Attendance at the Blackpool rally and National Hamfest 2020 to hopefully go ahead

This year after booking the dates off early I got approval from the area manager, this means I can now attend the National Hamfest at the end of September and also the Blackpool rally in April as intended, the Ripon rally has not had a date announced yet so I cannot confirm if I am able to attend that until at least the week before it.

This brings me on to what happened last year, I missed the Hamfest as I booked it too late and could not get the days off approved, and on my run down to the Norbreck Castle Hotel in Blackpool I was run off a slip road by a very aggressive driver of a Mini, the former certainly cannot happen unless I have issues with the car, and the latter won't happen as the chances of me encountering that Mini driver at Lancaster (Forton) Services again will be nil.

Both events will be filmed for the YouTube Channel, and for Hamfest 2020 I will be camping and hopefully operating radio, maybe by the latter my XYL will be here too and will also be able to attend and camp at Hamfest 2020, and I'll remember the can opener and have a better tent and possibly better cooking stove too.

As for Blackpool, I will be operating 2-meters and 70cm there, including from the top of the world famous Blackpool Tower with my Yaesu FT2D and perhaps my AnyTone AT-D868UV as that seems to have a robust front end unlike my many Baofeng radios.

I'll update as this all progresses and I'd like to extend thanks to my Area Manager for allowing this to happen.

73 de M0WNU

Anderson Powerpole connectors, why they are a good idea

I did a YouTube video yesterday on why Anderson Powerpole connectors are a good idea, if you recall in June 2018 I escaped destroying my President Grant II by virtue of the fact that a protection diode was across the power connector and this blew the fuse and the radio was fine once that fuse was changed.

That radio actually has a cigar lighter plug on it as opposed to Powerpoles, I will be changing it later when I can get more of them, but the lesson learned was that I should always fit them to radios from the get-go, even my crude homemade bias-tee for QO-100 reception is equipped as such or at least will be if it is not already.

The video is here or it is attached below.

I strongly advise that if you don't use Anderson Powerpole already please start before you make a very expensive mistake, even if you solely operate 11-meters you should get your radio fitted as such.

73 de M0WNU/26CT730

Mandating the installation & use of CB radio in British & Northern Irish registered motor vehicles...

... A proposal to HM Government

After seeing the chaos that ensues over the Christmas period 2 years in a row, and in 2018 being a victim of car park rage at the hands of a driver of a brown Fiat 500, that same day being cut off at the exit to the same car park by an off duty taxi registered with Hambleton District Council I wanted to push through 2019 for this to happen but due to other commitments I did not, and then came the road rage incident that took place at Lancaster services on my way to the Blackpool rally, which could have also been avoided had this came to pass.

These incidents were all down to lack of communication between drivers, I chose CB radio as the service for this proposal as it has a reasonable range, 80 channels available (though removing 9, 14 and 19 on both blocks of 40 for their official uses this would actually be 74 but still more than the 8-16 PMR446 channels), the antenna would be able to be sited outside the car on its roof which due to the fixed antenna restriction of PMR446 cannot be done, and the vast majority of CB sets available are made with mobile use in mind as they can run of 12 volts, the car battery voltage (this is in reality around 13.8 volts up to 14.2 volts with the engine running), and can be plugged into a cigarette lighter socket for convenience.

The idea is that all motorists monitor UK channel 19, this will allow them to call other motorists and move to another channel of their choosing, alert other motorists of hold-ups, roadworks, accidents and police speed traps, the highways departments that maintain the trunk roads and motorways to do the same to inform motorists well ahead of time of any issues, and service areas on the motorways to advertise themselves on channel 19 to let the motorists know they are there and that they should pull in if they need to.

Part of this proposal mandates that CB installations are to be tested for function similar to the vehicle's MOT, the difference being that the CB set be tested yearly, the similarity being that a fail would mean the vehicle cannot be driven on a public road except to and from a place for repair and retest of the CB set, changing the set would not require a test until the testing date is due, this is so vehicle owners can change the CB radio to a different unit if they so desire, like an MOT the CB function test applies to it at the time the test is carried out.

