Long overdue update

Due to personal reasons radio has not been at the front of my mind, nor has a lot of things to be honest aside from work where I have been exceptionally busy, my last radio activity was the "big net" for a year of legal AM/SSB CB, I set up at Tan hill but had no replies whatsoever, was also still too windy to put up the T2LT and my fibreglass mast is in need of a little TLC.

On the Amateur front, I am still attending the club, however not been on air so much lately, however I am making some major changed to the shack, first and foremost attaching the computer monitor to a wall mount to free up some extra desk space, the main 7A PSU has been moved from the shelves to the desk, above it is an ageing Unilab variable voltage PSU with both AC and DC outputs though I've not connected any load to this yet, and on top of those is my Midland BaseCamp446.

The Moonraker FA5000 CB will be removed from the shack, as it still works I may sell it on, my Midland Alan 78 Plus Multi B may also be sold on as I have my President Grant II and may be able to pick up another legal AM/FM/SSB CB as these come onto the market through the usual outlets.

Antenna wise, only my loft CB antenna and tuner at the moment, I still have the part-finished 446 bazooka antenna but have not put it on air or even tuned it properly, I still have a slim-Jim for 2-meters lying about but I was thinking for the sake of discretion to build an extremely lightweight 2-meter groundplane antenna out of nothing more than some bits of copper wire and an SO239 chassis socket, a new 2-meter rig is needed in the shack so I don't have to worry about handies and the batteries running out, I may be able to pick a used but working unit up from the National Hamfest next month.

Going back to the CB rig side of things, my Grant 2 developed an unusual issue during the "big net" weekend back in June, normally on SSB there is no power unless you speak, not according to the S-meter on the Grant 2, which was generating some sort of noise, this may have been the mic as it has since stopped after I did some fiddling, on AM and FM audio seemed to be fine, but despite this the fiddling with the mic seemed to have cured the problem for now.

I am making steady progress to get back into more radio, and maybe get my significant other interested, after all if we're both licensed we can do anything Amateur radio related together, and I would like that as I do know there are plenty of couples out there that are both licensed, so why not me and my significant other

Right, I'm caught up, probably be next posting from or about the National Hamfest unless I have some major QSOs in the mean time, also I may get some HF work done if I can get a suitable HF antenna built and a suitable rig acquired, another hamfest one I think.

73 de M6RSQ/26CT730

A year of legal AM and SSB CB

The end of this month will be the first year of us having legal AM and SSB CB, and a "big net" is planned, so what I plan to do, depending on weather, is take a trip to a high point, Tan Hill or similar, and get on the CB for the first time in a while, the Grant 2 has been idle for a while and needs it's legs stretching, so a trip up to a high point will be good for it.

So, antenna wise, the T2LT antenna dropped through the car's sunroof (on it's fibreglass mast which I will have to somehow attach to the car for support) rather than the orbitor that is already on the car, power, initially I was thinking off the 7Ah battery, then onto the car's own battery later once the 7Ah can't deliver enough power, the car of course can be started and stopped as needed to keep the battery topped up, my Sony headphones will be used to provide a better means of monitoring weak signals as always, the station will be identified as "static mobile".

I may initially set up the station (just on the orbitor) on the 27th at Whashton Road car park just after midnight, though I'll drive there before, and see if I can get any QSOs in, and relocate to Tan Hill later in the day after having some sleep, I may return to Tan Hill on the 28th as well for this, and I hope to get a reasonably sized log of all contacts, I've not logged any CB contacts for a while so this will make for a good opportunity to get some CB contacts logged.

If you are on air across the  weekend the net takes place, give me a shout on either channel 14 mids AM or channel 27 mids USB, I myself will be calling on these channels.


73 de 26CT730

GB3HG success

I am pleased to report that I am able to access GB3HG and access it well from my home QTH, had a short QSO with a station in York before the Baofeng's battery hit critical.  You may now be asking why I did not switch to the Wouxun, this was for one very good reason, my previous attempt to access GB3HG was with the Baofeng, and in the interest of a fair run I thought it best I stick to this radio for today.

