Currently mym plans for Blackpool remain unaffected by COVID-19, the Norbreck Castle Hotel have not been in touch yet regarding my booking and the NARSA rally is still going ahead, also further to this the Blackpool Tower is still open as normal at present, I as well as the organisations responsible for the establishments and the NARSA rally will no doubt continue to assess this ever-changing situation.
I start with the following cancellations correct as of today (17th March 2020):
All meetings of the Colburn & Richmondshire District Amateur radio society for the foreseeable future, all members should have received an email to this effect from club secretary Chris G4FZN
Current postponements correct as of today (17th March 2020):
Ripon & District Amateur Radio society rally due to take place on the 12th April, this is also repeated on their website and also the club announced it too has taken the decision to cancel all club meetings for the foreseeable
During this current crisis please keep yourselves and those around you safe and remember to follow only the official guidance from official sources, and keep doing the things you enjoy with this in mind
Further news of what is postponed affecting my radio plans for this year will be outlined in further posts as I get the information, in the mean time check out my YouTube channel, I do have plenty more to come and will also keep you up to date there too.
Yesterday on the YouTube channel I posted a video on hotspots for DV modes such as DMR, Yaesu System Fusion, D-STAR and some others, I briefly also touched on the YSF reflectors, and knowing fellow YouTuber and Amateur radio operator Carl 2E0EZT had made one on cloud hosting I thought about making one on a Raspberry Pi, so I did.
The process to create the YSF reflector was very long because on Raspbian Buster it did not work, on Raspbian Stretch it has worked fine, the Pi hardware itself is my remaining working Raspberry Pi 1B made in Wales version, the reflector is listed and is currently online and under test, I have a video for this in the process of being rendered, in the mean time I have the video for the hotspots available on YouTube and it is included below with the photo of the YSF reflector.
The video for the YSF reflector should be online later on today at time of posting.
So as you will be aware it has been noted now by a couple of Amateurs in my area, myself included, that there is a strange 'werewolf' interference coming from the local Tesco store here in Catterick Garrison, the cause of this remained a mystery, until now.
A colleague of mine figured it could have been a combination of the automatic doors and the 2-way radio systems used by the staff, however I have narrowed it down to solely the automatic doors on the front of the shop as after 4pm on Sunday night, the interference vanished.
Then to add to my theory of it just being the automatic doors the 'howl' part of the interference coincided with the doors opening on approach of someone, therefore the case is now solved and it stands to reason that the automatic doors at this Tesco store fail to comply with the regulations in place regarding generation of interference, and because they cause interference into spectrum where Amateur radio operators are primary users, that could be a problem for the automatic door manufacturer if other doors of this type are found to do exactly this, especially if that interference is found in bands used for more critical applications.
A video will be released on YouTube later today or tomorrow morning.
I have been trying to find a date for this rally, as I could not find one, for some time now and checking the RSGB rallies list on their website shows that the rally is indeed taking place and I hope to be there, with video camera and hopefully a radio in tow as well.
Though I will not know my work schedule until a week before this event it usually runs with plenty of time to get me to and from Ripon as well as to work as I've fitted it into my work schedule in previous years without booking the day off.
Hopefully I might find a bargain or two there and of course as I plan to film get it onto YouTube this year, along with other rallies I hope to attend this year including the National Hamfest in September as this is a 2-day event so plenty to be filming there.
So I spent Thursday setting up the Boomerang antenna however I ran into a problem with it, a narrow bandwidth that I was not anticipating so SWR on a lot of channels was higher than desired no matter how much adjustment I made and then I discovered there to be common mode currents on the coaxial cable, leaving me to build a choke which I have not done due to not having the parts, I also, that day, did a range test revisit on the handheld CBs and they performed much better from the HT to the base station, rather than one on the building and one outdoors, the only place they struggled was, as expected, in front of the shops at Princes Gate Shopping Park, though they may not have got over the S3-S5 of noise the Grant II was showing on the S-meter.
I also discovered that I was not the only Amateur in the local area hearing interference outside the local Tesco, dubbed the 'werewolf' as it has a distinct 'howl' in parts, and I've no idea what it is though one of my work colleagues, who knows nothing much if anything about radio, says he might have an idea, that was also made into a YouTube video as I went down straight after the club on the Wednesday night armed with the Yaesu FT2D.
My next video up, by this evening all being well if I can get it onto YouTube before I have to be in work, is part 1 of two on the ugly balun, which ties into the boomerang antenna, part 2 is on making the thing.
