More fun with the 28MHz mobile

This morning we headed over to the village of Coleshill, where Julie wanted to take a look at a clothes sale. Having had a look around, I left Julie to it and popped back to the car.

Being the middle of the day, I thought I would check 28MHz SSB. First I heard a ZS6 who wasn't too loud. Although he could just hear me, my 10W to the whip wasn't enough for a contact. ZS3Y was a bit louder but he couldn't hear me. HZ1HN was contesting but I couldn't get him to hear me.

I was starting to think it was a receive only day, when I heard a loud station just finishing a CQ. I called and was pleased and surprised to get a report of 5/5. Even more pleased when I discovered the station was in Israel! I forget Rafi's call but it may have been 4X4FL (sorry, it's been a busy day). We had a really nice QSO. Just as I signed with Rafi and we were preparing to drive off, with Julie back from the sale, Phil G7GVV from Oxford called in - so we quickly exchanged reports.

Slightly oddly, I noticed that on two channels only, there is a small difference between the Anytone's TX and RX frequencies. And the clarifier seems to be set correctly. Odd! Happily it doesn't seem to matter. Maybe a reset will help!

Fun contacts from the mobile!

70MHz transatlantic beacon WF9XRU

I spoke with Dave WW2R last night and he tells me that the 70MHz beacon from the US will be active again this year. Callsign will be WF9XRU.

I believe that all other details will be as before; frequency 70.005 from FM07.

Many thanks as ever, to Brian WA1ZMS for putting the beacon on.

A good 70MHz day

Some nice 70MHz Es today - mostly to the south east. Around lunchtime I worked IK0SMG (JN61) and IK5YJY (JN53). Later on, just before 1600z I was listening to a weak signal on 70.200 - I think an I4 which I was struggling to copy. Mark, CT1FJC heard me and called me at great strength. Really delighted to work Mark on a new band! Following that, Mark faded out and I was able to work another two Italian stations IZ5EME (JN52) and I0DLP (JN61). Conditions when I worked I0DLP were just perfect - he was a huge signal and very easy to work.

Reading about QSOs at unfeasibly high frequencies

Having been off work today with a stupid cold, I'd been doing a little reading around. I was enthused reading Roger G3XBM's ever-interesting blog about the experiments that he is making at optical frequencies with 481THz experiments using LEDs. I remembered I'd had a QSO with Gordon G8PNN last year when he mentioned these experiments. Fascinating stuff!


What intrigued me is that these experiments have been going on for a while and that Australian amateurs have quite a history of experimentation in the field. I found and enjoyed 'Optical Communication for the Amateur' written by Chris Long in 1979 and later revised. Back in the UK, Eddie G0EHV has an interesting page on the optical experiments in the North East of England.


I wondered whether Dave WW2R/G4FRE had done any optical experiments. It turns out that he hasn't, but his website contains details of some fascinating 'First' UK QSOs on 134GHz and 142GHz which I think you will also find fascinating.

Oh and the picture? I took it off Dave's website (Dave, I hope you don't mind!). It shows a very youthful G4VXE in the middle (doing nothing, apparently), Kelvin GW4TTU to the left and Dave G4FRE on the right. We were on Mynydd Maen in South Wales preparing for a microwave contest. I'm guessing 1986 or 1987.

D-STAR, APRS, 145MHz mobile and 50MHz - all in a weekend

It's been nice weather this weekend for the first time in ages. Yesterday as I was working around the house and in the garden, I put the DVAP on DCS005B and made some nice QSOs including Barry, G8SAU who was on Sheringham beach. I could easily hear the waves on the shore.

In the Win-DV setup - I noticed an APRS tab. I added my callsign, lat/lon and a comment and now when I start Win-DV, it shows the DVAP on the APRS map. Quite fun! I don't have the nice, but expensive, GPS microphone for the E-92.

This morning, I decided to go and see my Mum, in Cheltenham. I took with me one of the Kenwood APRS handhelds which I have on loan. Cheltenham is well served by a couple of great APRS digis so I wondered what would happen. Sure enough my position was digipeated which was fun to see. It was also interesting to see APRS packets from the Severn Beach rescue boat being digipeated.

