I start first with my Intermediate results now they are out in the wild, I have passed and am awaiting confirmation from the RSGB, however if it arrives today I will be out of luck as Ofcom's licencing system is down for the weekend, so no new licences can be applied for, I celebrated on Thursday night by getting dinner from Domino's Pizza, which is something I rarely do as it isn't usually cheap.
Secondly, progress to an external antenna has been ramped up a gear, I ordered a Comet CTC-50M from Nevada (IHS Group) on Thurday, I expect to take delivery of it either today or Tuesday at the earliest, and a video of my first impressions and test into a dummy load after installation will appear on my YouTube channel in due course, being a council tenant putting a hole through the wall appears to be a no no, unless of course it's for television reception, but as I am putting my homebrew 2-metre grounplane antenna on the end of this thing I expect it won't be questioned too much as it's made of the earth conductor of 30A rated twin and earth and at a distance would be barely noticed from the flat, and if anyone asks it is for receiving, 2-metre FM usually is pretty benign but you just never know.
Thirdly I have been looking into crimp-on PL259 connectors again as I feel the solder-on type are too much hassle to work with and I strongly suspect a dodgy one is causing high VSWR on my loft CB antenna (but have no way to prove this without plug replacement), the plug on the antenna end has close to fell apart, a crimp-on plug would solve this issue on the lead but whether my suspicions are confirmed or denied will be a different matter, I can get 10 of these plugs from eBay and I have a tool that should work to fit them onto the coax as I plan to move over to crimped connectors anyway as I can give them a professional look, be sure they're reliable and ease the waterproofing of them, important considering I plan to use these in the outdoor environment.
That should cover everything, hopefully by my next blog post I have my intermediate licence or the CTC-50M, whichever comes first.
73 de M6RSQ
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