Tomorrow hopefully will see another go on HG, this time the radio will be my Leixen VV-898 in the car, paired to the cheap Moonraker antenna on the roof, the rig can hear HG no problems in Richmond and Catterick, so it's only fair to see if the rig can open HG.

I will let you know how I get on.


73 de M6RSQ

ShackCam tests, one week on

The shackcam has been running for one week and I am pleased to report that on it's current hardware (after some bodging by me to the Dazzle hardware) that is is working just fine, the website itself has been updated to include my Amateur callsign as the primary callsign, with my CT callsign being secondary as it is not really an official callsign and I've not done a lot of CB or 446 work in a while and the bulk of my transmissions have been on 2-meters since my license came through.

I plan to move all my radio operations (except /m and /p of course) back to the shack in the coming weeks, my handhelds are being charged elsewhere and Echolink is currently running on my laptop though I plan to keep it on there for the foreseeable future, but it's on my phone as well

With the shackcam working as it should be I am happy, the shack computer will be shut down at some stage to allow the monitor to be wall mounted to free up the desk space it currently occupies for such items such as radio chargers, so expect to see changes soon

73 de M6RSQ/26CT730 on CB/PMR446

ShackCam tests

I've put my shackcam back on for testing, this is in part after I discovered a fault with the FTPd running on my server (the server itself is also visible on the shackcam as it is on the shelves that seperate my living room between living area and shack), and to ensure the hardware is still up to the job until a better camera can take it's place, it appears to be but it has been erroring out periodically.

The camera will be on for the next week in order to ascertain if it is working as it should be, if it is then  I have no further work that I need to do, if not then I will need to do some further work, so I can put a proper 2/70 rig into the shack as I plan to operate on both the 2-meter and 70cm bands in the coming months,

The link for the shackcam is unchanged and is on the right hand side of this page.

73 de M6RSQ (or 26CT730 on CB/PMR446)

Blackpool rally

In light of missing the Ripon Rally due to family commitments I made the journey over to Blackpool for the rally there, was bigger than I thought it would be but worth the trip to see what these things are all about.

The journey was fine until I approached and entered Cumbria, wherein the weather took a turn for the worse, this continued onto the M6 through Lancashire, getting better the closer to Blackpool I got,

On arrival at the venue I was spending a lot of time parking my car as there were no spots available, eventually one became available and £5 later I was in the venue, which had the vast majority of the clubs from the North West in attendance along with various sellers of amateur radio equipment, along with used equipment stands, and the RSGB, selling books and offering membership, which I took out and got a free Baofeng BF-888S UHF as well as the latest RadCom (which I shall take along to the club in case anyone wants to read it that is not a member

I was hoping to pick up a 2/70 mobile or base unit, used of course, for home that I could run on the slim-jim or some other homebrew antenna that could potentially cover both bands, I'll keep an eye out for cheap, yet still serviceable, radios for that purpose on the Internet.

So. to sum up the Blackpool rally, a good day out, but get there very early if you want a parking spot, I certainly plan to go next year but only if the weather wasn't as terrible for driving as this time.


73 de M6RSQ

GB3HG access tests

As regular readers may or may not know, I am within range of two 2-meter repeaters, GB3IR, which I can hit very easily with 1 watt as it's just down the road from my QTH, and GB3HG on Sutton Bank near Thirsk, so today I decided to give HG a go.

Test conditions was set up using Baofeng UV-5RC Plus with stock antenna inside my flat.

Keying up at 1 watt was not sufficient enough to open HG, releasing the key there was no response. 5 watts appeared to be enough to open the repeater, upon releasing the key the repeater appeared to be open, however there was no one else listening to give me a report on how well the repeater was actually hearing me or even if it was at 5 watts so I may give it another go, for fairness I will use the same radio with the same antenna with the same power output.

Another nearby repeater is GB3CD but I am not within range of it at my home QTH as far as I know (was unable to hear it before they switched it over to Yaesu System Fusion, not tried since but suspect I still cannot hear it), though it doesn't matter if CD is out of range as it is on Echolink like GB3IR so can do one of two things, connect IR to CD or connect to CD through my phone or computer(s)

I'll post more on this as time permits

73 de M6RSQ