Future videos are hopefully going to be:
Ugly Balun part 2: making one for 27 MHz, see above
Dummy loads
Getting started with radio
Operating /p from Blackpool Tower with a Yaesu FT2D, a sort of follow-up to Ringway Manchester's "Baofeng's Fatal Flaw, receive overload & desensistisation" to see if an expensive Japanese-made radio from a big name brand can work where the Baofeng radios cannot
The NARSA rally 2020 at the Norbreck Castle Hotel, Blackpool.
A look at the µBitX V6 kit and assembly (I plan to buy one as a cheaper way onto HF)
Setting a benchmark with the Thunderpole T-3000 and the Sirio Hi-Power 4000
Testing out my other CBs on the same mobile antenna against the Thunderpole T-3000 (multiple videos)
Bowburn Rally 2020 (if I get there this year)
National Hamfest 2020
This list isn't a complete list as there may well be other videos made as well that I have not planned to make as sometimes happens, and I probably will plan further videos for later on in the year too.
I also hope to engage more with my subscribers soon so please do subscribe to my YouTube channel, your subscriptions will help encourage me to make more videos and make the channel better, also there is an on-air test of the Boomerang antenna still to do however I've already explained why I cannot do that one just yet, my YouTube channel is here
Latest videos are also included below
The above are all available on my YouTube channel linked to above, again please subscribe to the channel as I have plenty of content in the pipeline.
I now have both antennas that I ordered, however the Thunderpole Boomerang antenna was to be delivered by Parcelforce (or Parcelfarce as I call them because they are incredibly useless) and they failed to deliver it to a neighbour as instructed, ignored the fact I rescheduled and left it at Catterick Garrison Post Office meaning after filming the video for the Sirio Hi-Power 4000 (and subjecting it to 70MPH due to a trip to nearby Darlington to do a bank run) I had to call at the Post Office to collect it, with that done editing work was finished for the Sirio antenna and the Boomerang unboxing video was filmed.
A big surprise with the Sirio was that I did not need to adjust it, SWR under 1.5:1 across all 80 channels, for the most part, the top end of 27/81 was about 1.4 which is acceptable, I was to compare between my K-Po and Zetagi SWR meters however this did not happen because another vehicle parked next to my car before I could do that, and the driver did not seem happy that I was even up there, probably because I don't own a dog, unfortunately public land means I have a right to go up there, it is ideal for radio given height and forms part of my mobile standardised test route, now I have the antenna I will be doing a dry run on video before actually doing anything on the air to show you the route from the car.
The only part to do from the perspective of the new antennas is the on-air test of the Boomerang, once it is up and tuned, given the fine adjustments that may be needed I won't bore you and give a final SWR reading as per the K-Po meter, the Zetagi meter, and the one built in to the President Grant II.
I will be working from 4pm tonight and as ever will be monitoring UK 19, which is usually full of the burner brigade running illegal power to speak to their pals which the 4 watts can do fine for them but they generally don't have a good understanding of this fact, that and they have the squelch turned all the way up which is a bit ridiculous really, maybe even with them I may notice a difference on this antenna on receive, the one thing that will be noticed is the fact I have a bigger antenna on the car.
I have placed an order for two antennas, a Sirio Hi-power 4000 for the car and a Thunderpole Boomerang for the home QTH, these antennas should, hopefully, work to set my base line for CB testing in a mobile environment, the base line is to be set as the Thunderpole T3000, the mobile antenna being as long as realistically possible, the boomerang coming in close to the 'spider antenna' for size.
Of course these antennas get a video on YouTube, the first one will be the Sirio Hi-power 4000 as that is the most straight forward to install, installation will be done at my new radio test ground above Richmond at the Hurgill Road end of the old racecourse.
The other reason I chose the Sirio Hi-Power 4000 is due to the similarity between it and the antenna loaned to me (see a previous video on my YouTube channel) which I since had to return as the amateur that loaned me it needed the magmount, the Orbitor/Springer antennna on the car was always going to be temporary, and the Hi-Power 4000 will work with 10-meters though I would need to shorten it and I was never comfortable doing this with a loaned antenna so it is my intent to buy a second Hi-Power 4000 to be tuned to 10-meters so I just swap the antennas over depending on if I choose to use 10-meters or 11-meters.
For CB, tuning will be done on my Thunderpole T-3000 with the car engine running to ensure the radio is running at it's maximum power output, SWR will be checked across the entire 80 channels using 2 SWR meters, my K-Po meter and my Zetagi meter, these meters will both be used with the boomerang when it goes up and tuning will be done on the Grant II, once this is done my base line can be set, all my radios will go through it, even my handhelds with car kits will be subject to this to see how they perform once a suitable speaker-mic can be obtained that won't jam them on transmit.
I will set up a scoring system for the standardised tests, also with a temporary base antenna I'll be able to retest the handhelds in the local area for a follow up video to "Handheld CBs, are they any good?".