On the way back home, I operated 145MHz simplex. It was interesting to hear some SOTA activity from the Long Mynd (2Q0YYY/P) as well was Walbury Hill (MQ6BQA/P - who I had a brief contact with). Also a nice QSO with 2E0ZVR between Evesham and Pershore as I climbed over the Cotswolds to Stow on the Wold.

Later on this afternoon, I thought I'd check 50MHz and was pleased to work LZ2DF at over 2180km. Pete, 2E0SQL heard an SV9 and I heard a YU in KN00 - so some good distances around today. Looks like there were some 70MHz contacts to be had too!

UV-5R programming lead fun!

When I ordered my UV-5R, I didn't order a programming lead. As I have commented before, I recommend you do! Manual programming is rather arcane, especially for repeater/duplex frequencies.

I'd used a Wouxun lead that I'd borrowed to get the first few memories set up. Yesterday, the lead I had ordered from Hong Kong arrived. Installation of the driver didn't go quite as smoothly as I'd hoped! I tried running the executable but had no luck. In the end I followed some instructions I found to install the driver manually and it worked. The PC I was working on runs Vista. Perhaps that's why it was awkward.

Propagation always has a twist in the tail!

Rainy and a little bit windy. Not the sort of weather that you really associate with VHF/UHF tropo. But this evening, driving home, the Wells 144MHz repeater, GB3WR was around 40db up on normal as I drove up the A34 from Didcot. Quite stable and consistent until I was a little further north.

A weather front coming through perhaps?

It's great when propagation doesn't do what you expect. Always something new to learn.

The Bank Holiday weekend at G4VXE

It's been a busy but good long weekend here. On Saturday, we had a visit from John, G3WGV. It was great to catch up with him. John flew to Abingdon airfield in the SportCruiser aircraft he had built himself.

John was kind enough to take me up for a flight in G-JONL. What a splendid craft it is! We flew west from Abingdon, just to the south of Longworth and then south across the Ridgeway, across the M4 to just south of Newbury where we turned around and headed back to Abingdon.

The picture below shows our village from the air.

On Sunday, John, Julie and I went to the Abingdon Air Show which we all enjoyed.

Today has been a busy day. I wrote the VHF column for Practical Wireless as well as a review of three handhelds which should be published in the magazine soon. That did require a little bit of portable operating with the handhelds from Windmill Hill, just south of Hinton Waldrist, our neighbouring village.

Just as I was pressing send on the VHF column, I caught a quick 50MHz Es opening to the south to Spain and Portugal. I was particularly pleased to work Mark CT1FJC who is a regular correspondent for the VHF column.

This evening I have been doing a little reading and particularly enjoyed Ross G6GVI's 1296MHz pages

First 70 MHz Es opening this year

I was working from home this afternoon and unfortunately, whilst I was on a call, there was a 70MHz opening to Finland! I managed to catch ES3RF on 50MHz after I finished the call.

I kept an eye on 70MHz though and a bit later, I heard my neighbour G4BRK calling something. Switched the 70MHz aerial onto the FT847 and I could hear some weak SSB on 70.200. It got louder and proved to be Ivan, S51DI! A few stations worked him in front of me, but in typical ES style, the signals built up to S9 and I was able to complete the QSO.

I've worked Ivan plenty of times on 70MHz of course, but it's always great to get the first Es QSO on the band for the year in the log.

Down in the beacon band on 70.059 I heard the HG1BVC beacon for the first time.

Caught my first 50MHz opening of the year

It's always good when the Es season starts. I associate Es contacts with the sun, being away in the Mediterranean - things I like!

Just after lunch I saw a tweet reporting some 70MHz activity from the Netherlands to Finland. I popped up and checked, finding 50MHz fairly quiet. However, an interesting beacon coming in was OY6BEC - quite short skip. Tried a few CQs on CW but no luck. Up on SSB SP3OCC was coming in, but couldn't work him. I scraped a QSO with SP5SS before finding some CW activity.

Best DX over the next hour or so was into Estonia, but I had several contacts with SM, OZ, LY, OE, HA, E7 and IS0.

