Post-Blackpool rally post

So yesterday I was at the Blackpool rally and spent the weekend at the Norbreck Castle Hotel where the rally was to be held, not a bad hotel and I enjoyed my stay, however there was one small issue during the journey over, not counting a traffic jam on the A66 and the high winds along the high-lying areas.

I had to stop at some services for a pit stop shall we say, this particular service area was Lancaster (Forton) Services on the M6, on exiting the service area there was a Mini so close to my rear bumper it was borderline dangerous and I had to give way to traffic already on the M6, this Mini driver cut me up, thus forcing me onto the hard shoulder at the bottom of the slip road, pulled into the hard shoulder ahead of me, got out of the car, and, showing clear signs of aggression, walked towards my car (I had come to a stop and put the hazard lights on while I quickly composed myself and waited for a gap (the Mini driver left me no room in which to get up to speed on the hard shoulder as per the Highway Code), I saw a gap, shut off the hazards and indicated right and was left no alternative but to put my foot hard down onto the accelerator pedal, on passing the Mini driver who returned to his car as soon as he seen I was about to drive off gave me the “two-finger salute”, it was clear he was aggressive and could have caused me harm, this is the first and only time I was victim to road rage, it clearly was a road rage incident, I was still quite shaken on arrival at Blackpool, this is mentioned briefly and in less detail in the video I made on the rally which I hope to have up to YouTube soon.

So onto the subject of the rally, it was not as busy as my last visit and due to unforeseen circumstances the Bring & Buy was cancelled this year, I broke with tradition and did not buy a radio, I did buy the Sotabeams Fuser-6 and some Anderson Powerpole connectors, after the incident with the Grant II I certainly do not want a repeat of it with my Amateur radio gear so priority number one is to fit my CRT SS9900 with them, then my QYT KT-8900D, also I will be fitting these to the Leixen VV-898 ahead of it being used as an APRS igate radio once I obtain an M0 call which should be soon.

I have plans to return to the Blackpool rally next year, and hope to go to Blackpool later in the summer and do radio from the top of the tower as the weather this past weekend was not suited to it, obviously not using Baofeng radios.

73 de 2E0EIJ

Post-Ripon rally and pre-Blackpool rally post

The Ripon rally took place yesterday yet nothing immediately caught my attention, I did buy a new coax stripper and a SMA-M to SO239 adaptor that appears to be of better quality than the one I had in which the centre pin sheared off in the SMA socket on my NooElec NESDR SMArt. and the stealth antennas book by the RSGB for members price of course.

I do have video footage that I am working on, it isn’t much because the rally was far too crowded to film effectively at, and one gentleman did try to sell me another camera but having two JVC Everio camcorders already I don’t need another camcorder, just some action cams to fit to the car for a new element I am introducing to my videos (which will be seen in the Ripon rally video)

Radios I took on the day were pretty much all except the UV-5R, BF888 and all my PMR446 annd CB gear, the radio that ultimately went into the rally was the AnyTone AT-D868UV, and the very company that sold me it was actually at Ripon selling it, the QYT KT-8900D, and Baofeng speaker mics and a Bluetooth adaptor, the speaker mics unfortunately were all Kenwood fitting, I require a multi-pin type for the network radio, which just so happened to be in the car anyway, and the Retevis RT87 which is actually waterproof to a degree, a Blackpool purchase I think.

With me being in Blackpool for the weekend of the Blackpool rally, I plan to do some radio while there, now if you recall I wrote about a video done by Lewis M3HHY on his Ringway Manchester channel, in which he and another Amateur went to the top of Blackpool Tower and attempted to put out calls from there but were hampered due to the poor design of the Baofeng UV5R and UV82 series of radios (the latter of which my GT-5 is a reskinned variant of), Lewis also later went on to test the Retevis RT87 (which is partly why I ended up buying it in the first place) and he did this from a place called Werneth Low, which is a high point within Greater Manchester full of transmitters, he found the radio handled that environment with no big deal, so I intend to take it, along with my Wouxun KG-UVD1P and my AnyTone AT-D868UV up Blackpool Tower to see if they get absolutely battered by the RF environment up there OR they overcome what Baofengs, based on the RDA1846 radio on a chip and with dire front-end filtering (or a seeming lack of it) cannot do, hopefully they will prove better than the Baofengs and just in the interest of fairness the GT-5 and the UV5RC Plus will be going up there too, otherwise the operating conditions from there are good if you don’t factor the transmission antennas at the extreme top of Blackpool tower

