Full licence possibilty

An opportunity has arisen in the form of the Bath-based Advanced learning course run by Steve Hartley G0FUW, I have already emailed Steve and he has send me the form to send off to him to enrol on the course, with a refundable (if passed) £40 deposit to secure a place.

I want to pass the full examination before the syllabus changes, with this course I have to arrange my own examination at an exam centre of my choosing, naturally this would be the Colburn (Hudswell) club though I may have to go to Bishop Auckland or Ripon depending on situation at the time.

I have read the book already however will need to re-read it again and possibly the Foundation and Intermediate books just to keep me up to speed on the earlier and lower tiers of licence.

I have a few incentives to go for the full apart from the sense of satisfaction I will get from doing so, as I want to run a self-contained APRS receive only igate from my home QTH and under my current licence I must be at home to run it, initially using a Raspberry Pi and an RTL-SDR with a battery and solar charging, and NoVs for this can only be done on a full licence, mainly to fill-in for MB7USD as that does not seem to be working all the time and thus those that use APRS in the area may not be able to get into the APRS-IS.  I also want to be able to help others to get into the hobby and with my intermediate I am very limited in what I can do in that regard.  Another thing I would like to do is run special events stations which I could not otherwise do without a full licence, again to help promote the hobby.

The other thing I'd be able to do is run up to 400 watts on most bands (the UK limit without an NoV is 400 watts), and most modern rigs are capable of up to 100 watts on HF (sometimes a bit more depending on the radio) though power is not everything as successful contacts can be made on some bands with as little as a few watts sometimes milliwatts under good conditions.

And finally I will then be able to operate in other countries and also /MM (maritime mobile), the latter with permission of course, though the likelihood I'll operate /MM is low.

My journey to the full licence should hopefully start soon and in a few months I hope to have achieved what I set out to do, I will keep you all posted on how things are going.

73 de 2E0EIJ

Equipment plans

As you know, aside from 10-meters, I lack any suitable equipment for use on HF, however I have been saving up what I can to get some HF equipment, antennas are no issue as I will build these as this is significantly cheaper and I plan to experiment with magnetic loops on HF and use wire antennas when portable so no point buying antennas (and Marconi would spin in his grave if I did).

The equipment in mind is all Yaesu equipment, their new FT-818 or their FT-991A, depending on what I save, the latter does have an onboard ATU and higher power output, the FT-818 has a battery onboard and no ATU and outputs 6 watts, I made my first 80-meter QSO from the club last meeting under the club callsign thus allowing me to use the 100 watts the radio was putting out legally, and most HF activity under my own callsign is generally restricted to 10-meters as I only have a radio for that band though at present no antenna.

I have little to no experience operating HF other than on 11-meters where different procedures apply as it is the Citizens' Band, though SSB is available my inexperience tuning an SSB frequency does show which is why I want to get into operating HF as soon as I can do so to gain that experience, after all Amateur radio is all about learning and learning to operate on HF properly is certainly something I intend to do, for starters I will be listening to Hack Green again and using that to start learning to tune SSB, as I can plug my shack headphones into my shack computer, that way once I have a knack for it I will be able to do it and also at the meeting after next at the club I shall practice my tuning on the club rig, not sure which bands aside from 20, 40 and 80-meters are covered by the club rig or its reserve, however once I know that information it will allow me to have a good tune around during club nights and practice for when I have HF gear.

Whether I get a 991A or 818 does not matter overly much, as I plan to do some portable ops during the summer and also operate from the National Hamfest every year, if I get an 818 I will probably need an amp unless I want to do true QRP say from the hills (SOTA activations for example), but this is a post for another day.

73 de 2E0EIJ

UK legal CB is 37 years old

2nd November 1981, 5 months before I was born, CB radio was legalised in the UK, though not how the people wanted it, however it remains alive and well, though not as utilised as it once was as most of the idiots in modern society all lurk on social media, that said CB use has picked up a little with AM and SSB modes being legalised a few years ago.

A "big net" was held on Friday, which due to work commitments and no CB equipment in the car at this time I was not able to take part in, it doesn't matter to me that I have my Amateur radio licence, it all started for me on 11-meters and to a point PMR446 as well but that is another story, apparently the turnout on UK channel 37 was pretty good, I was planning to go to Sutton Bank near Thirsk to take part in this (after my success at Tan Hill during Activate All Counties I wanted to try something different and I know Sutton Bank is a good spot for radio) and use the President Grant II as the radio, but as I mentioned work stopped me doing this.