A good start to the season!

I never expected I would shake the hand of an astronaut: Meeting Paolo Nespoli

On Friday afternoon, I was scanning my Twitter feeds and saw a tweet from @spacekate. Kate said that on Saturday afternoon, ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli would be in London, giving a talk at the Royal Aeronautical Society about his flights on the ISS. Kate also said that there were tickets still available and that better still, they were free!

Somewhat unusually, the calendar was co-operative and I was able to book tickets for myself and the boys (Julie was going to a series of talks in Oxford).

When we arrived, we were told that Paolo was running late. Somehow you expect an astronaut to arrive in a fast car. In fact poor Paolo had come by coach, which had been delayed by a cycle race! Whilst Paolo was waiting for his laptop and talk to catch up with him, he was happy to take questions, so I was really excited to be able to ask him about his visual memories of the trip.

The talk was fascinating. Even a 15 year old pronounced it 'cool'. High praise indeed. But it was. Amazing to learn about some of the effects of zero gravity on the human body from someone who has actually experienced it - and what being launched in a Soyuz feels like (gentler than the shuttle, although the Soyuz 'rides harder' further into the flight).

Predictably, Paolo's photos were stunning, no surprise to those of us who followed his tweets from space and his Flickr stream. A slide which caused much laughter was a shot of Italy from space - being noticeably brighter than its' neighbours. Especially when Paolo explained that Italy imports a large quantity of its' electricity.

One of Paolo's slides featured a shot of one of the two amateur stations on the ISS. He explained that he and Cady Coleman had 77 contacts with schools during their flight - a record that he was proud of. To an audience which included school children and teachers, he encouraged schools who were interested in having a radio contact with the ISS to get in touch with the project.

All too soon, the presentation was over, but as Paolo was dashing out the door, I had the opportunity to thank him for his amateur activity from the Space Station and have a quick chat.

I never expected that I would shake the hand of an astronaut!

Programming the UV-5R - and a word on the antenna

I mentioned last week that manual programming of the memories of the UV-5R was a step too far, at least for me! At the time I ordered a programming cable from Hong Kong. It's yet to arrive, but today, I had an idea.

I currently have a programming cable for a Midland CT-790 here. Now that looks to be a clone of a Wouxun radio and I knew that the Baofeng UV-5R was supposed to use the same programming cable as a Wouxun. Would it work, I wondered?

I grabbed the Baofeng UV-5R software from the link on http://www.uv-5r.com and installed it. There was an initial problem, because the programming lead installed itself as COM11 and the UV-5R programming software only went up to COM8. I managed to convince the cable to be COM1 (that takes me back to packet  days, playing with COM1....) and then fired up the software.

What I thought were error messages were in fact not! They are clearly interesting translations. After a couple of false starts, I managed to get the computer to read the UV-5R and download the memories into the programming software. From there, it was relatively straighforward to modify the memories and upload them back into the radio without incident. The UV-5R software is pretty basic, but it's functional. Don't expect handholding, but it beats trying to program the radio manually.

Since I had the Midland CT-790 (Wouxun KG-UV1P) here, I was curious about the antennas. I swapped the Midland's antenna onto the Baofeng. Where I had struggled to blip up GB3UK on 430MHz with the Baofeng antenna, it worked better with the Midland. Same story on GB3WH on 145MHz. So it may be that the UV-5R antenna is worth replacing - although it's certainly adequate. The Midland antenna is slightly longer and more flexible. The Midland antenna, if fitted on the UV-5R has a slight gap at the base which might not be ideal for longer term use.

All good fun and interesting - remembering this was a radio that cost less than £40. As K0NR comments in his blog on the UV-5R, a rig for the price of a tank of petrol/gas. Way less, for us.....!!

How many handhelds is too many?

Julian, G4ILO once confessed to being fond of handheld radios. I'm the same! There's something magic about having a bit of handheld radio kit which can make interesting radio contacts, in some cases around the globe.

