AmateurRadio.com

I think the frequency readout of my IC-910H is out by about 400Hz and unfortunately I can’t receive any accurately calibrated beacons like GB3VHF to set it with. I also like to check my K3’s calibration from time to time and would like to take advantage of the option to lock it to a 10MHz frequency standard should Elecraft ever provide it as originally promised. So I decided to have a look on eBay for frequency standards.

There seem to be a number of ex-equipment 10MHz rubidium frequency standards at prices starting from around £50 – which is about the right level for me – available from China. For a bit more you can have a GPS locked time and frequency standard, though where time is concerned the NTP software is good enough for me. There is also a smart looking Quartzlock off-air frequency standard, though that is a bit outside my price bracket for this and would take up a bit too much space for the G4ILO shack.

I don’t know anything about this equipment and aren’t sure if any of these things would be any use to me. The rubidium frequency standard pictured has a frequency adjustment setting which surely defeats the object. If you need to calibrate it against something else then that’s no use to me. I want something of known accuracy to calibrate my radios against. Perhaps the GPS type would be more useful?

Does anyone know about these things?

British and European hams who are in the US to visit the Dayton Hamfest may find it a bit tricky to get back next week. Changing weather conditions are likely to cause ash clouds from the Eyjafjallajokull volcano to return to the UK. The Department of Transport is predicting that UK airspace – including the busiest airports in the south east of the country – may be closed from Sunday until Tuesday. Travellers are advised to check with their airlines before setting off for the airport.

There is speculation at the moment about whether Icom will release the new IC-9100 top band to 23cm transceiver at Dayton, and what the price will be.

I wish someone could tell me why there is this trend towards do-everything shack-in-a-box radios instead of separate VHF/UHF rigs like the now discontinued IC-910H which I just bought? One of the reasons I switched from using a transverter to having a separate rig for VHF is that I can’t use HF and VHF at the same time. An all-in-one radio would have just the same limitation.

Just because technology makes it possible to cram everything into one box doesn’t mean that there is no longer a reason to have separate radios. If you want a new multimode radio for 2m or 70cm you have to buy an FT-817, FT-857, FT-897 or TS-2000 – which are all compromise rigs with fairly poor performance – or wait for the IC-9100. No wonder good single VHF band multimode rigs like the IC-275H are now worth their weight in gold bullion.

I phoned up Radioworld this afternoon to ask why I hadn’t received the 2m 5/8 vertical I ordered a week ago. After looking up the order the girl told me that the stock hadn’t come in yet. “We sent you an email yesterday” she said. That was presumably in response to my shirty enquiry yesterday. I checked through my Spam folder and I didn’t receive any email from Radioworld. I mentioned twice that I had received an email saying the item was despatched on the day I ordered it, but there wasn’t the slightest hint of an apology, just a repetition of the fact that the stock hadn’t come in yet. Radioworld goes on my list of dealers to avoid.

LAM Communications by contrast has been a pleasure to deal with. After failing to win any VHF multimodes on eBay I decided that rather than gamble my money on the stock markets or leave it in the back at an almost zero rate of interest I might as well buy any radio gear I want, so I treated myself to an Icom IC-901H. LAM had a used one for sale so I phoned up to ask about it. I was told it was in really nice condition but when I asked its age the salesman (Dave) didn’t know, so he promised to phone Icom UK to find out when the guarantee ran out and call me back.

This he did after a few hours. He was a bit apologetic, saying that it was made in 2003 so there was “a bit of age behind it” and in view of that he would knock an extra £50 off the price and throw in carriage for free. I decided to go for it and he then warned me that the FedEx courier had already called so it wouldn’t go out until the following day. Fine, so it would arrive today. It did, well-packed (the Icom box was bubble wrapped and inside a larger box) and was exactly as described. Better, in fact, I can’t see a single mark on it. I am well pleased, and would be more than happy to buy from LAM Communications again.

