AmateurRadio.com

Here’s the finished digital SWR and power meter kit from Radio Kits that is being used by the Workington Amateur Radio Club as a bit of soldering and coil winding practice. Not the poor lining up of the LCD screen. Shame really as the soldering was one of my better bits and that’s going to be covered up. All in all a nice kit to put together, I’m no soldering super star and I took my time so instead of it bring an ‘evening’ kit it I’d more like a ‘weekender’.

2 months to supply a switch, 2 months!

My PSU has a faulty switch (as diagnosed by a telephone conversation with a the suppliers service dept). Ah ha a replacement should fix that sir. Great, well I can live with the mark up if it turns up quickly and I can get back on the air.

A completely different switch was supplied. Several conversations and apologies later a second one was despatched, second class. Again different and again returned. This so far has taken 2 months and a lot of chasing on my part.

I felt a ‘snot-o-gram’ was needed, one was crafted and sent yesterday evening. Today I received a phone call and more apologies after then being passed around 3 people the last person told me to de-solder the one they are going to send to me and re-solder the wires on the switch of mine that they have. Good quality British customer service.

Would it not have been easier to say this 2 months ago?

I will now be taking some deep breaths.

Well Dr Watson, its wobbly metal.

Enough of the Tom Foolery and down to the serious business of an issue that must be fairly common. Drilling larger diameter holes in flexible metal sheet generally found on hobby cases. Just in case you were wondering though Tom Fool (aka Tom Skelton) is apparently a ghost of a Jester at our local castle, Muncaster so here’s hoping he’s had plenty of opportunity to wander round the house and grounds with odd shaped holes in his thin sheet metal parts.

A lot of trouble I have with when its time to put a project in a case is that the 16mm hole needed for an SO239 for example causes me no end of trouble. I have tried a number of different ways to make the holes without giving a figure of 8 or elongated hole. Step drills tend to give slightly better results that piloting and increasing the bit size. I have found that the latter can easily end up with a poor hole if any vibration is imparted into the case.

So what’s the answer, well, I just don’t know. Punching would seem to be a better solution as would routing the holes but in the case of pre folded sheet I’m sure this isn’t too practical. I’m wondering if people have had better results with other ways of making these holes.

Over the summer I managed to ‘do’ 2 out of the 5 available 2m Backpacker contests. These to me are a great opportunity for me to get out on the fells and enjoy a longer spell on a summit with a nice qrp rig and some simple gear. The trouble with contesting is that inevitably you want to do better. So what’s the likely areas for improvement. Well there’s the rig, coax and antenna.

The rig is an ft817 and its not going anywhere fast. I sold once once then instantly regretted it. So it’s not going to be changed in a hurry. Yes it has its problems but frankly it just works and is relatively light so its a keeper.

Coax…Hmm work in progress. RG213 is too heavy, Ecoflex just isn’t flexy enough for summit packing. I’m yet to find the ‘perfect coax’. I’m leaning towards a trial with some Messi & Paoloni Ultraflex 7 as I like Mini 8 as a size but am looking for perfection here kids. This just means a reduction in losses to something as low as reasonably practicable as the saying goes

Antenna. Well I do like my now obsolete Sotabeams SB270 ( A 3 element yagi that lives inside its own plastic boom). Its light and doesn’t get thrown about too much in the wind and has lasted years. Trouble is it’s looking a bit knackered now and 3 elements is a bit short. I bought a 5 element LFA off innovantennas years ago and was really disappointed with the build quality. The elements just weren’t secure enough and it was way too heavy. Too heavy for a UKAC /p so no good for a summit. But it is well designed and the elements are quite light.

So the plan is to change the coax. I’ll do that over the winter. In the mean time I’ve taken a few grams off the yagi.

The boom was very substantial 32mm2 2mm thick Aluminium (note spelling you stupid browser ;-)). The boom weighs in at 1150g as is.Swapping this for 20mm2 1mm thick boom I’m down to 560g. Roughly half the weight. Element clamps have been swapped for the G1YBB method of IML mouldings plates and cheapo pipe clamps

You can see the immediate difference in size. The original beam is clearly made for sticking up at home then forgetting about it, ignoring the defects with this particular one.

Now with the elements added. They simply snap in to the pipe clamps and are held in place without any bother.

We’ll see how easy it is to carry up the Old Man of Coniston next year but at 1240g it is nearly 500g lighter than the original with the same RF performance.

I bought 2 pieces of aluminium and have a larger 2m and 70cm DK7ZB yagi that needs the same treatment (I went the other way this time, it was too light and flimsy) that I’ll give a run out during the Christmas Cumulative content

The summer here in the UK may have been the home of the Olympics and Paralympics, in fact I’ve just worked 2O12L, the special event station for the Paralympics. But one thing over everything else has dominated every Englishman’s mind. Just exactly how wet and miserable has the summer been. As I write this it is chucking it down again and the temperature is sliding towards ‘Autumn’. I can confirm that not all the UK is under water, all the time.

That said I have had a lovely week in a small village in Devon called Instow. We rented a small house opposite the beach and did the usual things with the kids. Sand castles, ice creams and cream teas as well as a bit of body boarding (for the kids, not me. I didn’t manage to get a surf board out but that’s probably a good thing). I did manage to sneak in my FT817 and Prowhip antennas fishing rod antenna into the car before the XYL spotted it.

Not many contacts to add into the log but it was nice to hit a US special event station W9IMS in Indianapolis with just a couple of watts. Perhaps it was the overly relaxed operating position.

For the first time in many months the weather and workload was just about right to get out on one of the local fells for a ‘quick’ activation. I say quick because that was the plan but it didn’t really pan out that way.

Lank Rigg is a fairly unassuming fell not too far fro the cold fell road near to Ennerdale Bridge. I cycle past it very often but so far it hadn’t shown itself as somewhere to go for a summit activation. I only had the morning to play with as I had committed to going to the club to help sort out our shack which is creaking under the weight of under use. I managed to get this rare shot of some sun shining somewhere where I wasn’t – the sun does exist after all!

Approaching the fell from the fell road is easy enough and I only had the company of a few sheep and slugs on the way to the summit. A bit of mist on the summit cleared then re-appeared with vengeance so after some longer QSO’s I headed off down the direct route rather than following the valley between Lank Rigg and Whoap which forms the easy route. This was supposed to be quicker but turned out to be significantly longer due to the amount of water in the beck at the bottom. Heavy rains hadn’t fully cleared and I chickened out of the crossing as I was fairly sure that the volume of water could have knocked me over if I wasn’t careful. So having made my bed I had the follow the route all the way to a footbridge and walk back up the road. Several miles of detour.

So, today’s summit activation lesson is, watch out for becks that need bridges or pack some waders if you’re feeling brave. Otherwise enjoy the longer walk back to the car and see parts of the valley you wouldn’t ever expect to see.

I thought I’d catch it before it all goes wrong with too much stuff on it! The only enhancement it needs is a full size rig (or two)