So, how to partake next year on Channel 38? My idea was one I had with my previous car, as my current car is identical in almost every way my plan was to fit the cycle carrier I had installed on my previous car and mount a CB antenna (and possibly a counterpoise) to the carrier using an off-the-shelf mirror bar mount, however I am looking into doing something similar for 10-meters so I can operate on 10 mobile, so I'd need an antenna that could cover both with minimal adjustments, the first step of course is to fit the carrier which I will have to do on a good day, the carrier is a Westfalia monoflex designed specifically for the Toyota Aygo AB10 and its two Groupe PSA sister cars, my idea was to fit a large CB antenna to it, and later a full HF antenna, this would allow me to use CB and 10-meters on the road and I'd be able to participate in nets like the big net that celebrates the anniversary of CB radio being legalised

as I am working to save money for the future and get an HF rig as well as something nice for someone special to me (the future XYL of course), I should see my "antenna and cycle carrier" idea becomea reality in the coming months, how it will work with a bicycle on the carrier remains to be seen as I will be testing that too.

73 de 26CT730/2E0EIJ

M7 callsigns now being issued by Ofcom to newly qualified foundation licence holders

I decided after seeing this information on another of Lewis M3HHY's videos to wait for RSGB and Ofcom to announce it before posting this, however it appears the M6 callsigns have finally run out (I still hold M6RSQ though do not use it on air at present given that I have an Intermediate (2#0EIJ) but still have the freedom to use it if I so desire as it is still valid) and Ofcom are now starting to issue M7 callsigns to Foundation licencees who have recently qualified.

This does bring the question of how many M0 calls are left for full licence holders, as I hope to qualify before the syllabus changes in August, and obviously M3, M6 and M7 are all used for Foundation, and M1 has already been used for full licences, leaving 2, 4 and 8, 9 is not used for Amateur radio callsigns in the UK, at least in the G series anyway, except in some contest callsigns. though Ofcom may change this as they have that power

RSGB's official announcement was on Twitter in the last 48 hours, however not put out by the fiasco surrounding Activate All Counties that went against him, Delboy gloated in reply with a link to a post from his blog saying he had "beat them to it" when in actual fact he had heard a new M7 call on air local to him on 2-meters after I read the post, which predated RSGB's announcement.

I have always encouraged people in the hobby to go out and get their M6 call, now I simply encourage them to get the M7 call and find there is more than 80 channels at 27MHz and 16 channels at 446MHz to play with.

and I look forward to working an M7 station real soon

73 de 2E0EIJ

Amateur television - a new adventure in radio for me

As you know I went to the National Hamfest this year for both days, giving me an opportunity to speak to more organisations than normal, one of which was the BATC, who were there with examples of their Portsdown transmitter used for DATV (which uses DVB-S and therefore can be received on a domestic satellite receiver but not Sky branded equipment as that is locked down in firmware and cannot be unlocked to tune to DATV) and a couple of other bits and pieces and an opportunity to join, after giving it some thought I plan to do so but lacking a suitable Raspberry Pi I cannot begin to construct the Portsdown myself so I looked at a cheaper and more challenging alternative that the BATC have on their website as a means to transmit ATV.

The alternative are the transmitter and receiver pairs used for FPV from drones, these operate in the 5.8GHz region, part of which falls within the 6cm band, since I gained my intermediate I also have privileges to operate on that band, something I did not have with my foundation, the agreed on frequency is 5665MHz, or 5.665GHz, which most of the units, though not all, can tune to, though I'd want to mount these in a diecast enclosure for two reasons, one so the enclosure acts as a heatsink for the device and two to keep RFI down if any, these units take a standard CVBS (composite) video feed though may need the appropriate sockets fitting to connect the camera to the TX and the monitor to the RX, the TX unit also needs a means to insert a callsign and send out a test card, the BATC suggest a memory card media player unit for this purpose, my idea is to add a video splitter to allow me to see what is being sent to the TX as well.

Camera wise I am sorted, I have a long redundant Samsung camcorder that, since I bought my JVC Everio camcorder, has been seldom used and been allowed to remain in a state of discharge, it had fitted a coin cell battery to back up the time and date, though not a feature I'd need and this battery has not leaked and the camera works fine and tested into a video source the picture is clean enough for transmission.

Antenna wise I need to look at, a single antenna requires a changeover relay, these can be had at rallies for a small amount, the antenna itself needs to be directional, horizontal polarisation, and equipped with an N type connector, 5.8GHz WiFi antennas would work here though these are expensive, a cheaper solution is to build an antenna, as I like building antennas I see no reason why not, a design I have seen involves copper wire and double-sided PCB and a chassis mount N type connector, as I lack any coax at this time I could simply build 2 antennas so I have one for TX and one for RX and the units connect directly, however these use RP-SMA and as such require an adaptor or an appointment with a soldering iron to swap the connector to standard SMA and again an adaptor, the former is quicker and easier.

Before I begin I plan to join the BATC as their annual fee is low, around £8 or so if my memory serves right and they send out a quarterly publication called CQ-TV, which sounds like a good read.