The worst offenders in my experience for service have been Waters and Stanton. I forget the details of all the times I had to hassle them to send things I ordered, such as when I bought a rig advertised as with a free desk mic in RadCom and they didn’t send the free desk mic. A classic example of dealing with W&S was when I ordered the MFJ magnetic loop a few years ago. I didn’t receive any email or acknowledgement and no money was taken from my account so I decided that the online order hadn’t gone through. I started to have second thoughts about needing the antenna so I decided to forget about it, which I did until one day, more than three months later, without any prior warning, a courier knocked at the door with a very large box…

How’s this for poor service? I ordered a 2m 5/8 vertical online from Radioworld on Wednesday May 5th. That afternoon I received an email updating the order status to “Despatched.” I paid £10.00 for next day courier. We have ensured that someone has been in all the time every day since then and no-one has tried to deliver an antenna.

I sent an email at lunchtime asking why I hadn’t received it yet. As of now, I have had no reply. Why is buying ham radio equipment always such a hassle?

A few weeks ago I set up an experimental low power EchoLink node for use as a personal EchoLink “hot spot” using my FT-817 and a dummy load. I planned to make a a dedicated transceiver / computer interface for this. I thought I found the ideal basis for the project in this UHF Micro Transceiver Module from Elcom Research, a Greek company that makes packet radio and APRS products. The transceiver runs on 5V and can be powered by a computer USB port.

Perhaps I should have been warned off by the fact that an enquiry made through the web form on the Elcom site went unanswered, but I went ahead and ordered the module on 9th April, paying online using PayPal. After a couple of weeks nothing had been received, so I sent an email enquiry and received a reply that it had been sent by air mail and should be with me by the end of the week or the beginning of the next one. This was during the flying hiatus caused by the Icelandic volcano, so I gave it a bit longer. However it is now a week after the week that the module should have been received at the beginning of, and a further email received no answer at all. It looks unlikely that I will receive the module at all, so I guess my only option is to initiate the PayPal disputes procedure.

I finally completed phase 1 of the shack renovation. G4ILO is back on the air!

The floor is now covered in wood laminate, and there is a shelf unit on the desk that displays all my radio equipment “ready to go”.

On the “ground floor” is the VHF antenna rotator, the MFJ noise canceling unit, the tuner for the MFJ magnetic loop and my two Morse keys.

On the next level is my Diamond GSV3000 power supply and my Elecraft K3. There is space for a new addition to the right of the K3. This will not be a P3 panadapter, the pictures of which haven’t excited me at all, nor will it be the recently announced Elecraft 500W linear amplifier – as if I could use one with my attic antennas!

The shelves above the K3 lift out to make it easier to access the back of the radio for changing cables. On the second storey is my QRP K2 with its matching power supply. The K2 is really there just for display, as it isn’t actually connected to any antennas, though I could easily swap an antenna from the K3 to the K2 if I wanted to. The K2 power supply runs a few other items including the FT-817ND, seen on the right with the Microset R50 144MHz amplifier. The 817 is doing duty as my 2m rig at the moment – I have given up the transverter due to a number of issues including poor memory ergonomics of the K3 and the fact that it is convenient to be able to monitor or even operate on 2m while the K3 is otherwise occupied.

The top shelf holds the Medion computer speakers that deliver decent-sounding audio out of the K3, my KK7UQ PSK IMD Meter and my collection of VHF/UHF hand-held radios and their chargers.

The opposite wall is still a hodge-podge of shelves screwed to the wall. Phase 2 is to install a custom designed system of shelves and cupboards so the boxes of “junk” can be hidden away behind closed doors. There is a firm that has a web site where you can design your own unit from standard modules and it arrives as a giant flat pack which you assemble. Olga is designing it as she is much better at that sort of thing than me.

I’m not very skilled at joinery and my home made shelf unit doesn’t look all that professional but it’s better than what I had. Having all (well, most of) my radios at my fingertips I feel for the first time in my life like I have an actual radio station. I made a few contacts today including a PSK31 QSO with Greece on 12m, two SOTA stations on VHF and a nice slow morse contact with Helge, LA1PRA on 80m.