AmateurRadio.com

I’ve order the Argent Data Arduino Shield Kit for a little project and been well and truly had by the post Office. £3 worth of customs duty on an £18 item and £8 for the privilege of them paying the bill. Best not choose that option again

I’ve had a little V dongle for a while and it works as a reasonable receiver but is let down by my puny Atom based PC. It gives me the Norman Collier effect. So I was very keen to try out some software from Martin Marinov that lets you use your Android tablet / Phone that replaces your PC. Low and behold it works and at £6 is a lot cheaper that buying a new PC.

I have a Google Nexus 7 and you’ll need a way of connecting the device to your mini USB socket on the tablet but there are plentiful from eBay or Amazon for minute sums of cash. I suspect some may be better than others but if it works it works!

There is a stinge-ware version that has a few limiting features but I would recommend trying it out and paying out. Its only the price of a couple of pints!

The software sets itself up and downloads a driver (from the same developer). My first attempts had a few issues with the software not finding the device at first but a quick reset had it all ship shape in no time. All in all a great App and a lot less hassle than the SDR set up I originally had to do.

Available via Google Play

Months of less than pleasant weather gave way to a sunny but breezy weekend. Ideal for the NFD contest. There was quite a bunch of us involved but unfortunately due to a domestic planning error we had family staying.

I did my bit by helping to set up and an hour or so of logging but no operating. Shame really as, working under Andrews callsign G4VFL/P across 6m, 4m and 2m all in around 180 qso’s were made.

Nice and relaxed contesting from the top of a very isolated fell road. Well done all.

I’ve been so busy at work.over the last 2 months that I’ve barely turned a rig on. It hasn’t stopped me sending off a rant to the rsgb rag about the lack of focus on celebrating successes that our young and newcomers achieve as well as the price of new gear. That’s another story though. Needless to say I expect a few comments.

Onto more positive things. This weekend is the VHF NFD and a bunch of us will be active on 2m and 6m from corney fell. We’ll be in the single transmitter category and expect a couple of hundred contacts at best and a few gallons of tea and a hundredweight of biscuits. Definitely my kind of contest.

Looking forward to working you all…listen out for MX0WRC

Guess the rude noise on 6m I recorded a little while ago but forgot all about

Guess the dinmap :: {skin:’black’, animate:true, width:’200′, volume:0.5, autoplay:false, loop:false, showVolumeLevel:true, showTime:true, showRew:true, downloadable:true, downloadablesecurity:false, id3: false}

I don’t often look for PSK warbles on 6m but am glad I did this evening. Obviously others were looking for someone as well I1YTO and I ended up having a brief QSO before he faded away again, up to 599 then down to nowt in a matter of seconds. Nice whilst it lasted

I’ve harped on enough about the Fred Whitton but I thought I’d share this. There were a few photographers around the course. catching you at your finest moment. I’d looked for one of me and there wasn’t one to be found in the original batches sent round. Apparently the camera’s weren’t happy with all the rain and they lost a few photo’s.

Luckily for me they recovered a few and I was in one of them, so here I am struggling up the 3rd pass out of 6. Newlands pass, near Buttermere. Its one of the easier passes and only hits about 25-30% at the very end. Not like Hardknott that is like that for most of it!

Anyway here I am in all my uphill-ness. 50 miles in and 60 to go! It ended up taking me 8 hours and 8 minutes and 50 seconds. If I’d been 8 minutes and 51 seconds quicker I would have got a 1st class time. Maybe next time