Prior to this all I had was Baofengs and the Wouxun, though when I last went over to Blackpool for the rally I solely had the GT-5 with me and though I did go up the tower I did not operate, and as it turns out I chose wisely as I would have suffered the same problems as Lewis did.

I also plan to add a bit of the music of Andy Kirby, who as it turns out is a fellow Amateur with an M6 callsign I cannot remember off the top of my head. to some of my videos, subject to usage rights of course, I have seen his music used in Ringway Manchester videos and a couple of videos by ‘knoxieman’ G7LNK, so I do wonder whether they asked him for permission or it is simply a case of the music can be used as long as it is credited to the source, I’ll have to look this up or contact Andy myself.

73 de 2E0EIJ

RTL-SDR dedicated machine sort of set up

I have an old laptop with a display that has no working backlight, a Samsung RV510, and am putting this machine to use as a dedicated RTL-SDR receiver, it originally served as the now closed Richmond CB FRN gateway, with me having high SWR (and having to use a matcher), it remained closed for quite some time however the machine was in fact hibernating from the very point it was closed down.

It seems to run the SDR# software fine and works with both RTL-SDR sticks (I already know that the cheapo black one works, the NESDR SMArt was tested). so first test was with Soundmodem and APRS, it worked ok, though I don’t think I configured it correctly to pass packets from soundmodem to APRSIS32 so nothing was gated in that experiment.

Next was to decode DMR, it did not do well here either due to there being some noise on the frequency I could not seem to get rid of, though this was in the 70cm band and the supplied magmount is fitted with RG58, trying a piece of 213 and a dipole didn’t make a difference and destroyed my SMA-M to SO239 adaptor almost to the cost of the stick’s SMA-F connector (though the sheared pin was removed with Blu-Tack.

I am going to rehash my Handheld CB and PMR446 videos after either the Ripon or Blackpool rally, the first videos were all HT to HT (or in the 446 video between two units with fixed helical antennas) using this setup, the final location of this receiver of many talents will be next to my “Stranger Things” radio (the Realistic Pro-53 Patrolman, I call it that because it really looks like it was pulled from the Netflix series Stranger Things though I owned it before I heard of that).

The two videos will be done under the same conditions at the TX end, using the same radios (Intek MT-5050 for PMR446 and Midland Alan 42 Multi for 11-meters, both again using the stock rubber duck antennas), the RTL-SDR will be connected to an antenna using a lenght of RG213 to keep loss as low as possible, the antenna will most likely be in the window, outside if possible, and I want to make it from a couple of cheap CB antennas with the 3/8th thread on them as I have a dipole centre configured this way, that arrangement won’t be used for TX as there would be no choke.

The receiver works from as low as 24MHz right up to 1.7GHz. so 10-meters, 6-meters, 4 meters. 2-meters, 70cm and a lot of commercial, licence-free and aviation frequencies are also covered as well as the Amateur bands and CB frequencies, first things first is that I require a new SMA-M to SO239 adaptor and preferably a way to stop the SMA pin shearing off.

On closing I now have an extended battery to record video footage from the camcorder, this is so I can record footage of the Ripon and Blackpool rallies , Ripon is on Sunday (with an aim to have the video uploaded by Monday afternoon), Blackpool is two weeks later (with an aim to have the video uploaded by the following Monday afternoon)

73 de 2E0EIJ/26CT730

All set for the 2019 Blackpool rally

I booked a room for the weekend of the Blackpool rally at the Norbreck Castle Hotel, so all I have to do is check out on the Sunday morning and go down to the rally, easy, however I have a weekend in Blackpool as well, so a good opportunity to play radio by the seaside, of course I’ll be taking radios with me as I am going to the Blackpool rally after all.

