After many years it may be I get a go in the 144MHz FMAC after all

 So it has taken a few years now however luck has it that on Tuesday I will not be working and therefore can take part in the 2-meter FM activity contest after all, this is of course subject to a lot of things, but I will not be changing job, moving house, or suffering clutch failure on the car (the clutch was changed in November due to bearing failure).

I have logging software on my Hi10 Air tablet ready to go and just need to set up the log for the day, filming will be taking place for YouTube and will be on the channel afterwards so you can see how I got on.

Antenna wise I hope to use my tape measure Yagi, radio will be the FTM-400XDE unless for some reason that is not possible in which case I'll use the FT2D handheld which will make me a QRP station in that case however there is some gain on the antenna which may help should the FT2D be needed, I will also be putting a bulletin of my participation on the contest onto APRS earlier in the day.

As every other time I've wanted to do this contest something has gone wrong I have missed out a lot, this is my first go at a contest if it happens and even though I know full well I will never win it at least I can say I've done it.

looking forward to doing well.

73 de M0WNU

MB7UCG goes live on Thursday

 I am pleased to announce that MB7UCG will be on air from Thursday, Ofcom confirmed today that they received my email so I can run it from that date.

I was of course planning to run a walkabout test with my FT2D however that cannot happen until the following week as I am doing overtime that day, however I can test it using my car, though this will not be filmed as it is on my journey to work and I have not set up a camera that exclusively looks at my FTM-400XDE's display

I look forward to hopefully running a successful igate.

73 de M0WNU

Catterick Garrison APRS igate ready to go

 I have finalised everything for the new Catterick Garrison APRS igate to go live very soon including the NoV, the callsign for the unit is MB7UCG, the setup is located in my kitchen  with the antenna outside on the window ledge on top of a Fray Bentos cheese & onion pie tin, once I have the ok from Ofcom I will be doing some tests however I've not heard anything from Spectrum licencing since they sent the NoV.

I have already put one object onto the igate already and previously placed this on the map using my own callsign and that is the location of the local club, however of course due to COVID-19 we cannot meet physically.

I have remote access to the power supply, as required by Ofcom, to shut the unit down in the event that it is required to do this, and the switch that controls the socket has been clearly labelled, the socket is under the counter with a WiFi controlled socket plugged into it and power to that is switched by a fused spur.

I am reworking the website to hopefully reflect the new igate and when Ofcom clear me to switch it on, I have emailed them but I don't know if they got my emails so I will give them a call Monday morning just to find that out, giving their staff levels will be low due to COVID-19 it might take a while to get a reply.

And there will be YouTube videos coming up on MB7UCG.

73 de M0WNU

Work on the future Catterick Garrison igate underway

I have been working on getting the radio hardware working for the future APRS igate that I intend to run from the home QTH, the radio is my Leixen VV-898 as it's sat doing little, the rest is done via a Raspberry Pi with a keying circuit and a USB sound card.

The setup is currently into a dummy load and is powered from my bench power supply for the radio and the Pi is running off my phone charger.

The next jobs to do for this is to get the shelves in the shed and to get the antenna built (which I plan to make resonant on 144.800), then of course batteries and solar panels to get power to the shed.

So far the tests show promise, the transmissions are received by my Yaesu FT2D and it is used to test receive on the igate which seems fine.

I have two You Tube videos on the subject and they are attached below.

73 de M0WNU

In car APRS map install almost complete

I have fitted the tablet mount in the car, unfortunately by using self-tapping screws into a piece of trim panel on the passenger side, and have tested to find the best position for the tablet so it does not interfere with the operation of the controls, it does block access to the stereo at the moment however this is a minor inconvenience.

The wiring has tested out in a temporary location and RF from the radio does not appear to interfere with the operation of the USB port thus allowing the mobile phone to remain tethered to the tablet over USB, the last job to do is tidy up the cabling by means of cable ties, keeping the radio cable away from anything else of course, the USB cable for the phone will run out loose from the hub as it will be reused in the charger as well for when the tablet is not in the car (for instance when I am at work and I require to charge the phone, the USB hub cannot deliver enough current for a fast charge), the hub was not powered externally during the mount install tests, the Bluetooth GPS unit, which got a lock relatively quickly, was though I suspect the connector does not quite fit the socket on the unit which results in poor to intermittent connection.