When the postman delivered another handheld last week, Julie said, completely in fun, 'you've got quite a few of those now'. And she's right. Let's see:

- Icom E92 144/432MHz FM/D-STAR
- Yaesu FT-817 1.8-432MHz All Modes (I sort of don't *really* class this as a handheld, but technically....)
- Baofeng UV-3R 144/432MHz FM micro transceiver
- Yaesu VX-1 144/432MHz FM micro transceiver (battery not very well!)
- Baofeng UV-5R 144/432MHz FM
- Palstar KH-6 50MHz FM

All except the E-92  and FT-817 have been acquired at quite modest prices over the years, so there's not an expense thing really.

The trouble is, that strictly speaking, there are a couple more I wouldn't mind. Something like a Yaesu VX-8GR with APRS/GPS capability built in. That would be fun. And then there's the Alinco DJ-G7 which does 144/432 and 1296MHz. I'd really like to try 1296MHz! By the way, check out Rob, MW0DNK's review of the DJ-G7 on his very interesting new blog.

Maybe some consolidation would be good - but they all do different things.Honest!

Lyrids meteor shower

This weekend is the peak of the Lyrids meteor shower. I had a quick listen on both 50 and 144MHz this morning before breakfast. On 50MHz, I heard my radio neighbour Neil, G4BRK calling CQ JT6M on 50.230. Listened for a few moments and was interested to hear SM4KYN with a few bursts. Not bad as I was just using the vertical antenna. On 144MHz, I looked on 144.370 FSK441 and heard a really excellent burst from EB3DYS. I did call EB3DYS for a couple of periods but heard nothing more after that.

D-STAR: New DCS reflectors and DV-RPTR boards

When I was playing around with D-STAR last weekend, I thought the REF001C and REF005A reflectors seemed a bit quiet. I wondered whether people had got fed up and moved on. I didn't worry too much as I had some nice QSOs.

During the week, I noticed a tweet from the Bromley Repeater Group saying that they had connected up MB6SS, one of their nodes so that they could access the new DCS reflectors. I'd seen a comment about DCS reflectors when I had installed the new version of Win-DV, but hadn't had a chance to investigate.

A quick Google provided some useful information and I found the following from Kurt DJ0ABR, 'The main difference (and the advantage) of DCS compared to old reflectors is, that is does not more use the Header-Voice separation. The separate transmission of headers and voice packets makes sense on RF due to the limited bandwidth. But it causes many routing problems in old reflectors. DCS uses a new format and transmits (over the internet) the routing information with every single voice packet. This makes routing much more reliable. Protocol wise there is no header packet, instead each AMBE packet includes a header which adds a lot of resilience and allows you to pick up a QSO mid over. Operation wise: The main differences are that DCS reflectors use channels A to Z and they have names, DCS001 A is world wide, and is permanently linked to the A channels on all other DCS reflectors. A nice touch. The new client code is implemented already in Jonathans gateways, in the Control Center and in a couple of Icom clients. DCS was invented and developed in February by DG1HT, Torsten. I am helping him in debugging and testing. DCS001 runs at a gigabit intenet node in a high school and is currently designed for up to 700 simultaneous QSOs.'

Very interesting. So I did a little research and found that DCS005B was the main UK reflector, though I can see that they are some regional reflectors, for example DCS005W for Wales and the West and DCS005L for the London area. In practice, the new reflectors work well and seem to provide better audio quality than the old-style 'REF' reflectors. It's also nice that you can pick up a QSO half way through an over rather than having to wait for the start of the next transmission.

Activity on the new reflectors can be seen at http://xreflector.net/neu3/ Also, have a look at the DV-RPTR boards which should provide a cheap route for more people to get involved with D-STAR with their existing equipment. This all seems like a positive step in the evolution of D-STAR and pleasing that it is progressing in a more open direction.

The Baofeng UV-5R has arrived

Haven't had a QSO with it yet, but the UV-5R has arrived. Nicely built and looks promising.

Programming the memories manually is, um, interesting. I can program most things but I've ordered a programming cable.

The VHF side seems to work better than the UV-3R. I've successfully blipped up GB3WH on 2m and GB3TD, GB3DI, GB3UK on 70cms.

Charger looks ok, though I preferred the USB capability on the UV-3R plus. No sign of an earpiece/mike as supplied with the UV-3R which I found useful. I will try the UV-3R earpiece/mike - I'm guessing that will work fine.