So this means I once again do not have to travel at the crack of dawn on Sunday morning and can have a relaxed drive over to Blackpool, I do plan to do some filming at the rally so I shall take my camcorder as well and hope to have a higher capacity battery for the camcorder in time for the rally to get some decent footage of it to put on YouTube, and I should have no rush to get away that day either.

If you see me at the rally do say hi.

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

National Hamfest–Planning

As you are no no doubt aware, I have visited the National Hamfest every year without fail since being licenced, this usually takes place at the end of September, and I got the dates this far in advance from the latest RadCom.

My plan for this year is to stop overnight so I can be there both days for a change, I have already got the form to arrange this and this just leaves me to take holiday from work on the Thursday and Friday of that week.

I downloaded a form from the website but obviously need to print this to fill it in, then I can mail this to the Hamfest organisers in good time along with sending payment to them.

As I intend to stop overnight I intend to do some radio activities on site as well, this is where my recently purchased drive-on mast stand will come into it’s own, as I will be able to put up antennas for 2-metres and 70cm at the very least, I probably won’t do any 10-meter operation unless I can get hold of or build a portable antenna for that band in the interim.

Another issue I will have is powering rigs, the FTM-400XDE requires the car be running in order to run it at full power (which as I’ll have a 2E0 by then I should be able to do), though I’d be sat in the car when operating this radio anyway from the magmount on the roof (and I should be able to hit the Lincoln repeater from the Newark showground no problem), for analogue 2-metre operation I can use one of my HTs, as the 10-metre rig is also quite power hungry with the power turned up I would normally run this off my jump starter but I may not have a means to power the jump starter when it needs to be charged again, so I am looking into the possibility of obtaining a generator if possible as the Hamfest doesn’t allow the use of the site’s electricity hookups.

So, I have a lot to plan and 5 months to plan it in, time to get to work.

 

73 de M6RSQ

Magnetic loop antennas–a follow up

As I have mentioned previously I have a desire to build a magnetic loop antenna for HF use, primarily with my CRT SS9900 on 10 metres, though something that could cover 12 through to 10 metres meaning will work on CB as well as I still have a keen interest in that side of things despite holding an amateur radio foundation licence and hoping to go for my intermediate exam very soon, as alluded to in my last post.

My antenna situation as you know is very poor right now, made worse due to the fact I live in a first-floor flat, though I have a CB antenna in the attic it functions very poorly with high SWR readings and the need of a tuner to prevent damage to rigs connected to it, though this antenna works on 10-meters as well the tuner does not and to get the SWR to safe levels requires it be tuned with both sides turned all the way up to 10 (the unit is a Euro-CB EM-110 and is really suited to 11 metres rather than 10 metres), 2 metres is currently done with an antenna on a biscuit tin, also poor but it does work.

This is where the magnetic loop comes in, and I saw a YouTube video showing a design made out of copper tubing, with a power meter on the larger loop itself, a variant of this design was also on YouTube by an English member of Charlie Tango (of which I am a member with the callsign 26CT730) for CB use, with the right capacitor and correct dimensions I should be able to build a loop to this design (without a power meter fitted to the loop itself as I intend to fit the loop with a remote tuning system utilising a stepper motor and gearbox) and be able to start using 10 metres, despite the poor conditions at this time on that band I am eager to give it a go, also as I have not played with 11 meters since I scrapped my old car this would be a good opportunity as I understand CB is alive and well and there are regular nets held now, even on the midblock using AM and SSB since those modes became available to UK CB operators in 2014, but naturally I am keen to give 10 metres a go, whether I get a working magloop before or after I get my intermediate remains to be seen however I intend to make sure I get on 10 metres regardless, I have invested in equipment for that band I may as well use it.

