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

Mobile set up tidy up

Ahead of the journey to the Hamfest later this month, I took the time to make my mobile set up look much tidier, to do this I bought cable tie mounts from Wilko, where as it turned out I could buy more of them for cheaper than I could get them from Halfords and also in black which I wanted as they'd not stick out so much, I picked up some cable ties from Wilko as well, two sizes, 100mm to mount the control cable between the FTM-400's main unit and control head, and 200mm for the coax from the antenna.

I have already sorted out the control cable for the rig, the cable now runs along the dashboard close to the windscreen, located to clear the heater vent for the windscreen, initially this was tucked in the gap between the windscreen and the dashboard but this would sometimes come out and foul the passenger airbag, a situation I wish to avoid.

I have yet to do the coax as it was getting dark and it was raining when I did the control cable so this will be done another day ahead of the journey to the Hamfest.

I also took the time to reattach the mic clip, which is fixed down with a "no more nails" sticky pad rather than screws as I do not want to do that right now, I'm not sure if it's held overnight however but I'll find out when I go out again, the previous sticky pad was not trimmed down, I replaced it with one I had trimmed down, which actually looks tidier.

So, just the coax to sort and it'll look great.

73 de M6RSQ

ShackCam improvements

As you are aware, I have a shack cam which currently is offline due to no video hardware being connected, until my windows were replaced this was my JVC Everio camcorder connected to a Dazzle USB capture device, this worked ok as a stop gap but a problem was ongoing with the video connection at the Dazzle end, one of the connectors was not making connection properly and was flaky.

So, what to do, reinstating the Dazzle was an idea but this device has a strange interlacing effect which sometimes was apparent whenever I got up out of my chair and moved past the camera, so instead I look at something a little bit smaller and also on the network and a dedicated device, the Raspberry Pi and the Pi camera, as well as a dummy CCTV camera, the pound shop sell small dummy CCTV cameras and at time of writing the Raspberry Pi Zero, of which I already own one, now has a camera connector on the board, this happened after I bought mine so will need to buy a second one at the same time as the camera, also the Pi Zero has very little in the way of current consumption, and adding WiFi to it would make life easier as the Pi Zero has no Ethernet at all and should still keep current draw low.

This setup should work with the software I use on my shack computer to run the feed, which is currently running at boot and not sending images as it has no video source at this time, effectively I plan to make a custom IP camera using mostly off the shelf parts rather than spending a lot of money on an off the shelf IP camera, all I need is a camera, no fancy features, and as I have a light in the shack at night I do not need a camera equipped with Infrared.

Hopefully I will get the new and improved ShackCam online very soon, this might happen after the Hamfest though but we'll see, I have kept the link up to the ShackCam page over this time but of course with it not sending imagery out the most you will see is a "no device" warning.

73 de M6RSQ/26CT730

National Hamfest 2016 - The car gets the all-clear to travel to Newark

Today was the day I submitted my current car for MOT (after removing the antenna and disconnecting the Yaesu FTM-400XDE from the power and taking the control head off the windscreen), and it passed with a clean bill of health, just one advisory but that I will keep an eye on, so it is all clear to travel for the second time to Newark.

Last year I had only just got the car (only a couple of weeks prior to the Hamfest), and I had no Amateur radio equipment installed, most I had was my handies, now I have the Yaesu FTM-400XDE installed I may be able to use the talk in in the Newark area, I believe this should be on S22 as normal if they have one, but I can find out later.

So with no other issues I should be at the Hamfest on the 1st October.


73 de M6RSQ

Results of the Bank Holiday of radio

As mentioned in my previous post I decided to play with System Fusion and WIRES-X, with some success, I initially positioned myself close to the repeater closest to the home QTH, GB3CD, and managed to make contact with a station over near Chester, which was nice but I was hoping to make contacts in the US but I run out of time, I was also hoping for simplex contacts and through the repeater with WIRES-X disconnected, but I can try again another time, as I managed to be able to open the WIRES-X on GB3CD from my usual radio playground near the home QTH I now don't have to drive for miles to play with it all being well, and I found a couple of American nodes of interest on the WIRES-X website but one of them was offline on Sunday but I can try again

Bank Holiday Monday I decided to see if I could expand mobile RF based APRS beyond my Yaesu FTM-400XDE, so I cobbled together a cable out of the speaker mic supplied with my Wouxun as it was hopeless audio wise for Amateur radio, a piece of cable I had lying about, and a suitable connector obtained from Maplin the same day, the results of this endeavour are on YouTube and attached below to this post, this has inspired me to pick up a Bluetooth TNC to make it permanent, along with another Baofeng handheld as I still wish to keep two HTs available for voice just in case one day my significant other gets her Amateur radio licence too,

So, Yesterday's endeavours are below, I'll leave you to watch

73 de M6RSQ

Bank Holiday weekend of radio

So, the final Bank holiday weekend of the year before Christmas, a good excuse to do radio, my interest is System Fusion,WIRES-X, IRLP and Echolink so I am more than likely going to be found on 2 metres and 70cm, naturally I will start with WIRES-X and pick up from last week, and see how that goes, later progress to IRLP and Echolink on GB3IR, WIRES-X will be on GB3CD unless there are other close nodes nearby which I can find out on Yaesu's WIRES-X website

IRLP is something that I have just started to use, I tried during a quiet time on the repeater the other night to connect to British repeaters on the system for the time being, I will branch out to American and Canadian nodes later on, my first attempt resulted in no contact on the first one I tried and the second one did not work, so worth a try later on.

Right, it is time for me to have a coffee and prepare for going out, I'll be monitoring GB3IR while I have my coffee so you can give me a shout if you so wish as long as you are licensed

73 de M6RSQ

WIRES-X

Yesterday I had a go with WIRES-X, the Internet linking system that goes with Yaesu's System Fusion, with limited success, I was only really able to get it to work as I'd like closer to GB3CD, which meant a bit of a drive to position myself close to it (as I am limited to 5 watts on the radio at present).

I managed to get into the WIRES-X system no problem once I was close enough, and have a look at some of the rooms, but no one came back to me, however it did disconnect mid-way though using it so I decided at this point to drive home and put some calls out on the repeater as normal to see if anyone else in the area was on with System Fusion, no replies, my final call was FM but I had not realised this until I glanced at the display of the radio mid transmission, I intend to give WIRES-X another go and also see if I can suggest that someone puts a node on down here, of course on 2-metres because I have discovered that repeaters and gateways on 70cm are impossible to put on air in the area around my home QTH.

I look forward to having a QSO with you on WIRES-X soon, should also be a perfect way to get my inaugural System Fusion QSO as this has not happened no matter how much I have tried.

73 de M6RSQ