I watched a video from BATC's CAT17 conference in which the very person I spoke to at Newark discusses the 5.8 GHz FPV system being used for ATV, and a demo as well, including antenna information which include modifying a Sky Minidish (which are very common now and there are a few surplus ones doing the rounds) with a PCB log periodic antenna at the feed point, the BATC wiki details a homebrew antenna that I alluded to above.

Lastly at this frequency your normal coax is useless, so in the case of 2 antennas and no changeover relay the TX and RX are directly connected to them, 0dB loss, or if you're using a changeover relay, one antenna and possibly also a power amplifier (to get the TX up to 2 watts) then you'd need short coax links that are not lossy at these frequencies and fitted with SMA connectors for changeover relays and adaptors to convert the RP-SMA to standard, at my next rally attendance I of course will be keeping an eye out for microwave changeover relays as these frequencies are classed as microwave.

So in summary I have a camera, I have a mic to connect to the camera, I have a cable to connect the camera to a monitor/TV (which will go to a TX instead), all I need now is the parts to build the system, and because this station will be operated /p 99% of the time it will be created with this in mind, I also intend to build a self-contained receiver standalone to the main station to ensure the TX is actually working with help of an assistant.

I may, once I've got this up and running and had a couple of QSOs over it, demonstrate it to the local club, perhaps keeping the RX at the club and they talking back on 2-meters on the agreed talkback channel.

The best part about all of this is that everything can run off 12 volts so all I need is a battery, and while doing this I can still work on the Portsdown which will take a little while but I enjoy building things, part of the appeal of Amateur radio, the technical side of things too also is of interest hence this interest in Amateur television.

Time for further research and I hope to get something working real soon and I'll keep you updated on progress as it goes on.

73 de 2E0EIJ

The fatal flaw of cheap Chinese radios for 2m and 70cm

YouTuber 'Ringway Manchester', Lewis M3HHY, posted a video of himself and another amateur attempting to make contacts on 2-meters simplex from Blackpool Tower, something I myself wanted to do but decided against and, as Lewis revealed, I too would have failed as on the day I had only a Baofeng with me.

Radios made by Icom, Kenwood and Yaesu all have good front end filtering on them and a superheterodyne receiver, with a couple of the really cheap Yaesu radios being an exception on the latter, cheap Chinese radios tend to have a direct conversion receiver and poor filtering, as I demonstrated with my Leixen VV-898 this leads to interference from out of band signals.

Lewis had this problem from Blackpool Tower on a Baofeng UV-5R and another Baofeng which I believe was a UV-82, 10 stations came back to Lewis' calls but he was not able to hear them on either radio.

the other part of the problem is that there are antennas on Blackpool tower, to higher powered transmitters, though these are higher up than what the public are allowed and should have not caused a problem in theory, as I plan to get hold of a Yaesu HT (or an analogue Icom or Kenwood) hopefully before next year's Blackpool rally I hope to be able to give this a go myself and see if a Japanese made radio will be able to do what the Baofeng cannot do, work contacts from Blackpool Tower, also I really hope Lewis gives this another go with another radio, as that is a video I would very much enjoy seeing.

Chinese radios, you do get what you pay for, though don't get me wrong, I do advocate the Baofeng radios as they are very good starter radios for the newly licensed that cannot afford a radio by one of the big three.

Search YouTube for 'Ringway Manchester' for Lewis' video from Blackpool Tower and you'll see the difficulties he was having, after all the tower should make a very ideal place to get into the repeater on the Isle of Man, just Baofeng skimp on the filtering and use an SDR chip in the radios though all radios are prone to front end overload and desense from strong transmissions.

73 de 2E0EIJ

National Hamfest 2019 planning already underway

With the success of the camping at this year's National Hamfest plans are already underway to prepare for next year, with a few changes to what I had this year, these are:

• A better tent, namely the £99 tent from Go Outdoors that I could not afford this time round
• Solar power aside the generator to run electrical appliances with a heavy duty inverter
• Running of a station on site, hopefully HF as well as 2 and 70, and possibly an amateur TV setup as I look into that aspect of the hobby
• Better Internet access arrangement rather than tethering to my phone as I had to do, the mobile data service on my tablet never worked at Newark so everything was through my phone
• A heater for outdoor use as nights were cooler than expected
• Reworked cooking facilities though I will still keep the existing stove

I may add to that list as time progresses, I also hope to have either filtering on the QYT and Leixen by then to get rid of the pager interference both sets are terribly prone to or a better mobile set for portable ops that is designed properly.

There are still rallies left in 2018 and I hope my next one will be the Spennymoor rally run by BARAC, and if I am there please do say hi.

73 de 2E0EIJ