I know I can get copper and plastic tube locally but for a suitable tuning capacitor I may have to look to rallies to do so, the requirements are that the tuning capacitor will work happily up to 4kV (though I suspect 50 watts is far below this but I like the idea of a safety margin).

The antenna will be connected with a suitable SWR meter in line almost permanently, my Zetagi Mod. 203W is perfect for this as it covers a frequency range of 26-30MHz for TX power measurement and 3-200MHz for SWR measurement.

I will post more on this subject as it progresses

 

73 de M6RSQ

A bit of radio activity this afternoon

I took a drive up to my usual radio playground at the top of the hill, my intent was some more System Fusion activity and another go on WIRES-X, sadly this did not work in my favour as no one answered my simplex or repeater calls on System Fusion nor did I get to play with WIRES-X as it was down on GB3CD and the second nearest WIRES-X node is in Middlesbrough and I’m unable to hit it from my location on 5 watts.

I made the spur of the moment decision to drive to Tan Hill, of course avoiding all the sheep that like to casually walk into the road without a care in the world, I approached it from the other side after going across the A66 and back down, I could hear GB3AS in Carlisle from Tan Hill no problem but I could not get into it with my 5 watts, I tried more calls simplex on 2-metres both digital and FM but no luck, guess today was not as lucky as last time I went out to play radio, hopefully WIRES-X will be working again on GB3CD soon.

Before I set off I reprogrammed my HTs a little, clearing out repeaters I’d not likely use anytime soon, currently programmed are all my local repeaters and GB3LM in time for the Hamfest as I should be able to hit that with a HT at 5 watts from the Newark showground as it is situated on the roof of Lincoln Cathedral, this repeater is a System Fusion repeater and as I have the corresponding radio I should be able to use it in both modes while I drive down but once at Newark I’ll obviously switch to analogue-only operation as I’ll be wanting to look around the hamfest, but I understand that due to it’s location it does not have WIRES-X like GB3CD, it’s 70cm sister, GB3LS, does have IRLP and Echolink but may not work from Newark.

Hopefully when I next play radio from a hill I’ll have more luck, I suspect I’ll need to get my CRT SS9900 working to do some 10-metre operating as I’ve yet to operate on that band since buying the radio, or even think about buying a 2-metre SSB set at the Hamfest for the right price, and make up a beam antenna.

 

73 de M6RSQ

Another APRS update

After soldering an offcut of Ethernet cable into the auto-key interface I originally built for the CB gateway (including removal of the relay as the Leixen VV-898 can RX without a mic connected), I managed, after some trial and error, to successfully transmit an APRS packet which was  received by MB7USD, the antenna was still indoors and power was my max allowed 10 watts (though cable losses and SWR may have caused it to be reduced some at the antenna itself, before actually transmitting a packet I located a clear frequency to check the key circuit was working, it was working just fine.

After this test I removed the interface line from the mic socket, I then moved the rig so it is now located on top of my Grant II to make sure I had some desk space, this then amounted to a recheck of the SWR to make sure it was the same, it is, and all I need to do is finish the antenna (I was thinking Sugru for the centre) and hang it up outside, I may also cut the coax shorter as it is RG58 and on 2-meters it is a bit lossy for my liking.

So, I can now transmit on the APRS frequency from home, just need to do that for the car but as I mentioned in my previous post I can use my mobile phone as a stop-gap

Another day and another success in Amateur radio

73 de M6RSQ

Progress with the shack

I may or may not have mentioned in my last post about rearranging the shack somewhat, as it stands the work I have done thus far is as follows