Otherwise everything is working, the tablet is displaying whatever the radio receives, the position from GPS and anything on the APRS-IS that is out of radio range, so all set for the off to Blackpool in April

73 de M0WNU

Addition to the in car APRS mapping setup planned

With me hoping to fit the mount for the tablet into the car on Sunday, attention has turned to how I would be able to type anything into the tablet while it is in the mount and off the keyboard dock, I decided a wireless keyboard with trackpad for this and as I've had good results with Logitech products in the past (I have a keyboard but lost the unifying receiver for it) I chose their K400, which we actually use at my work on one of the non-till computers (and it gets dropped on the floor sometimes), as this incorporates a trackpad it means I can still have the option of a mouse or a touchscreen, with APRSISCE/32 a mouse is needed due to the fact it is a desktop application not optimised for a touch screen.

The keyboard is of a decent size so it will fit in the glovebox or the space under the seat when not in use and the dongle can stay plugged into the USB hub which I plan to cable tie to the arm of the tablet holder, given how the setup is configured there would only be one spare USB port after this though this is not an issue as I'd only really use that for flash drives (the tablet does have a micro SD card slot onboard).

Unfortunately with pay day being some time away this will have to wait until then, however I hope to have the setup working ahead of the Blackpool rally so it can be used then not only filling in for where my FTM-400XDE cannot reach an igate or digipeater, but also gating others packets as well as the setup is able to do that.

Going onto the subject of igates, Coastal Chipworks, the company behind the TNC boards for the Raspberry Pi, have since ceased trading, which I discovered yesterday, so I am now having to look into an alternative method to get the Raspberry Pi to work as a two-way igate for this area, I shall keep you posted on my progress with that project.

73 de M0WNU

Testing my home SSTV setup

Yesterday I did some tests, into a dummy load for the time being, of my setup at home for SSTV transmission, I can receive using my phone however receiving using the computer would be a better option here, though I have yet to get a decent adaptor to convert the TRRS output on the KT-8900D to a standard lead suitable for driving a mono speaker (though the computer input is in fact a stereo input), however the audio from the computer to radio is handled by an old home made interface I had lying around and at first it did not work on two different serial port numbers, I then opened it up to find the ground wire from the computer side was in fact disconnected from the board, so I had to resolder it back in place, it still did not work then I found that I had not actually plugged the serial to USB adaptor in when I unplugged and reconnected what I thought was it (which was in fact the USB extension cable to the shackcam), after I did plug it in and set the correct COM port a test without the radio connected showed the "TX" LED on the unit light up, plugging it into the KT-8900D confirmed that it shared a pinout with the Leixen VV898 (I had used this interface for APRS experiments with that radio), so ready to transmit.

First attempt the radio keyed up with no audio, my fault as I forgot to plug in the audio lead, second attempt it worked and I had turned the volume pot on the circuit down to its lowest and adjusted it so the receiver, my FT2D, received the audio but not too loud, it needs a bit more tweaking which will be into a dummy load and a test receive on a receiver in another room of the house as the dummy load, though in a metal case, does radiate a little but not too much.

After that I'll try and get some pictures of the local area to have some to send out in these tests and hopefully on air when I get an antenna made and put up, been a while since I have been on 2-meters in general from home other than through repeaters on HTs, and SSTV is something I have wanted to play with for a while

73 de M0WNU

Yaesu FT2D has arrived

The latest addition to my collection of radios, the Yaesu FT2D, has arrived, and it seems to be a well sorted radio, I did note immediately that like my Retevis RT87 it has the female SMA connector for the antenna on the radio, again this seems to be to do with waterproofing however I do not believe the antennas are interchangeable between the two radios in any way.

The APRS is working and my local repeaters are programmed in to it, by hand as the supplied USB cable is only any good if you want to update the firmware, which I may need to do.

The radio is on its 9 hour charge, as the supplied charger is not a drop in charger, the only other HTs I have bought that did not include one are the licence-free HTs by Intek and Midland despite the Intek radios having this provision, those radios were a fraction of the cost of the FT2D so it's my only real criticism of the radio.

It works on receive fine on C4FM, TX I've not been able to test as it was at that point the battery ran out, FM transmits fine and I got a brief QSO on the local repeater with Dave G8YPN just as he got home.

