AmateurRadio.com

What’s the use of holidays if you just do nowt? It’s never going to happen in our house. So I decided to do something with one of he old netbooks I have. Remember them? Mine is an Advent 4211 that my lad decided to pull the keys off and eat them whilst our backs were turned and he was a less mobile menace

Anyway. A media server is something we’ve been missing since our NAS decided to go on a ‘go slow’. After 20 mins Googling I ended up with OpenMediaVault. Impressed eh?

An all in one server is almost on us. I did the usual and downloaded the iso, burnt it to a USB stick with Rufus and installed it on the machine. As expected the installation was simple and I used this tutorial to help. Needless to say the 20 mins Googling the right software was the quick bit.

The MiniDLNA bit was what I was after and after a few ‘Uh’s’ and a quick trip round the internet and back and it looks like its going to serve me nicely. Did you see what I did there? serve? server? Oh well never mind. Here’s to you internet and your ability to give me ideas for stuff to do in the holidays whilst I’m waiting for stuff to arrive from China……Now what’s next on eBay?

My shack is fairly spartan. Just the IC7000 as a main rig. The antenna farm is equally so with all antennas in the loft bar a 2m & 70cm colinear.

Its a fairly spacious loft mind you. Enough room for a Watson 80 plus 2 dipole (Which they don’t seem to make any more) with extra elements for 30m and a 4 element 10m band yagi. But 80m is really not working for me.

So with a few hours to spare this weekend and a bit if ladder line I pulled together a W3EDP antenna. Its nothing new and a very cost effective antenna. So without going through all the detail it was either that or nothing at all for 80m. I just simply don’t have the space for a windom ( which is what I would have preferred) and  G7FEK limited space antenna would have meant more stuff in the garden to annoy the XYL.

Needless to say I got the chance to try it out, firstly with the Hack Green SDR and shortly afterwards a nice QSO with Peter, G4LHI in Huntingdon.

So for a couple of hours work I can recommend the W3EDP. Noting of course the current at the end and need for a good counterpoise / earth. I can also say that even in a lash up configuration it withstood some pretty big winds here in IO84 this weekend.

So where to find out more:

Well a simple Google will give you most of the info you need but you could do worse than invest in the the Stealth Antennas book. I have a copy of the older version,
I see the new one has a different cover, I’m not sure if there was much change in the insides between editions but there’s something in there for everyone. From ultra small weird looking things to some old favourites like loops and verticals all the way to ultra cheapo types.

Its not all good news though. The XYL isn’t happy with the wire. The Watson 80 plus 2 (whose inspiration came from the G4ILO section of this book) didn’t quite meet my expectations and I didn’t quite get the G7FEK constructed. Maybe next time.

If you’re stealthier on 80m then I’m sure I won’t be the only one who is interested in finding out how you did it. If not then lucky you for having enough garden and don’t forget to listen out for the weak signals.

I usually cycle to work. Wow I hear you say, what a guy….Well thanks but I hadn’t finished the introduction. Cycling means you notice the seasons a lot more than if you drive. Its still the season for shorts and after some very mild days we’re definitely heading towards fully developed autumn. So what?

Well its time to spend fewer hours outside (because you’ll be blown across the street) and more time preparing for those murky days when projects are preferable to souwesters.

This year I have got a couple of PCB’s that need populating. 1 of them is the Budd Churchward Morseduino. The other is the Minima Transceiver.

Budd created a neat little barebones arduino and morse code decoder and he kindly gave me the gerbers. It is essentially a very simple device that will allow audio to pass through and it will give a reasonable decode of CW. I say reasonable because it is never going to be as good as your purists ears but it’ll help get the less talented on the air (hopefully). This video gives you a flavour

Project 2 it the Minima Transceiver, by Ashran Farhan of BitX fame. It is my first foray into complete rig build for the experimenter so I’m expecting some tinker time. Essentially it is a Arduino controlled simple transceiver (Any spot the link here?). This will be a lot more involved and I’m just getting my head around the schematic.

There seems to be a lot of useful information about so if I get stuck then google will no doubt be my friend! Here’s a little taster.

