AmateurRadio.com

Today I celebrated my birthday and reflecting on the past year I realised just how much I have achieved during my first year as a bona fide radio amateur.

While I gained the foundation licence back in September 2013 it was only at the start of the year that I took possession of my first proper radio and began my first real forays into the hobby. That is not to say the end of 2013 weren’t without its highlights, remember ICube-1?

While the foundation level licence gave me access to most bands, be it at only 10W, I was not content to stay as M6GTG. I passed the intermediate in May (2E0NRD) and finally got the full licence in October (M0NRD) and have slowly been honing my operating skills.

I competed for the first time in the RSGB UKAC and other VHF/UHF contests. They have proved to be an enjoyable and educational activity. The structure exchange helped me overcome my initial microphone shyness and the goal of improving my score each week to become more competitive forced me to improve my set up.

Construction of a headset interface and the addition of a foot switch were simple projects as was the building of a simple but effective Moxon antenna for 6m (blog post). This together with a permanent antenna pole, rotator system and upgraded coax all have helped me improve and learn. I even tried my hand at some portable operating with varying degrees of success. I have received some invaluable help and advice from people, especially Robert G1ZJP (M1MHZ) The results for the year have been coming in and I am very happy with my final positions in the various bands for a first timer and hope to be more competitive next year. .

HF operating proved initially off putting, plagued by QRN/QRM and my initial microphone shyness I veered toward the more noise immune data modes. I built a data mode interface and have had a fair degree of success with PSK/JT65 and RTTY as dabbling with a few other modes and over the last few weeks I have experimented with FreeDV and find it fascinating.

As I have become more confident I now operate voice more often and now regularly give points away on contest weekends because I like the short formalised exchange. Indulging in small talk in normal contacts is something I am not good or comfortable with but as I’ve got to know local operators I have started to join in the local nets and art of conversation is becoming easier.

The High Altitude Ballooning (HAB) has taken a back seat at present. I still have active plans to get a flight up with my own payload and have given a number of successful talks to local clubs over the year which I have enjoyed. Missing the UKHAS conference was a bitter disappointment but I still track flights and I hope to reinvigorate this interest in the spring as I get back up to speed with recent developments. 

Due to time constraints I have also mothballed plans for numerous construction projects based around the Arduino. Last months rearrangement of the shack should allow me to finally get around to finishing them.

Operating the JOTA station GB2FFC for a local scout group was very rewarding. The write up from this blog was included in the latest RSGB Radcom magazine and we hope to do it again next year. Being asked to contribute content to the AmateurRadio.com website came as a surprise and thanks to all those who have commented on my ramblings.

Another rite of passage was managing to repair my first rig, an elderly TR9500, yes it was only a modest achievement but a massively satisfying one and it has given me some confidence in purchasing second hand equipment in the future.

As well as building up the shack and continuing to improve my setup and operating I have some specific aims for next year...

Make a proper satellite contact
Satellite reception and tracking is something else that has been neglected recently, though I am still decoding FUNCube-1 telemetry daily.

Make a meteor scatter contact
I attended a fascinating presentation at the Spalding and District ARS by Robert G1ZJP about Meteor Scatter operating just before the Perseid meteor shower. I have made a couple of attempts since including during the recent Geminid shower and while I can receive signals no problem I have yet to make a successful contact. It is definitely on the to-do list but I may need to increase the power output, maybe even investing in some amplifiers and better antennas who knows it could lead to attempting some EME!

Make a proper SOTA/IOTA activation
Next year I will be holidaying in Scotland on the Isles of Skye and Islay so want to make a better attempt at operating in these more remote operating than I did this year. I also want to take a radio up a mountain!

Become more involved locally
I joined the South Kesteven ARS last year and regularly communicate with members of the nearby Grantham ARC. There have been suggestions of operating special event stations as well as repeating the JOTA event. I enjoy the meetings and conversations and is nice to bounce ideas off each other and hope to be more involved in organising activities.

Anyway, still a few hours of my birthday left so off to enjoy a wee dram or two and a slice of my birthday cake made by loving XYL




Andrew Garratt, MØNRD, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from East Midlands, England. Contact him at [email protected].

Last week, BBC’s Panorama programme did a frightening documentary on factories used by Apple in China and on their tin supply chain in Indonesia. If such poor conditions are used by Apple, many other products will be produced in even worse conditions. As a user of Apple products I am appalled.