So my second Yaesu radio and the day of purchase not ruined by the nasty Chance Callahan KD0MXN doing something horrible to me, nor the nasty stalker doing something, primarily because of my step-back from Twitter (infrequent tweets) and IRC (seriously reduced activity), though because the former is licensed and can use anything that uses Internet linking which are generally found on 2-meters and 70cm he could quite easily have harassed me and further stabbed me in the back, but he didn'.

I am in the process of doing the video for the radio, however that won't be completed until much later in the week.

In an unrelated note a colleague of mine gave me a wind-up broadcast receiver either as spare parts or to repair, as he had no use for it and it didn't appear to work, I've wound the crank and found that the internal battery is low on charge.

73 de 2E0EIJ

Yaesu FT2D now ordered

The main handheld I've been after since getting the FTM-400XDE, the Yaesu FT2D, is now on order from, you guessed it, Martin Lynch & Sons, I want to quickly thank the people that tipped me when I delivered food to them for their help in getting me to this stage, I plan to continue saving for either an FT450D or an FT991A, though preference is the latter.

I ordered some screen protectors as well as the radio is a touch screen radio, and a video will be put online when it arrives before it is taken out of the box.

It ticks these boxes for me:

• APRS on HT without extra hardware
• Yaesu System Fusion
• Superhet receiver
• Access to System Fusion out of the car without removing the FTM-400XDE

There are a few other things in the radio worth exploring which I won't cover in this post, and if it arrives before my next club visit I will certainly be taking it along with me, I will also be testing it with the Jumbospot, which at home is solely used for DMR at present, it only gets YSF use in the car.

As I ordered the radio before 2pm it should arrive before Wednesday if all goes according to plan, and if I am on a day shift Wednesday, or even off that day, I should be able to get to the club with it.

I will post more on the radio when it arrives, it's been a long time coming for my first decent HT.

73 de 2E0EIJ

The Yaesu FT2D could be coming to the 2E0EIJ shack very soon

As is known, I run a Yaesu FTM-400XDE in the car, a radio that can do both FM and Yaesu System Fusion, I've run this radio for the last 3 years with no major problems, now the prospect of the Yaesu FT2DE handheld is becoming real, at a price of £299.95, it's gone down as Yaesu are soon to release the FT3DE, which is a similar concept to the FT2D however it has a colour display and Bluetooth on board whereas the FT2D has a monochrome screen and no Bluetooth hardware, though all these radios do have APRS which is the selling point, along with YSF, for me, however the FT2D is the radio I am interested in.

I've checked my savings to date and they appear to be within reach of the £299.95 price of the FT2D, the radio will most likely be in my shack in June or July.

Currently all my 2/70 HTs are Chinese (Wouxun, Baofeng, Retevis and AnyTone) and the Baofeng units in particular have the problem of poor front-end filtering in RF-dense areas, the FT2D would be the best tool to have to do /p from the top of Blackpool Tower or just even on a big hill with the stock antenna of the radio.

So, I have until *before* the end of June in which to order and take delivery of this radio and get a video up onto YouTube, with the rate of saving I should hit the magic number and still have money in my savings account in good time, this is because of the events that will be taking me to Manchester at the back end of June and I'd like to have the radio by then.

I have the FTM-400XDE, it is time to expand my YSF abilities out of the car now and RF based APRS.

73 de 2E0EIJ

APRS in-car mapping again

The new tablet arrived a few days ago and I got it working with APRSIS32, the Bluetooth GPS receiver and the FTM-400XDE, so I took it out for a test run to see how it faired, it worked fine and was able to show me stations that the radio received, as well as gate them to APRS-IS but it also showed up stations out of range as I used my phone as a WiFi hotspot to connect it to the Internet, in a previous post I mentioned that I need a mount, I still do as it is not quite the end of May yet, in fact it’s only the beginning of May.

As the tablet is Windows 10 it should also allow me to update the firmware of the radio and reprogram it as needed, though I don’t have a need to do either in a hurry as the radio is working and as far as I am aware there are no major fixes though I will double-check Yaesu’s website in the coming weeks.

The best test for the setup will be long journeys though at present I have none planned, next one hopefully will be the Bowburn rally and after that the National Hamfest, though by the latter I should be an M0 by then.

