent copy this morning. At peaks it was running RST569 at a distance of around 45kms.

Here is the sound clip of his signal at 10.10am today, 30 Jan 2009.

RQ or CQR call for quick report only?

When using QRP there are times when all I want is a quick report in response to a CQ and not a long QSO with names. QTH, WX, power, antennas and general chit-chat. I wonder if we should have a different CQ format for this e.g. RQ or CQR (meaning CQ for report only).

Is this a good idea or a daft one? Let me know what you think.

VHF AM Yahoo group

This is a picture of G4BYE's version of my own Fredbox 2m AM transceiver design - a neat unit his is complete with proper PCB.

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.

More FETers around

Today I hear that Bill Meara N2CQR and Chris Osborn G3XIZ have built FETer, 1 FET, transceivers. Chris was beaconing his 15mW version this afternoon and it has been copied here at RST229 and in Kent at RST339. You can see Bill's version at his famous Soldersmoke blog.

Rockbound?

Walking home from the bus stop today I noticed a tiny piece of clunch on the ground, a local chalk stone from the Cretaceous age, the period of geological time approximately 143-65 million years ago. In the stone were two small fossil shells. Amazing to think these two creatures were living not far from my home all that time ago.

....and radio is only just over 100 years old.