• Moved the existing Maplin PSU to the shack desk and placed above it a Unilab multi-voltage power supply that I acquired recently, the Unilab supply is unique in that is has AC and DC output and the mains cable coming out of the front, it also has a carry handle, both these power supplies are in the place where my Midland BaseCamp446 used to be, that is on top of the supplies
• removed an empty computer case to bring the top of the two in-use computers level with the desk, freeing up some space to move my soldering station and allow easy access to the power leads for the various chargers and power supplies.
• Brought in the President Grant II CB radio and connected it to power and my homebrew extension speaker (after rewiring the speaker cable), this awaits some form of antenna
• placed the chargers for the Wouxun and the two Baofeng handhelds in easy reach, the two Baofeng chargers are on top of the Grant II temporarily, the Wouxun charger is on top of the soldering station base unit.
• Nailed a hook into the wall for my Sony MDR-V150 headphones, I chose these over the Sony MDR-XD200 headphones, the MDR-V150 headphones are plugged into the front port of the shack computer
• Relocated the DVD rack that is behind the television in my living room further back to allow the shackcam to be relocated further back until it can be swapped out for a Raspberry Pi on the network, a possibility as I should have one Ethernet cable spare after an IPTV installation which is to come, thus freeing the camcorder currently in use for other things.

To do is mount the monitor to the wall, the current monitor is a Samsung SyncMaster 152v, this is a 4:3 monitor with a 100x100 VESA mount, once this is done further desk space will be made available for the shack and accommodation of new radios for other bands will be possible, a base 2-meters rig is something I am after and I plan to use one with a homebrew antenna, hopefully I can get a suitable all-mode rig at Newark in September as right now I am stuck with 2-meters FM on handies and mobile. as for CB, the Grant II is my new home rig as I plan to part ways with the Moonraker FA5000, antenna wise, for 2-meters I plan to cobble something together and for CB I may get away with my existing or a second T2LT.
I am pleased with progress so far and hope to have things finished in the next week or so, starting with the monitor as moving it to the wall is priority number one as the more desk space I can free up the better


73 de M6RSQ/26CT730

G2 day

Well it's Monday and they're usually boring for most but today I took delivery of the President Grant 2, and even though I have not been on air with it yet I am liking it already.

Firstly, it is bigger than I initially thought it was, probably car stereo sized if anything, secondly it has a solid feel, like it's been well put together, which I would expect from a Uniden product (the Grant 2 is made by Uniden for President, some have said it looks a lot like a Uniden Bearcat rig from the US, however it appears the Uniden Bearcat rigs are made in China, the Grant 2 is made in Vietnam).

I received the radio in EU mode so I had to set it up to UK mode, in order to do this you have to turn off the radio, press "F", turn on the radio, and select the UK ("U" on the display), press "F" to save it, turn off, and back on, now if you press "AM/FM/USB/LSB" you get the UK40 along with the new modes on midband, on existing equipment if you want AM you have to set the rig to think it's in Spain, I did this with my Midland 42 over the weekend.

The power lead had, as predicted, bare wires on both leads so I plan to rectify that soon, the rig puts out the expected power on all modes, I tested this with my combo SWR and power meter, I also examined the audio quality of the radio's transmissions on my RTL-SDR while it was on the dummy load, AM and SSB sounded pretty good, though bear in mind that I have never had an SSB rig before, FM was a little quiet but that's ok

Now to test receive, get an antenna on it soon and I'll let you know.

73 de 26CT730

Another shack desk tidy up

With the imminent arrival of the President Grant 2 (this will be tomorrow all being well) the shack desk was in need of a little bit of a clear up, it wasn’t bad but there were things on there that really weren’t needed to be there as I was not using them such as tubes of solder, knife, veroboard track cutting tool, some screws, a hopeless coax stripper (I need a new one) and a roll of electrical tape, as well as my second of my two portable power leads, I decided to leave my Midland Alan 78 Plus Multi B on the desk just in case I may need it on for whatever reason.

I will be recording a “first look” video of the President Grant 2, like I mentioned in previous posts (though I didn’t mention this on the Tan Hill video, but it’s good my YouTube account is getting some use again), on-air tests will come later when I build a T2LT or get a car, whichever comes first(I of course I still cannot install my Sirio GPE 27 5/8 wave as I live in a rented flat and it isn’t a very portable antenna)

So hopefully about 7pm-ish tomorrow my President Grant 2 will be here, a review video should be on here and YouTube by about 9pm at the very latest.