More soon as I have time to play.

More DSTAR in the henhouse - or another WinDV upgrade

I haven't made that many DSTAR QSOs over the winter, but over the last few weeks, as I have been spending a bit more time outside in the garden on a Sunday morning, I have been getting back into the habit of connecting the DVAP access point up to a reflector and having some gentle QSOs as I potter about the back garden, perhaps cleaning out the henhouse or weeding!

This morning, for example, I made a nice QSO with John EA3WR/M in Barcelona and Marc W6IWW/M (returning home after a late night poker game in LA!) as I was clearing out one of our cold frames.

Some months ago, I mentioned that I had been using the Win-DV software from Dutch Star which is still the first choice software that I use with the DVAP. There have been some updates over recent months and the latest version is now 1.5.2 which contains D-RATS support (which I haven't tried yet) as well as various other updates. It is also nice to have the flexibility of being able to link and unlink reflectors and repeaters via RF which saves coming into the house to the computer and linking from there.

The Palstar KH-6 50MHz handheld

I was browsing around the Ham Radio section of e-Bay the other evening when I came across a Palstar KH-6 going for a modest price. I knew a little about them, having heard that some SOTA participants had used them for activations on 50MHz.

The auction was just ending so I popped in a last minute bid to see what would happen. To my surprise, I won!

The rig arrived yesterday. It seems to work ok and I have done the obligatory across the shack test. Transmitted audio sounded good on the FT847. I put the rig on the external collinear and perhaps not surprisingly the receiver overloaded. However, I could hear the GB3RAL beacon on 50.050.

The challenge, as I have found before is how well such a short aerial will do. However, I'm hoping for some local contacts and perhaps some more distant ones from the top of White Horse Hill or similar summits.

Baofeng UV-5R on its way

When I was browsing through eBay last night, I was interested to note that a new Baofeng rig, the UV-5R was available. It runs higher power than the UV-3R, has a keypad and looks an interesting evolution. Since the rig was only £38, it didn't take much thought to order one. I shall look forward to it arriving.

In the meantime, Hans, PD0AC has already received one and is writing up his findings which look interesting.

An object lesson in DXing

This evening, as I was driving home, I was reminded of an object lesson in DXing; sometimes it is better to call the weak ones.

As has become customary, I switched on the Anytone AT5555 10m rig and tuned around a little as I headed back from Didcot towards home. The band was going out, but as usual there were some South Americans coming through. LU7DP was loud, working mostly Spanish and Italian stations. A little further down I found CE2WZ also at good strength, working mostly southern Europeans, including my old pal Cedric CT3FT who I couldn't hear today. I tried calling CE2WZ but he kept CQing. My little signal wasn't quite enough to get to Chile tonight.

A few kHz further down, I found PU2RJF calling CQ. Betto wasn't so strong but was coming through ok. He didn't seem to be getting many callers, so very much tongue-in-cheek I called. To my surprise, he heard me straight away and we had a simple but enjoyable contact.

Fun to remind myself, that although when running low power, it makes sense to call the loud stations, sometimes you should call the weak ones too as they may be running simple stations and will hear you just as well as you hear them.

Obrigado Betto!

A hint of changing conditions and a trip to White Horse Hill

As I was driving home last night, I was looking around on 28MHz SSB as I usually do. In addition to the 'usual' South Americans that I've been hearing for a few weeks there were a couple of fairly weak French stations. This interested me as I suspected I was hearing them via Es propagation. If that's true, then with any luck we will start to hear more Es on 28MHz and then hear it rising in frequency towards 50MHz and beyond.

This afternoon, in celebration of the gorgeous weather, Julie and I decided to go up White Horse Hill, which is about 10 miles to the south of where we live. Although it was a little misty up there, we had a great time walking, listening to the skylarks, watching the buzzards and picking out some of the local villages. I took my Icom E-92 handheld and had a tune around on 145 and 433MHz. I was particularly pleased to have a nice 145MHz simplex contact with Mike 2E0YYY/P who was on the Long Mynd in Shropshire. I suppose the distance between us was around 80-90 miles.