I’ll keep you posted on this topic

73 de 2E0EIJ

ISS SSTV - 15th to 17th February 2019

Yesterday I stumbled, merely by chance, on what I thought might be a potential SSTV transmission from the International Space Station, which I did tweet about, confirmed by Trevor M5AKA, and I had a look on the Amsat UK website, my home shack radio for 2-meters is still the QYT KT-8900D and the antenna is currently just the 2/70 TX capable magnetic mount scanner antenna, with rubbish thin coax feeding it, on top of a radiator by the window and received the ISS no problem at all.

Today knowing about this, I was able to decode it, thanks to Carl 2E0EZT who mentioned the Robot36 SSTV app in one of his videos on YouTube (a channel I ended up finding out about thanks to Callum M0MCX of DX Commander fame so both are being credited for this), using nothing more than my phone's inbuilt microphone I was able to decode an image from the ISS when it passed over between 1350 and 1400UTC, my first successful attempt at SSTV rx from the ISS, and pleased is an understatement.

When I initially stumbled on the transmission yesterday purely by chance I had mounted the radio onto something to allow air to circulate around it, and also allow it to be raised a little higher, I have the ISS and a few local repeaters along with both 2-meters and 70cm simplex channels all programmed into the radio, and was turning the dial when I heard the transmission, bearing in mind I was unaware that the ISS was overhead at that time so it really was just luck, and on tweeting about it I got my confirmation.

Though I do plan to do some ATV (Fast Scan) I have for a while wanted to play with SSTV but lacked facilities, turns out to receive it all I need is a mobile phone, perhaps the same to TX it too? we'll see

And this is a screencap from Robot36 of what I received today

Not too bad for a first attempt and with equipment that is certainly not the best.

A good reason to get into the hobby, you aren't limited to receiving communications from stations here on good ol' planet Earth, the challenge with the ISS is, of course, knowing when the astronauts are on air and knowing when it will be passing over, and normally you only have a window of a few minutes. in my case it was 10 minutes and I made that count to receive the SSTV image here.

In some cases it is possible to talk to the astronauts but during this weekend the ISS 2-meter station was being used for SSTV so that would not have been possible.

73 de 2E0EIJ

Retevis RT87: my next HT?

Now I wouldn't normally rush out to buy a radio based on a YouTube review however in this case I am tempted to after two very positive videos surrounding the Retevis RT87 by Lewis M3HHY on his 'Ringway Manchester' channel, which I watched in reverse order, the second video he did was a test on top of a local to him high spot called Werneth Low, where apparently high power transmission stations were present that should flatten the front end of any Chinese radio, particularly Baofeng radios, or even the Leixen VV-898 which I know to be terrible for this, however the video showed Lewis operating happily from the area working stations in Oldham and Stretford and other locations as well as two local repeaters, the first video being the unboxing and describing of the radio.

I found the radio on Amazon for £54 plus shipping with the data cable, the cable is needed as this radio is IP67 rated and uses a pogo-pin arrangement to make the connections (the pins are on the accessory, contacts are on the radio under a waterproof cap, my network radio has a similar connector but I believe it is not IP67 rated), otherwise I'd be spending hours programming a radio like this by hand.

So I certainly will order this radio, and put it through its paces, for £54 plus a programming cable you certainly cannot go wrong.

Probably does not work with Chirp yet so I'd have to install the Retevis software on my shack computer, it's not much different to Chirp and looks simple and easy to use compared to most Chinese radio programming software.

I'll keep you informed

73 de 2E0EIJ

Portable ops and pager intermod follow up

Today I went back to the old racecourse in Richmond and gave another go at portable operation there but this time using my KT-8900D, this radio suffered from the intermod issue as well but nowhere near as bad as the VV-898, as for me to hear it I had to open the squelch (which is shown in the video I took).

I managed one QSO, and almost got another one too but there was some confusion on S20 as to who was calling who, no matter, one was better than none at all.

This has drawn me to the conclusion that I must now build a notch filter (or spend US$90 or so on one pre made which I'd rather avoid), as my intent is to block out pagers I can use the pager frequencies and the RTL-SDR to tweak it and suppress the pager transmissions so they don't cause intermod.

Looking online there are some designs for these, some use a coil of wire and capacitors and screened enclosures, of course what I need is something that can basically work to TX on 2 and 70 without any issue so I will look at that of course, however the ultimate aim is to stop the pager noise dead in its tracks.

I will obviously test the final design with the worst offending radio, the VV-898, in the field at the old racecourse.