See Panorama, Apple’s Broken Promises .

Of course, we in the West milk the low costs that such poor working procedures/conditions permit. With time, conditions will improve and the West will look to other low cost manufacturing areas for our low cost products. Sadly, our greed feeds this process.

Frighteningly, other products we buy are probably made in places that are far worse.

Andrew G6ALB tells me of a friend in the automotive industry who visited a Chinese supplier where he found workers using ordinary sun glasses to protect eyes from welding gear. After 6 months  the workers were totally blind. So they just got fresh workers to replace them!

Thanks to Steven G7VFY for most of this information.

UPDATE 1740z:  Sadly many (most?) of our electronics components will be made in sweat shops in the Far East. It is very hard to get away from this problem.

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.

Courtesy: http://www.dxmaps.com

It's still one hour from sunrise here on the west coast but the 6m fireworks have started on the east coast....Cycle 24 F2 !  Will it reach us today?? ...fingers are crossed.

Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

From Steven, G7VFY comes news of a very simple 10m DSB transmitter from the blog of KA7OEI. This is an experimental very low power transmitter. It is unlikely to be of use in serious applications, but the range might surprise some.  On 10m, the antenna is efficient and on a clear frequency it has the potential to get a long way. Over 1000km would not surprise me on a totally clear frequency. After all, 1mW (or so) is about 53 if a 100W signal was 59+12dB. On 10m such signals with 100W are very possible.

See http://ka7oei.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/the-pointless-10-meter-dsb-qrp.html .

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.

Those of you following my blog will know that I spent some time this fall designing and building a large rotatable loop for LF and MF (BCB) work. So far the loop has met my expectations and is working well. In spite of several strong storm blasts from the southeast (70-90km), the lightweight PVC frame has shown little desire to grab the wind and destroy itself. For anyone seeking a simple and inexpensive method of mounting a rotatable loop or Flag type of antenna, I believe this mounting system would be excellent.

Over the past few weeks I have logged several new catches on the BCB with three of the highlights shown below. The two stations on 530KHz are both from Cuba...Radio Rebelde at 1Kw (Gauntanamo) and Radio Enciclopedia at 10Kw (Villa Maria). Note how the propagation this night almost puts the two signals, from opposite ends of the island, on a level playing field.

  
At the other end of the band, the Caribbean Beacon on 1610, from The Valley, Anguilla, has been making regular appearances with a strong signal as well.


A nice domestic catch was one-kilowatt CJEU, Radio Jeunesse in Gatineau, Quebec, operating on 1670KHz.

DXing the broadcast band was one of my very first radio activities, starting around age eleven.
I vividly recall my excitement after catching WBZ-1030 in Boston, MA on my little 5 tube AC/DC radio and loose-coupled longwire. I had been hoping to catch an ID from them after listening for them for several Saturday nights! I even managed to get a QSL for my wall, similar to this one, shortly after the big event.

It's great getting back to my radio "roots" although DXing on the BCB has changed so much over the years, with fewer stations regularly identifying and no longer signing-off at midnight. Using the Perseus SDR has also made catching idents much easier, with the ability to record the entire band for hours at a time...or as long as one's hard-drive will allow.
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

The DX record for communications at optical frequencies is phenomenal these days. There is a growing interest in communications over non line of sight paths (NLOS) using cloud-bounce or clear air scattering. To my knowledge, in recent times experiments are (or are about to start) by F1AVY, VK4EBP , VE7SL and G3XBM (when fit again). I am sure there are others too. Weak signal modes certainly help. I used QRSS3 over an 8.5km NLOS path, but much further has been achieved.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-line-of-sight_propagation.

Australian Optical DX   https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Optical_DX/info

Nanowaves              https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/UKNanowaves/info

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.

Simon Brown (G4ELI) author of SDR-RADIO has recently started writing another program called Greyline for Windows, and is still moving it forward. We are now up to Version1 Build 222.






I wrote about this in early October http://g1kqh.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/new-software.html

Since then the Great Circle map has been given a zoom option, and some minor bugs have been ironed out. I also notice there is now an interface for the Yaesu FT-3000 that has been added, not much reference to this at the moment, and as I do not own this radio I cannot test it out? However, I feel there are great things to come from this program, so it is well worth a download and keeping an eye on its website for future updates:
 
http://www.dit-dit-dit.com/Downloads.aspx
Steve, G1KQH, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from England. Contact him at [email protected].