CB sets that can be integrated into the vehicle in some way are permitted provided they meet Ofcom's list of type approvals, they may need to be temporarily removed to be tested to check things like the fuse, power and antenna connections, there is a radio sold by Chinese manufacturer Nanfone, though I have yet to find a site that sells single units rather than bulk loads of 200 minimum, I know this product is a real product as Lewis M3HHY did a video on YouTube about it and will be posting another one at some stage as he now has a CB antenna, this radio paired with an antenna that looks like a stock car antenna would be suited to those that do not want their car to look different to what it does, though modern cars have stereos made that are shaped to fit the dash rather than the older DIN space, though it is still possible to fit a CB radio to a modern car without any major issue.

Full details of this can be found at the mini-site I am running here which includes more or less the above, and a guide to equipment that can and cannot be used and a link to an Of com guidance document regarding CB radio, I also have an hour long YouTube video on my radio channel here and it is also below should you not want to view it on YouTube

Let's make this proposal reality and persuade HM Government to make this law, I for one think it is an excellent idea

73 de M0WNU/26CT730

Belated happy new year.

With me having the flu over the new year period I did not get round to wishing all my regular readers a happy new year,  so I am doing so now.

I hope to be more active with radio both Amateur and 11-meters/CB and I hope to work many of you on the air this year

73 de M0WNU/26CT730

Testing my home SSTV setup

Yesterday I did some tests, into a dummy load for the time being, of my setup at home for SSTV transmission, I can receive using my phone however receiving using the computer would be a better option here, though I have yet to get a decent adaptor to convert the TRRS output on the KT-8900D to a standard lead suitable for driving a mono speaker (though the computer input is in fact a stereo input), however the audio from the computer to radio is handled by an old home made interface I had lying around and at first it did not work on two different serial port numbers, I then opened it up to find the ground wire from the computer side was in fact disconnected from the board, so I had to resolder it back in place, it still did not work then I found that I had not actually plugged the serial to USB adaptor in when I unplugged and reconnected what I thought was it (which was in fact the USB extension cable to the shackcam), after I did plug it in and set the correct COM port a test without the radio connected showed the "TX" LED on the unit light up, plugging it into the KT-8900D confirmed that it shared a pinout with the Leixen VV898 (I had used this interface for APRS experiments with that radio), so ready to transmit.

First attempt the radio keyed up with no audio, my fault as I forgot to plug in the audio lead, second attempt it worked and I had turned the volume pot on the circuit down to its lowest and adjusted it so the receiver, my FT2D, received the audio but not too loud, it needs a bit more tweaking which will be into a dummy load and a test receive on a receiver in another room of the house as the dummy load, though in a metal case, does radiate a little but not too much.

After that I'll try and get some pictures of the local area to have some to send out in these tests and hopefully on air when I get an antenna made and put up, been a while since I have been on 2-meters in general from home other than through repeaters on HTs, and SSTV is something I have wanted to play with for a while

73 de M0WNU

National Hamfest 2019 - I missed it this year...

However I am already planning 2020's visit to the Hamfest, this year was down to tight finances even though I had been paid because of my emergency trips to the continent last month, as well as not being given this whole weekend off as, as it has now transpired, I booked it far too late, as soon as my holidays for next year are allotted I intend to book it off, however as I intend to look for a second job, for reasons I shan't go in to, I will have to book this off with the second company I work for once this happens.

I still intend to get a larger tent, the same one I've been looking at since last year, this means I can set up a station at the Hamfest location, if my wife returns and she gets at least her foundation then this could be very useful if not I'll need to take a CB set as well.

I do have a project and it should be in full swing by the time of Hamfest 2020, as well as a YouTube video of the event, I will be looking at all the latest news for this hamfest, though I was not in attendance.

If you are already planning for Hamfest 2020, keep an eye out for me and say hi, and until then listen for me on the air, I do also monitor GB3IR, an Echolink enabled and IRLP enabled repeater, during my shifts at work so feel free to give me a call, I usually do not respond when in the shop because I generally do not take a HT into the shop as it is a very busy environment, my delivery windows are 30-minutes max (though I aim for 25) so QSOs will be short.

73 de M0WNU

My journey to finally getting on the HF bands from home and the Slinky antenna idea

With my full licence out of the way I can focus on the other things in Amateur radio I want to do, this includes operating HF from home (without upsetting the neighbours of course), a thin wire antenna strung in the nearby trees should do it (with an ATU preferably fed with balanced feed up to the shack window then a coax into the shack (may need a second CTC-50)) though other antenna ideas are out there and one that would probably attract people into the hobby, and show you can make an antenna out of almost anything, is the Slinky antenna, which has been proven to work though Slinky toys are usually made of cheap steel so don't lend themselves to great antennas and would corrode if left untreated outside, in general this should require at least two Slinkys attached to a dipole centre and preferably fed with 300Ω or 450Ω ladder line into an appropriate balun (just to eliminate common-mode currents on the coax feeding it as this may pose interference and tune problems), suspended taut with a piece of rope running through the Slinkys as they don't lend themselves to staying suspended horizontally.

