AmateurRadio.com

From May 5 until June 10 British amateur radio stations that have been granted permission to do so may use the prefix GQ, MQ and 2Q0 in place of their regular G, M or 2×0. For the duration of the 2012 Olympic Games British amateurs may use GO, MO and 2O0 instead of their normal calls.

As a sport-hating republican (and I don’t mean the American political party of the same name) G4ILO will continue to use the callsign that has declared me to be an ENGLISH amateur radio operator for the last 30-odd years. So now you know!

I’m not the first blogger to mention this item of news but it is certainly one topic that I could not allow to pass by without comment. According to the IARU Region 1 website, the EU Commission will be revising the EMC Directive and removing the exemption of amateur radio kits and modified equipment from its provisions. Products that are currently exempted would be subject to inspection and certification, a process which would make the production of kits hopelessly uneconomic. It would also potentially spell the end of home building and modification and prevent the importation of kits from the USA and other havens of relative sanity. No, this isn’t one of my April 1st spoof stories released from the Drafts folder by mistake!

I would hope that the IARU, the RSGB and other European amateur radio societies will make urgent representations to the EC to stop this proposal. But this is just one scary example of why I and many other like-minded people feel that we in the UK would be better off out of the European Union.

In fact, most of Europe would be better off without it in my opinion. Could somebody explain why, at a time when European governments are supposed to be cutting back on public expenditure, they continue contributing billions every year (only recently having voted an increase – the UK alone contributes £51 million per day) in order to fund this unelected and unaccountable Commission to employ people who live in cloud cuckoo land to produce unwanted, unnecessary and unasked-for legislation?

One of the blogs I read this morning contained a link to this article in the Mail Online “Stocking up for Doomsday.” The scenario it describes might seem to many of you a bit far-fetched but there are quite a few Americans who wouldn’t think so. You don’t have to look far to find web forums where people discuss survival plans. These people have guns to defend their families and their food and fuel store. They will use ham radios to communicate when the phones and internet are down.

This Doomsday picture doesn’t seem so far-fetched to my wife Olga. Few people in the West even know about this as it received hardly any coverage in the media at the time but in 1992 after the collapse of the Soviet Union Ukraine went bankrupt. Ukrainians who had money in the bank lost it all (and most have still never been compensated for it.) Food disappeared from the shops – not that there was much to start with. People stood on station platforms and begged for food from trains travelling through to Moscow. For years Olga suffered from stomach problems as a legacy from that period when she almost starved. Yes, this happened in a developed country that is right next door to Europe.

The Ukraine government allocated plots of land so people could create kitchen gardens and grow their own food but these were usually a long way from where people lived and anything you did manage to grow got stolen. Olga and her mother avoided complete starvation only because her mother had food coupons as a war veteran which entitled her to obtain military rations.

It’s easy to think “it couldn’t happen here” but the number of economists who are starting to predict a complete economic collapse is enough to make you start wondering if that is just being complacent. Most of us older people who have savings for our retirement have already experienced anxiety about the security of those savings. We naively trust that the British government will honour its promises to guarantee the first £50,000 of individual savings held in British banks but how do we know it could afford to? And how long would it be before we received that compensation? We’d have starved long before, I’m sure of it.

And what about businesses, whose deposits are not guaranteed: businesses that we imagine would provide the food and services that we would need but which wouldn’t have the money to keep trading? Panic buying will have long since emptied the shops of food. What would we do then? Make soup out of five pound notes?

Happy New Year? I wonder.

This was the scene that greeted me when I looked outside this morning! Nothing to what folks in the USA get, of course. But considering that it used to be unusual to have any snow at all during the winter here in West Cumbria it’s still noteworthy.

I hope we don’t get any more, though. Apart from the hassle factor of slushy slippery pavements, a thick layer of snow on the roof won’t help my attic antennas to get out.

I never did get the Spectrum Communications Off-Air Frequency Standard kit working. Now it is looking as though it would be a waste of time anyway as the BBC will be closing down the Radio 4 long wave transmitter that is used as a frequency standard.

An article published yesterday in the Guardian Online explains that the Radio 4 long wave transmitter uses valves (tubes) that are no longer obtainable. The BBC has the only ones still in existence. The transmitter uses a pair and they can last as little as one year. When the last valve blows, Radio 4 on long wave will become a thing of the past.

Building a new long wave  transmitter using up to date technology would cost millions which the BBC can no longer afford due to the need to cut costs as a result of the government’s decision to freeze the licence fee.

There are many other ways to receive the Radio 4 programming if the long wave transmitter closes down. But none of them involve a powerful 500kW transmitter whose frequency is maintained accurately enough to be used as a frequency standard.

Everyone remembers what they were doing when they found out about the 9/11 attacks. I remember it because I had a bad migraine that day, rather like the one that turned out to be a harbinger of my brain tumour. I switched off the computer, drew the curtains in the bedroom, lay down on the bed and switched on the radio. Instead of the expected classical music there were voices talking about a plane that had crashed into the World Trade Centre. For a few minutes I lay there thinking I was listening to some “mockumentary” radio play like the famous Orson Welles “aliens have handed” spoof. But something told me that wasn’t right, so I went downstairs, turned on the TV and saw that this was all too real.

Today I hope against hope that we get through this anniversary day without another terrorist attack attempt. I just don’t understand why anyone would want to give up their life, and end the lives of other innocent people, for any “cause”. One thing being diagnosed with an incurable brain tumour has made me realize is that life is too short to waste getting angry about things you don’t agree with.. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we could all banish negative thoughts, focus on enjoying life as best we can with those we love, and make peace even with our enemies?