73 de 2E0EIJ

Portable ops... ruined by pagers

Yesterday I went out to do some portable ops on 2-meters (FM only considering my equipment though I could have done DMR had I took an adaptor with me for the Anytone which I did not do), I took my Leixen VV-898 as the radio simply because I could go as low as 5 watts (which is QRP in my opinion) if I wanted though I stuck with 10, however no matter what channel I went on in the FM simplex range or any of the repeaters, the radio was wiped out by intermod from pagers in the 155-158MHz range, and though pagers are not as common as they were because of the SMS facility on mobile phones, they are still in use as they work almost anywhere a mobile phone does not as they use high power transmissions from their base stations.

I will of course be doing a test with my QYT KT-8900D to see if it has better rejection of the paging traffic or not in the same location, and will also make a point to promote the hobby at that time and also the local club to try and get some more numbers there, after all it makes some sense.

I have a video of how the VV-898 was swamped by the pager noise in the pipeline, a short one but it gives you an idea of what the problem was, and I will do some footage of the KT-8900D when I go up next to the location to show if the KT-8900D is a better radio or not.

I am also looking at fitting a notch filter to the VV-898 to see if that helps get rid of the pager intermod as that seems to be the worst problem for it.

The pager issue itself will not go away, but there are means to help prevent it interfering with Amateur radio operations.

The video should appear on YouTube and here in the next day or two, and an update regarding if the KT-8900D is also suffering intermod from pagers will be posted as and when.

73 de 2E0EIJ

Edit: the video is live on YouTube and is also available here, comment on YouTube if you have one of these radios and have suffered the same intermod problems

homebrew dipole working

Last night I got my homebrew 2-meter dipole antenna tuned and working while the rain held off, to use it I clamped the upright to an open window and the boom with the antenna on the end was outside the window, GB3CD was able to be accessed but it seemed to be below my squelch and a little in the noise, as were a couple of the stations on the S12 net I discovered, one in Darlington could hear me as I could hear him just fine, from the location given the station in Darlington was on the other side of Darlington to myself up near the retail park and car dealers, this was enough confirmation the antenna was in fact doing its job satisfactory, GB3HG and GB3IR obviously were not going to prove a challenge for the antenna given their locations.

Tomorrow if the rain holds off and the weather is good I may set up a portable station on Richmond's old racecourse with this antenna, the radio I will take I have yet to decide, also undecided is if I will go QRP or not, my VV898 can go as low as 5 watts (QRP levels) however the KT-8900D can only go to 10 watts at its lowest settings, after all this antenna is meant to be a portable design requiring nothing more than a screwdriver to disassemble the support from the boom, the VV898 may of course need reprogramming depending on how it is currently configured.

The next antenna I'd like to make is an antenna to work the FM satellites as I have still yet to do that, this dipole is my third successful antenna, the first being the T2LT for CB work and the groundplane antenna for 2-meters that was my original homebase antenna.

The coax on the antenna itself is a short run of RG58 to a BNC, this meant I have had to use a BNC-PL259 adaptor and a SO239 coupler to connect the feedline, which is the repaired feeder that was from the groundplane antenna after it was cut and it works great and is fitted with a crimp on PL259.

I shall see what happens tomorrow and see what stations I can work simplex if I go portable.

73 de 2E0EIJ

Rebuild of my homebrew 2-meter dipole near completion

I have spent today rebuilding my homebrew 2-meter dipole, previously it was just a dipole centre made with the neutral conductor of twin and earth cable, and it did fail at some point before the QTH move, yesterday I went out and got some parts and today I have got it assembled to somewhat functional, or at least receive anyway as I’ve not had opportunity to tune it

As should be known with me I prefer to build my own antennas rather than buy them, though I make exception for mobile use, and I feel building antennas is in the true spirit of Amateur radio, and my eagerness to build rather than buy antennas would make Marconi very proud indeed

I hope to finish and tune the antenna tomorrow, it will have a pair of clamps fitted to the support to allow it to be attached to anything that can support it, though it is lightweight in general, and I plan to give the support structure a little more rigidity as at present it is a little more flexible than one would like.

The antenna will spend its time connected to my QYT KT8900D and will be used with at most 25 watts, and spend most of its time being used on FM, the inspiration to build this antenna was down to me discovering a net on S12 at about 9pm or so every night, as I have the FTM-400 in the car I tend to listen while I work and am in the car, I don’t transmit usually while working, except in exceptional circumstances, and once this antenna is working I would like to maybe join in on this net on S12, assuming from my home QTH the other stations in the net can actually hear me.