With no HF set it is not possible to actually test this out, though some say it could work for 80-meters it may work better for higher up, say 20-meters but nothing to stop adding more Slinkys to make it longer and closer to resonance at the lower frequencies, which would require longer ropes for holding it vertical, however the real added bonus is that this makes a crude portable antenna that can collapse down to a very small size indeed, and also extremely cheap to make.

The Slinky antenna is listed in the Stealth Antennas book by Steve Nichols G0KYA, though I first had the idea when I saw Slinkys in a local branch of Boyes (a chain of cheap department stores in the North of England) before I read it in the book (which I purchased to come up with a good way of getting on HF without drawing too much attention, though a Slinky might draw some attention though a theory is that if an antenna is mounted high up and no one looks up it goes unseen and unnoticed for some time (until of course RFI becomes an issue which as responsible Amateurs we are obliged to resolve as part of our licence terms), and hiding a wire antenna in trees might work better though I do want to try out the Slinky idea anyway because I am all for experimenting.

The only thing I don't know yet is how bad the noise level around here is on the HF bands, there are no houses with solar panels on my street at present, but there are plenty of houses and three other identical blocks of flats which means potentialy battling the dreaded PLT and nasty electronics that have had all levels of filtering removed from production models, however when I checked the noise floor on 11-meters it was not dire (about S4 at worst) and my wife and I were able to use the band to communicate successfully during her visit to the UK while I was at work or otherwise out in the car while she was at home, hopefully I have that same luck on HF no matter what antenna I use.

The biggest concern I naturally have is causing RFI to neighbours, and potentially my own gear, so I plan to from the start keep a log of all my transmissions on HF, I rarely do this for 2-meters because FM is usually benign and at worst generates a buzz on things, my poorly shielded computer speakers in my shack being a good example of this, also I plan to do plenty in the way of RF housekeeping so that any RFI issues should not occur, however with modern electronics that are not adequately immune then even this may not be enough however I still plan to operate until such times as I am told by neighbours that I am causing them interference, and it is for this reason I intend to keep a log to make sure that the neighbours are in fact telling the truth (I have had an instance already where my 10/11-meter antenna on my car has been complained about, to me fortunately, for causing TVI yet it was not connected to a radio at the time, my mobile antennas do get noticed, though the person that made the accusation had no understanding of radio at all, all I could do was brush it off and tell the truth, that the antenna was not plugged in and I was not transmitting), filtering out the true interference reports from the false one will always require a log.

The radio is the next hurdle, should I make it to Newark this year (which has been in doubt since I was told I could not have the weekend off), I will see what I can find there, if not the other radio I have in mind is the µBitX from India (which is now into version 5 after the American scaremongering about spurs forced the designer to redesign part of it) which is just a shade over £100 and can do up to about 10-watts on 40 and 80-meters (my two main HF bands of interest though I may want to operate top band later), though I am tempted to measure this, there are other "cheap" HF rigs out there such as the Xeigu radios from China (though the price point of some of these is not really cheap) and the unauthorised Chinese copies of the mcHF (which I would never buy as the designer of the real mcHF put a lot of work into it and the real thing would be my preferred choice could I afford it right now), though with the µBitX you get satisfaction from assembling the non-assembled parts and can design it into a case of your choosing (you get the same satisfaction assembling the genuine mcHF or even a transceiver of your own design if you're truly inclined), but I will see what happens there, or if all else fails I could borrow the Kenwood radio from the club as we use a Yaesu rig for HF operation at the club, though I'd need to borrow the manual tuner as well as that is another hurdle to overcome in the grand scheme of things.

I look forward to operating HF hopefully with a mix of portable and home operations because I want to be able to show to the world that Amateur radio is actually exciting and still relevant in the 21st Century, and I am hoping to sit down at some point and actually start teaching myself Morse code properly, will have to listen to some as well as practice sending it to get tuned to it (no pun intended).

73 de M0WNU