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My LNR Precision MTR5b always comes away with me and for good reason. It’s small, portable and xyl friendly. It does however, suffer from a lot of wires and bits loosely hanging around. Mrs g7kse regularly takes the opportunity to ‘tidy’ stuff up. This means I can no longer find it. This is ok at home because it hasn’t gone far but a pain when I’m not at home.

Ikea has long been a source of cheap stuff and their chopping boards are just the thing to make into a small flight deck. The one I got is approximately 24cm by 15cm and came as a pack of two with a much larger one that is in use in the kitchen.

I thought the first thing to do would be make up a small tray that I can sit the MTR5b into and then still that to the board. Duly designed and 3d printed. Next up was a small notebook like the boys in blue use, after that some magnets for my palm key (it has a magnetic base). Lastly some velcro tape and 4 m4 nuts, bolts and washers. he optional part is a DC buck converter (just be careful to check dimensions as they change shape and size a bit) that I use to regulate the voltage to 12v (I got carried away and made a really bad case for it)

I thought I’d sink the magnets into the board at then epoxy them in. Mainly because its polypropylene and nothing sticks too well to these waxy plastics. All this took was a bit of careful dremelling and you’re done. The notebook is clipped to the board and the velcro strips stuck down onto the back. The ast ting to do was put 6 feet on it so I didn’t scratch any surface I carelessly chucked the thing on. Here’s a few photos and a link to the parts on Thingiverse.

In a rare moment of rashness I decided to not do any building work today on the summer house. Partly because its nearly finished and partly because Mrs g7kse was sent to the builders yard for 5off sheets of 22m ply and came back with 10 bags of gravel. So as punishment she had to do something construction-like with it. I on the other hand spent a few hours /p in a new venture I’m calling ‘summat on the air?’ There are a few rules to follow.

1. You have to be /p – Its best if you walk up a nice hill that may or may not be a summit, hump, lump, fell or other such designation.
2. Take a radio and antenna. Set this up in the usual manner.
3. Tune about for around an hour, call CQ a few times but in general the idea is that you don’t have a QSO. Or if you do it needs to be with a contest station who is rattling off CW as if it was some kind of percussive attack.
4. Enjoy the view, this is imperative.
5. Go home and question if you’ve broken something in your rig / antenna / key / brain etc

Here’s a few photo’s to remind me of today’s events. I’m sure you’ll agree that St Bees head is a nice place. There’s an old wartime lookout post (which must have been miserable) and a nice view towards the Isle of Man to the wets and the Lakeland fells to the south and east.

Stay away from the edge

A simple set up with an LNR precision MTR5b and end fed antenna, note leg in lower left of picture.

I can see my house from here

A little postscript….

The Cumbrian dialect has many variations. To the outsider they all sound a bit similar so to help the Cumbrian Dictionary will help you understand. So I have taken this from the dictionary to help:

summat1.(noun. summert) something, e.g. There must be summat wrang, he can normally mek it ower yon yat easy = I think something is amiss as he is usually able to jump that gate with ease.

My favourite word is ‘dookers’ if you were interested….eh?