The picture on the left, from APRS.fi shows the level of coverage by APRS iGates in Wasdale (A lake district valley that is home to Scafell Pike, England’s tallest mountain). You can see that the coverage is fairly limited to heights above about 400m. That really isn’t very good.

I had walked from the road north of the river Irt and up what was a quite steep hill to Whin Rigg. What makes the lack of gates even more disappointing was that there is a clear view of the Isle of Man as well as southern Scotland as you move up the ascent.

So why is it so bad? Well the geography doesn’t help. Like many hilly areas the western lakes is a series of valley that lead out to sea so when you are low there is not much scope for RF to go anywhere. this also explains the patchy mobile phone coverage. Another aspect was the stock antenna on my vx-8. It really isn’t that good compared to other larger aftermarket options.

So what? well first off we hams aren’t the only people to us APRS or a similar protocol. The mountain rescue also use a proprietary system. They must suffer with the same lack of coverage despite a sizeable array at the head of the valley.

So what do other areas use? do they use APRS in hilly areas? are there low cost self powered digipeaters or iGates about? is APRS out-dated now that digital modes are so popular (not here mind you)? I’d like to know simply because I like APRS and think its a under utilised system here in IO84, perhaps elsewhere.

You will have doubtlessly heard about the super cheap Pixie QRP TXRX. Well for those feeling a little flush there is a (and always has been) a real high powered alternative knocking about on eBay. The Frog Transceiver is around the £8 mark at the moment and will give you about 1.5w on 40m and an evenings worth of fun putting it together.

I’m off work this week for my summer hols and in between kayaking on the sea, being eaten alive in Ennerdale by voracious midges (my own fault for going there when there was no wind and not taking any insect repellent) I’d planned on assembling this little friend to add to my growing collection (along with the Pixie).

The PCB is as one would expect, not bad but not brilliant, components are fit for purpose but the packaging was a little shabby with everything just thrown in a bag, not much protection for the IC’s. So I’m getting my excuses in early….this might not work!

Still £8 is less than an evening at the pub, less than a trip to the cinema (for one) but more than a Pixie

Over 6 months ago I pretended to myself that I was going to learn CW. Just one QSO and then I can call myself a ‘real ham’.

Well I’ve had that QSO now and it seems reasonable to assume that I’ll have a few more now that I’m helping other local hams to learn CW. None of us are any good. I think I top out the speed tables at about 8-10wpm but now that there are a few more locals ready to take to the airwaves then I’m sure I’ll speed up to the target of 12-15wpm by Christmas.

So what? Well here’s the good news. 2m is as quiet as a mouse round here. Even the repeaters are empty so there’s no need to worry anyone with some troublesome sending.

Thursday nights are on air practice nights. Who knows, one day someone may not be part of the group and a real QSO might happen!

The 2015 annual VHF national field day is now officially finished. So what’s the news?

Firstly I managed so excellent DX from the comfort of my own shack.

DX you say?

Yep 3 countries

Wow(?)…well yes they were EI,GM and GW so not exactly a long way but DX none the less.

Uhh?

Well yes, if the bands are normally silent and there’s not a station to be heard then the end of the village is DX.

But if there’s a bit of activity as there was this weekend then its always nice to work a few stations in other countries. But what would be really nice is to hear this level of activity on the bands regularly, and there to be rag chewing alongside contesting.

The ‘official entry’ from Workington was camped up on Corney Fell. I arrived too late to help get set up due to domestic duties but the photo’s didn’t do the conditions justice. There was a good 30+ mph wind up there and that 2m antenna was flapping about a lot. Hence the extra guy .

The VHF bands are XYL friendly in my house as the antenna’s are smaller, can be overlooked (on occasion) and don’t warrant the usual response of ‘What the hell is that doing there?’ and ‘ How long do you intend on keeping that thing there?’ The answer to both of these questions is to mumble a bit and pretend to be busy doing something important.

So here’s a plea. Don’t make me take down this antenna, or worse still turn it vertically for FM. I’d quite like to work stations regularly on VHF SSB or even CW. Remember to switch the rig on, look for IO84 square and break the silence. A response to one contester today on 70cms was ‘That woke me up, I’ve been calling for 2 hours solidly and you’re the first one today’ isn’t good.