Planning a DXpedition to Tan Hill

I am planning a DXpedition to Tan Hill, home of the highest pub in England, my plan is to take a rig, battery rated around 10Ah, may get a bigger one (my scooter's battery is 7Ah and I need that to power my scooter's starter motor so I cannot use that), or a portable jump-starter with a 12 volt outlet, I just need a collapsible pole and antenna, I plan to make up what is called a T2LT for this purpose.  This is inspired by others going up hills to do this, and Tan Hill makes a good place, I'm sure the Amateurs would like it too, and best of all there's a pub up there for food and drink

Update: Listening to GB3IR, the 2m repeater in Richmond, this evening (I obviously cannot transmit as I don't hold an Amateur license yet) the Amateurs that were on air have mentioned Tan Hill so they actually have used it themselves for HF work, so I am not the first nor am I the last.

The pub itself stands at 1732ft ASL, so the location is pretty much perfect for radio, especially DXing on both 27MHz and 446MHz (I may give the latter a go as well depending on how much charge is in my radios, though I can charge them up prior to the event and take spare batteries, but my aim is to try on 27MHz, as it is sat around spare and it the better of the three mobile rigs I own I will use the Midland 78+ Multi B (the TTI TCB550 is on gateway duties so won't be removed and the Moonraker FA5000 has an awful s-meter and cannot do AM, as AM is now legal and my Midland 78 Plus is type approved for use in the EU as far as I can tell it is legal to use on AM here, for the full 4-watt output on AM, it is required to put the radio into the setting for Spanish channels as these use 26.965-27.405 AM and FM at 4 watts.

My new Sony headphones and my converter will also be going with me, just for those stations I may not hear easily, laptop, maybe, though a notepad would allow me to write down callsigns, I simply need to pick up a portable power supply (a battery and volt meter may be sufficient as a temporary measure until I can get something better), a telescopic or collapsible pole, and an antenna, preferably of the T2LT type.

I may also look into picking up a President Grant II CB radio, as I hear these are very good indeed, and I've wanted a President CB radio for a while now, but until then I will just use my Midland 78+ Multi B.

One thing that I intend to do is take an SWR meter, my good quality Zetagi combo SWR and power meter will be ideal for this role, my cheaper two aren't brilliant, one has a needle that is not as precise as it should be and the other sometimes likes to stick, one of these is connected to my home antenna system for the CB gateway as the radio is also connected to it and I need to monitor if the tuner is working as it should be on occasions.

on PMR446 the antenna will be screwed into the radio, so no meters, coax, or anything else.

If I take the computer I may take the RTL-SDR and use it with another antenna, provided I don't overload it with my own transmissions.

So, I'll post an update as and when this DXpedition takes place, Tan Hill is there, I might as well use it for radio.

73 de 26CT730

Overclocking the shack computer... follow up

As it turns out, the motherboard in the shack computer is so horrifically useless that it doesn't like to be overclocked at all, it will, for a short while, but then it will revert back to default clock settings, so a new board is in order as I cannot use this machine for RTL-SDR reliably.

So, the next option is to replace the motherboard with a new one, not what I wanted to do but I appear to have little choice in the matter, lets hope the old motherboard actually comes out, if not I have another case I can use, if it works as it should I should have a better shack computer sometime soon.

73 de 26CT730

Overclocking the shack computer

Because the shack computer is proving a bit lagging performance wise, I have taken the decision to overclock it until it's internal components can be brought in line with up-to-date standards (it's a Pentium 4).

Overclocking is a process to make a chip, in this case a computer's CPU, run at a higher speed than it should, the idea is to get more performance out of a chip, sadly though this causes a heat increase and can risk damage to the component, and manufacturers never accept warranty claims through damage caused by overclocking.

I hope I can get the CPU to run at a stable speed and the machine performs better, I'll let you know

73 de 26CT730

AM and SSB legal day

A nice positive post in contrast to the negative one earlier

I have been reading on the varied success and lack of it by various people on some radio forums I frequent now it is legal day, and I am somewhat pleased with the turnout however sadly I could not join them due to lack of an external antenna (my loft antenna only can do a couple of miles and AM would probably have broken through on neighbour's equipment in such close proximity).

I will try and get hold of a collapsible portable antenna and a BNC to SO239 connector and a short run of coax to connect to one of my handhelds, as well as a spare set of batteries and give AM a go now I can legally do so (I could also use my scooter's battery with the antenna adaptor for my Midland Alan 42 but I have to remember that I will need to run the scooter's engine), and will log whatever contacts I make, in fact on a quiet weekend I can go up to Tan Hill and do exactly this as it's a lovely high spot in which to work from.

I'll let you know how I get on and I look forward to many contacts using AM, SSB isn't an option yet for me..

73 de 26CT730

comments disabled

After receiving a nasty, yet empty and laughable, threat from a psychopath I have disabled comments until further notice, I run my websites and blogs to inform and I understand there are those that will not agree with me, but threats will NOT be tolerated.

Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause

73 de 26CT730

SDR improvement

After seeing an article on the RTL-SDR blog and a more detailed article on the SDR for Mariners blog I decided that to eliminate the excess heat (and by association the excess frequency drift) I would use a cooling method from this page, immerse stick in can of cooking oil.

This cooling method hast two plus-points

1. The liquid is not conductive and no damage to the stick should occur
2. The can will act as a faraday cage, the SDR alone contains no metal screen and picks up everything in it's surrounding environment easily without an antenna (I tried this with a CB radio connected to a home brew dummy load in close proximity with the gain at 0, it picked it up with little problem), in a metal enclosure it should not pick up anything

The can I have chosen is the largest golden syrup tin I could find, I have chose to modify this with two connectors, BNC for the antenna (this will be of the 50Ω impedance, rather than the 75Ω the dongle would expect but a mismatch shouldn't be an issue, to allow compatibility with scanner antennas), and a Neutrik NAUSB-W chassis mount USB port set up with the "B" side on the outside of the tin and the "A" side inside to connect the dongle to.

These will be sealed with silicone to stop the oil leaking out of the connectors and to keep air out.

I'll report back on how this works, apparently it works quite well according to what I have read.

73 de 26CT730

ShackCam updates

My ShackCam, the webcam feed of my "shack" (the corner of my living room where all my radio gear lives (normally)) has been under test for about 11 days and the only change I have made to the setup in that time is set up the webcam capture programme to start when the computer starts, the camera itself remains the JVC Everio camcorder, it will be replaced with a Raspberry Pi, using the Pi camera board, on my local network in the coming weeks to free up the camcorder for other uses, the replacement camera will also be subject to tests.

Those that have viewed the ShackCam won't have seen much of me in there as I've been finalising other things in my new better life after the unpleasantness at the hands of Internet psychopaths who have thankfully left me alone for two weeks now, but I will be on air more often very soon, and of course in the shack, and now the nicer weather has come around I might take to the hill and make the trip up to Bishop Auckland to do my Amateur radio exam in the next few weeks.

Don't worry, I don't just simply put the camera on without being in there, I will be in there.

73 de 26CT730