Another rig for (almost) £30 - the Baofeng UV-3R plus

A few days ago, I was chatting to a friend on the repeater about the Baofeng UV-3R and what a useful radio it was. He was interested in getting one, but explained he didn't use eBay. Rather than have him pay £50 in the UK, I said I would order him one.

It arrived today. I had ordered a UV-3R Plus, rather than my Mark 1 model. What are the differences?

The Plus has dual band display. In practice, I don't think this is a big deal.

The Plus came with a dual band antenna rather than two mono band antennas

The Plus comes with a drop in charger. The charger tray can be powered from the USB style charger that comes with the rig, although I plugged the lead to an iPhone charger.

Although it is entirely adequate, I feel the build quality on the Plus is not quite as good as the Mark 1. What do I expect for £32.90?

Although I have not had any QSOs - it is my friend's rig, after all, performance of the rig seems as good as the Mark 1. I was able to blip up GB3TD and GB3UK from inside the house.

The Plus came with two earpiece/ microphones - the standard one and an added bonus.

I hope my friend will be pleased with it!

28MHz mobile update

After the 'screaming' incident with the AT-5555 rig a couple of weeks ago, the rig has seemed quite happy. With the lighter evenings, the band seems to have been open a little longer. By the time I get to the car in the evening, around 1820z there seems to have been just a little propagation left on 28MHz, usually to South America.

For the last couple of evenings, there have been Brazilians to listen to, whilst driving home. Signals have been weak, but I'm hopeful of a contact soon.

Driving around at the weekend, during daylight hours there have been plenty of contacts around Europe and Russia which is good fun for mobile operation.

Soon the Es season will be starting which should be fun on 28MHz.

ZD7XF and some reminiscences!

I was really pleased to work Nigel, ZD7XF at the weekend for a new country.

You might be interested to see a few pictures of Nigel's previous operation from St Helena here

Nigel is, of course, G3TXF at home and is a very well-known and respected contester and dxpeditioner. He's also a fine man. Some years ago, I had the absolute pleasure of working with him and Roger, G3SXW on a project building a website and database reporting on the financial performance of Telecom companies. In fact, on Nigel's amateur radio website, there's still a bit of code that I wrote which shows all of Nigel's DXpeditions that a particular callsign has worked, band by band!

So, whenever I work Nigel from a faraway place, it's always a particular pleasure.

The ups and downs of amateur radio!

There are some days when things don't go quite right. In fact, nothing goes quite right.

Yesterday morning, I thought I'd have a look on 28MHz JT65. I plugged the interface lead into the sound card on the computer but there was no receive noise. Fiddled and faffed and discovered that there was a problem on the socket with the computer.

Managed to get around that by using an external USB sound card which came with the ZLP interface. That worked great with WSJT, but with the W6CQZ JT65-HF program which I use on HF there wasn't enough gain using the basic interface that I have from the FT1000MP. In the shower, I realised the simple way around that was to run all the digimodes from the FT847 which had previously just been used on VHF/UHF. Got that going and in fact, the receive on 28MHz seemed to be better than from the old setup. I had some contacts to test it and all seemed ok.

Later in the day I was playing around on FSK441 on 144MHz and I noticed the output was down! I had a sinking feeling that I had done something horrible to the PA whilst on HF JT65A. Fortunately, it proved to be the patch lead between the FT847 and the amplifier. I removed the patch lead and everything seemed ok. Need to grab some more connectors from Maplin tomorrow and make another up.

Then I got panicky about a noise that the FT847 made when going back to receive on JT65. That proved to be something to do with the JT65-HF program - WSJT was fine. I think it was just a slightly different click of the relays on HF. But I'm not quite convinced!

Playing around on JT65 on LF I realised that the filters in the FT847 weren't anything like as good as the FT1000MP. I decided to connect the MP back up. On LF, the lack of gain really wasn't an issue compared to my findings on 28MHz earlier. So that's good, I can still use the MP for JT65 on 7 and 3.5MHz.

About then, I saw a tweet from Paul, M3JFM to say he'd just worked ZD7XF on 10m. Now, I'm pretty sure that I haven't worked St Helena from the UK, so I thought I'd better do something about that.