 

73 de 26CT730

Pre-DXpedition evaluation of Tan Hill

I took a ride up to Tan Hill today to evaluate how good a DX spot it really is, for PMR446 use I’d still advise on an external antenna mounted as high as possible, for CB a proper antenna would be beneficial, though I had stations incoming on a handheld, in this case the Midland Alan 42 Multi, notably some foreign stations on channel 8 midblock using AM. I did have a brief flick around on FM and also on 27/81 but AM appears to show more promise, SSB may also be very promising when I can finally give it a go, which may well be at Tan Hill.

I took some video footage on my phone and while I type this I am awaiting it to process before I upload it to YouTube, a later post will be that very video, which includes my very first call on AM, although because I was using a handheld I doubt anyone was able to hear me but with radio you just never know.

All I am left to do is sort out a shelter, build a T2LT and some suitable battery packs, acquire a pole to mount my antenna to, and hopefully I can get back to Tan Hill and keep DXing, I’d like to be up there in August on a Sunday.

So, a video is to come later one when it is finally uploaded to YouTube, and on Monday the President Grant 2 should be here on my desk.

 

73 de 26CT730

President Grant 2 arrival–an update

My new President Grant 2 is due to arrive on Monday, as I’ll be out most of that day I have made alternative arrangements for it’s delivery, it will be arriving with a couple of PL259 plugs and 100 meters of RG-58 coax, a lot of this will be used for the construction of a T2LT antenna.

As luck will have it, the courier company responsible for delivering the shack computer’s new motherboard, CPU and RAM will also be delivering the Grant 2, so they should not struggle to find my address.

The first thing I will be doing when I get the package is bringing the radio, in it’s box, into the shack, I will have to clear a few things off the desk first but that is no hard feat.

Now I have a whole weekend of something to look forward to :)

 

73 de 26CT730

First post from rebuilt shack computer

I have taken the time to install Windows Live Writer on the shack computer now it is running fine, this will allow me to post to the blog without having to actually log in to Blogger, however I may still do that when I am not at this computer, for example I am at my laptop.

All appears to be working well, as noted in my earlier post. the ShackCam is also under test again to ensure that it works fine with this computer so it will be running overnight for a little while, so you may see the shack but not me in it, though I am at time of posting given the title of this post

So, perhaps now I will be in the shack a bit more, I left the Internet chat rooms that were causing me some serious issues with my health, the time may as well be put to better use.

 

73 de 26CT730

Possible skip?

Yesterday evening I was flicking through the CB channels, and on midband heard a couple of foreign sounding stations that kept fading in and out, I figured that it was just a bit of sporadic E, or the skip is running.  Given that my antenna is nowhere near the size of the antenna I will be building a little later in the year when finances permit and I am able to gain access to the loft space I was kind of impressed, this is because I was not expecting the antenna to be a great performer on both transmit and receive, but it brought the stations in rather well, even if it was the skip.  It has only been up for nearly a week, I am impressed with the results

I did not attempt to get back to any stations this time as the band went flat before I could do so, perhaps next time if I have time and I hear DXers on air I should give it a go, but nothing is stopping me giving it a go regardless

I shall be back soon with another update

 

73 de 26CT730

(PS, coming soon is my radio communication website, watch this space)

First post from comms computer

I thought I’d make a post from the comms computer to make sure all is working, but I thought I’d also make a note of something else interesting that I personally have never come across before, my CB radio is powered up and on Channel 19 UK allocation, despite only being connected to a dummy load and SWR meter, some transmissions were received, they were close looking at the signal meter on the rig, leading me to assume a vehicle behind my home was the locale of the transmitting station, I do plan to get an antenna up soon, new year all being well.  This was also a good way to test my home made extension speaker, which sounded pretty good considering :)

That is all for now, but I shall return soon with more

73