AmateurRadio.com

I seem to suffer with the same addiction that so many other hams have. One hand held is just not enough.

It was my birthday the other day and seeing as I’m officially really old according to my kids I thought I could treat myself to a 2m hand held that I could happily take with me when I’m out on my mountain bike (Its full suspension, which goes with my old age, apparently!). I’ve never been too keen on taking the excellent Yaesu VX8-G that is my primary summit radio. I don’t regularly come off but I wouldn’t want to come off with that in a back pack. So like many others a Baofeng UV5 was ordered through eBay. After a 3 week wait it landed on my doorstep, out of the XYL’s view and was quickly moved into the garage retreat.

The specs are well known and whilst you shouldn’t expect too much for 30 quid I was quiet surprised when I sneaked it into the car when we had a trip to Mirehouse at the weekend. Even with the short and doubtful antenna I got a good signal report from M0YDH on Robinson from Keswick.

Now then what about one for 4m?

Monday night was club night

I must have been a bit tired from the long bike ride I did at the weekend but I offered to run a construction evening based on a simple kit. This was really to help build confidence in soldering and making ‘stuff’ that might be handy for the up and coming ham’s shack.

Anyone who knows me will know that I can build a kit but can’t design a circuit for toffee. So the hunt for a suitable kit began, Julian, G4ILO happened to mention at nerly the same time that a QRSS TX is available through Hans Summers which looks like a cheap and simple one to go for and a company called radio kits do a simple needle based SWR kit or a digital one.

The crucial thing is to be able to talk around the principle of operation as well as the construction otherwise the exercise is missing a trick. I’ll be ordering the bits very shortly and making sure I know they work long before I let myself in for an overly complicated explanation to a bunch of blank faces. Especially if they are wielding soldering irons.

Price is obviously an issue as the club has members with a variety of incomes, but if there are other kits about that could be made up. I would really like to hear of an 4m FM TXRX’s that can be built. For some reason most of the members have an obsession with that band. Otherwise its a suitable SSB HF rig for a long term project. First off though is the easy one. Famous last words?

The Good News

TAPR have opened up the shop for Hermes SDR customers.

The Bad News

The transceiver is set to cost around $1000 with no real warranty. If you want one you’ve got until the 25th to place an order. After that its not going to happen.

Hermes is the next generation SDR developed by hams from round the world and when I originally saw one I immediately felt my jaw hit the floor. The receiver was excellent and the whole thing was very versatile. TAPR have long supported the project from what I can see but the terms and conditions leave a lot to be desired. Initial estimates have increased a touch and that’s ok with me. There are always additional costs which may not have made it into the original estimate but as unit without any form of safeguard that it would turn up working at your doorstep I find it underwhelming. In fact I’m not even sure it is legal to supply goods to the UK where the buyer takes responsibility prior to it being received. Caveat Emptor indeed.

The rig has a list of features that rival the outstanding Elecraft K3 and whilst the power output currently isn’t the same and no doubt the operating form factor does not appeal to everyone it does offer something different. The unassuming silver Hammond case I saw at the recent club meeting gave little in the way of clues as to what was going on inside and its definitely not a rig for those who like to wield a soldering iron. But, it is a rig for those who are into SDR or who want to get into the bleeding edge of technology without shelling out multiple thousands of pounds for huge desktop devices that are equally at the bleeding edge but in a different form factor.

So the choice was to gamble a grand on something I really wanted in what would need a PA of sorts to compliment it further and turn an excellent rig into a world class station. Or to save selling my existing rig ready for the upgrade and putting the money to one side and hope that TAPR can offer it with a slightly less roulette wheel approach. I’m not a gambling man, especially with so much money.

To say that I’m gutted is an understatement. I have waited quite a while since seeing prototypes in one of the key project members shacks. Seeing one just a couple of weeks ago watching one in action at the club just added fuel to that desire. Unfortunately, that desire has been stamped on by some unacceptable terms and conditions. Imagine parting with the cash only to find your rig doesn’t work and you can only partially claim compensation from a shipper if you can prove they were at fault. I suppose the IC-7000 will be on the desk for a little while longer.

Martin Harrison, G3USF has sent me the June short form report from the 6 and 10 club. It is available at the usual place, here. I trust you find it useful.

Personally I have barely touched the rig over the last couple of weeks. What with a broken PSU and a phenomenally expensive replacement switch that cost me more to put it in the post than the switch itself. The cheeky monkeys also sent it second class post so they made a tidy profit on sending it as well as on the switch. Hmmmmm.

Once I’ve got the PSU fixed, hopefully this weekend then I’ll be back up and running fully, just in time for the poor band conditions I’m reading about.

On another note I’ve had a wrestle with the Raspberry Pi as have a few other hams and its been tough going. Being a computer half wit I can’t really programme so I’m attempting to convert the little knowledge I have into making applications like Xastir run on the RPi. I’ve managed that but can I get the maps to work. Well simply, no I can’t. Still as a digipeater it has the potential but it needs a bit of extra hardware to accept audio in. Currently the board does audio out but not in. I expect that as time does on the platform will get developed further and bits and pieces will be produced in a similar fashion to the Arduino. At the moment its a bit like the wild west.

I should really spend the time fixing the PSU rather than playing with the RPi. That reminds me I need to fix the bike as well.

The Raspberry Pi may well be in the public domain and a few of us who have got the boards are busily scratching our heads trying it to get it to do ‘stuff’. There are far brighter people than me who’ve managed to get ‘stuff’ done on this low cost machines and they’re shouting about it in a digital magazine called MagPi, which is available here.

Last night was club night. Its a good chance to catch up in person with the local hams and exchange bits of useful information. Normally how to fix the things I have broken, which seems to be quite a few things at present including 3 bikes, but that’s another story.

Kevin, M0KHZ came along with the view of giving us an understanding of where the Hermes High Performance Software Defined Radio (HPSDR) is. He started with a brief history which explained for us lesser mortals how the project got started and how the project team got to where they are today.

The prototype that was on display at Dayton and Friedrichshafen was fired up and Kevin showed us how the rig could be controlled over wifi and the potential of Hermes to take SDR to the next level and then further. Even though Kevin was tight lipped I got the impression that this was not the end of development

The detail is way over my head and the likelihood of me understanding these concepts fully is fairly slim but it doesn’t stop me wanting to get my paws on one. Needless to say I have approached the local financier / XYL who was less than interested so there’s more ground work needed there. The impression I got was that although there is a fairly full ‘expression of interest’ list at HamSDR (you’ll need to log in to add your name to the list) the commit to buy list isn’t yet up and orders are not likely to be taken until September. Plenty of time to save up.

SDR doesn’t fill everyone with the same excitement as it does me but its fair to say that whatever your stance you can’t fault this small project team for their dedication and know how as well as doing this not for commercial gain.

When your PSU gives in, a replacement part costs an arm and a leg and 6m is up?

Not a lot it seems. My ft817 was hearing a lot of eastern and western European stations but with 5w max and a home made  antenna you’re not going to get far despite some patient operators on the other end.

Still it was worth a go and thanks to DL5EL for letting me have more than my fair share of attempts.