I rarely work simplex given my current antenna situation but this should be set to change, especially with an antenna I can install and remove very quickly indeed.

I will post more as progress is made

 

73 de 2E0EIJ

Forays into DMR and the Bowburn Rally

I attended the DADARS rally in Bowburn yesterday and, despite some unforeseen roadworks on the A1(M), I found the event venue with no problem and quickly concluded, due to the antennas on the top of the building, that the club hosting the rally was based there.

Now I have a sort of tradition of buying a new radio at rallies, with me buying the GT-5 at the National Hamfest one year, and buying my QYT KT-8900D from the Blackpool rally last year I carried on that tradition by picking up the latest Chinese offering for DMR, the AnyTone AT-D868UV, a 6 watts claimed dual-band HT that can also do FM as well as DMR.

My own opinion of the audio quality of DMR has not been as favourable as that of System Fusion by Yaesu, however, for reasons I need not explain, it is the only other digital voice system I will use, I won't use D-STAR at this time, again I need not explain why.

DMR coverage in my area is, for lack of a better word, poor, but that's not to say I cannot use it, and with these dual-band radios now coming out I am pretty sure that there will be 2-meter repeaters with DMR functionality coming on air at some point, though here in the North East of England the favoured digital voice system is in fact System Fusion, for which I already have the radio for.

I am awaiting confirmation of my DMR ID and have found a codeplug that has all repeaters in the UK in it as well as a few other things that would be of use in this radio, the codeplug has been written along with the system issued DMR ID, the codeplug was supplied free of charge by Moonraker, the software was elsewhere on the Internet, the radio itself was supplied by Mirfield Electronics and I got a business card off them so I could contact them should I have any issues at all, fortunately no issues yet.

The radio keys up fine, though to actually test the DMR side I'd need something that can decode DMR, my RTL-SDRs should do this no problem, also another station with DMR equipment should be fine to give me an idea of how this radio performs on DMR a bit more fairly than an RTL-SDR

Going back to the rally, it was not too big and they did have bacon rolls (which I did have one despite having a McDonald's breakfast that morning), it was also good weather so the drive to and from the rally was in an air conditioned car, complete with a short QSO with Chris G4FZN once I got back into GB3IR's range, which I noticed was definitely a couple of S points down just as the A1 goes over the Tees, my handsfree performed well as long as I was speaking at the microphone, or at least the report I got from Chris was along those lines, I mostly monitored GB3CD until I was just past Darlington on the way back, on the way out I switched to S22 (for the talk in though it didn't seem to be in operation) once out of GB3IR's range (with the control panel for the FTM-400XDE in the centre of the car dash this was achieved easy.  The rally came up in my QSO with Chris and I was surprised he was not there, however he obviously had other things to do that day.

The rally was worth the visit, not too busy and had a raffle and tombola, I didn't win anything but there's always the National Hamfest in September, but that's another story entirely, plenty of stalls at the rally, and plenty of radio gear up for grabs, I had a choice between a Bluetooth microphone for my KT-8900D or the DMR, I chose the DMR in the end as in the shack I don't really need a Bluetooth microphone.

Now time to play with the DMR, see what it can do (and if it is a "Motorola killer", I have heard plenty of DMR users are set in their ways and use Motorola MotoTRBO equipment)

73 de 2E0EIJ

Amateur satellite

After watching a segment of episode 12 of TX Factor about operating through satellites I thought I would give this a go myself as all I need to do this is a suitable dual-band HT, as all mine are Chinese one would think they wouldn't be suited, as they can do what the offerings from the big names can do then they are fine for the purpose.

The satellite I am interested in, and as noted on the TX Factor episode referred to above, is SO-50, as it has an FM transponder, with uplink on 2-metres and downlink on 70cm, as it would be massively impractical to use the -600kHz split on a satellite due to the size of the cavity filters used at 2-meter repeater sites that achieve this so the signal goes up on 2-metres and comes back down on 70cm, but it isn't that straightforward as the Doppler effect has to be compensated for, programming the HT with the frequencies for the satellite beforehand will save you trouble here, the frequencies for SO-50 and other Amateur satellites are available on the Internet.

Knowing when the satellite is to pass is another thing you need to know, I have already gone ahead and downloaded two pieces of software for this purpose, on my Android phone I have AmsatDroid Free, and for my laptop I have Orbitron, the latter software being mentioned in the same TX Factor episode noted above, and this runs fine on Windows 10, so now I know where SO-50 is at any given time the next bit requires I be able to transmit from my HT through the satellite and my HT's rubber duck antenna simply will not do, for this a Yagi is the best antenna to use, but it needs to be of a design that will work on both bands, the most popular antenna appears to be the "Arrow" antenna, the original of which is actually made from arrows for the antenna elements, and because we're doing cross-band operation we also need a diplexer (this is correct, it is not "duplexer"), which from what I can tell is simply two passband filters, one high-pass for 70cm and one low-pass for 2-metres.

The Arrow antennas are not cheap, so in the spirit of Amateur radio it makes perfect sense to build one using bits from the junk box, and from a DIY store (B & Q in my case as it is the closest one to the home QTH), and I like to build rather than buy antennas where I can to save money, and considering that one may simply use their arm to move the antenna with the satellite it needs to be lightweight, wood for the boom would work well here, but if you do use wood it should be varnished to protect it should you be out on that hilltop and the heavens open, waterproofing the coax connections is also advised.

Once you have all the information regarding your chosen satellite, an antenna, a programmed HT, go out and make some contacts, but be aware that satellite QSOs through SO-50 are similar to contesting, usually callsign, location (locator square) and signal reports as the satellite passes for a short duration and is often very busy, listening before keying up is well advised, as is the use of headphones so you can hear the satellite better, also run the radio with an open squelch.

As a foundation license holder I am restricted to 10 watts, as is anyone with a foundation licence, antenna gain may push your actual radiated power beyond this level so dropping the radio to a lower power setting may keep the foundation licencee within their power limits and still legally use the satellite, gain and other such factors are beyond the scope of this blog, and from what I understand SO-50 doesn't need more than 10 watts anyway into it and by the time the signal gets there it probably falls well below that.

Having a second person on hand to assist with the operation may also be a good thing, as they are not transmitting they do not need to be licensed, adding a second pair of headphones for the assistant to help with logging may be a good thing too, the assistant can also help position the antenna leaving you free to carry out the QSOs.

And finally, building the antenna simply requires a search on Google as there is a lot of information on the subject and many designs are available, and you could further this and build the diplexer as commercial ones are about £30+ depending on where you go, and you get the pleasure of building the entire thing yourself if you do, and save money.

I look forward to working some stations through a satellite very soon, just got to get the festive season out of the way first.

73 de M6RSQ

Another Baofeng DMR?

With the DM-5R now being confirmed as a real radio and examples of it out there in the wild and a US$10 upgrade to make it work with Tier 2, it seems Baofeng may be releasing another DMR that will work with Tier 2 out of the box, the DMR-82UV, again dual-band, based on a UV-82, which in turn forms the basis of the GT-5.

Again this information was found on Delboy's radio blog and he had found it in turn on an external site that he had to translate from Google, the site showed a picture of a pair of these HTs, showing a vastly different display to the rest of the Baofeng range, though to me it looks much the same as a stock UV-82, though a stock UV-82 has the UV-5R display in it.

Price? Well early reports suggest less than €100, this is from Delboy's source, this one seems like a more viable alternative than the DM-5R but I would consider buying both to see how they fair, all Baofeng HTs are generally cheap, and both these are likely to get you onto DMR for sub-£100, however I still maintain the best one to go for is the well established TYT MD-380 (or the newer MD-390), though it is 70cm only whereas the Baofeng HTs are dual-band though I do not know if any DMR activity takes place on 2-metres here in the UK, though these HTs can do FM as well so all is not lost.

I suspect that as time progresses with Baofeng DMRs is that they will become popular with those wanting to use DMR and cheaply, I maintain my position as being more of a fan of System Fusion as it sounds better, is less of a hassle to set up for both repeater and station side, and it coexists with FM much better due to the AMS on the current available radios for it (all Yaesu of course but maybe one day a radio will come along by someone else that works with it), though I do want to play a little with DMR to see what's what with it, I still maintain an aversion to D-STAR to keep out of the way of Chance Callahan KD0MXN until the FCC do something about his many breaches of Part 97 of which they are aware of.

Well on this latest development from Baofeng I will let it play much like I let the DM-5R saga run it's course and I will post any notable updates

73 de M6RSQ