I found Nigel, ZD7XF on 7MHz easily, but what a pileup! I decided to admit defeat somewhat grudgingly and went to bed.

The cats asked to get up at 0530z so I had a quick check on the bands after testing them out. ZD7XF was audible on 3505. I tried a couple of quick calls, but it was clear I wasn't getting anywhere. Back to bed!

By 0800z ZD7XF was on 21MHz. The Butternut isn't great on the band, but it works - just. After just a few calls, Nigel was in the log! Already, today seemed more positive. After breakfast, I thought I had a few minutes before I needed to start my jobs! I checked 28MHz and he was there - not strong, but workable. It took a few goes, but I made it. Thank you, Nigel!

It all worked out in the end. Need to get that patch lead sorted and take a look at the socket on the laptop.....

And a quick 'get well soon' to Paul, M3JFM who inspired the ZD7XF chase!

Why is my Anytone AT-5555 screaming at me?

This evening as I was driving home, I noticed a loud station on 28.475 running a pileup of mostly Spanish stations. Although my Spanish is sadly very poor, it is good enough for me to realise it was PP5BS. I haven't worked Brazil yet from the mobile, so I wanted to have a go.

I pressed to transmit and there was a loud whistle. Initially I thought it was feedback or that I was in PA mode, but no. Pressed again and it was fine. Intrigued now, I moved off frequency and kept going over to transmit to see if it would do it again. Once every few it would, but I couldn't fathom out why.

When I got close to home, I stopped to try and find out more. Associated with the 'scream' I could now see that the display said something that looked like '5 H 1'.

Great! Back home now, let's see if I can find a list of Anytone AT-5555 status codes on the web. Um, not really. Back to the manual. Then I found that in the menus there is SWR protection. If turned on, it threatens to give a voice alert and switch off the transmitter. Of course, I had switched off voice alerts, so it was giving me a warning tone. And the display? Really, it was showing S HI which probably translates to SWR HI!

Now it makes some sense. When I mounted the transceiver, the PL259 for the antenna lead seemed a bit close to the floor, but I didn't worry. I think the car was bumping on bits of road and a poor connection occurring.

I've now sorted that out, so I'm hopeful my rig will stop screaming at me!

A morning's radio including a QSO from the shed roof

This morning, with a few different jobs to do I enjoyed some diversity in my radio activity. Before breakfast, I put the VHF rig on 144.370 and looked for meteor reflections. Although there weren't lots of bursts, I was pleased to log YU1IO which is a good distance, especially with my little antenna.

After breakfast, I headed over to Abingdon to do a little shopping and had the 28MHz mobile rig running. I heard a few pileups going on, which I didn't get involved with, but was pleased to hear Achim EA8/DL7PV calling CQ from Tenerife. I called him and we had a really nice QSO. It's becoming apparent that it's relatively unusual to hear mobile stations on HF these days, as it's usually a nice talking point and people are surprised at the simple system.

With the winter winds, the roofing felt on the shed at the allotment had become a bit ripped, so I wanted to replace it. It was quite a nice job cutting the felt and then, from the stepladder nailing the felt on the roof in the sun! I had my little UV-3R in my pocket as you can see and was pleased to make a QSO with Ann, G8NVI through the Didcot 70cms repeater. Following that, I walked over to the edge of the allotment field where you look across the Thames valley and enjoyed another QSO through the GB3UK repeater on Cleeve Hill - a decent distance for the little handheld!

UK amateurs can now apply for special callsigns for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics

I've just applied for the Notice of Variation to allow me to change my callsign during the period of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee where it will become GQ4VXE and then during the Olympics when it will become GO4VXE

Should be fun!

The process is simple. As long as you have your OFCOM Lifetime Licence Number! I didn't and had to scrabble around on the OFCOM site to get that. Once I had it, I had the online forms filled in and the NOVs in the form of PDF documents emailled back to me immediately.

You can apply here

QRV on VHF digimodes using a ZLP interface

If you've been reading the blog for a while, you'll know that I have been keen to get going on the VHF datamodes, particularly the WSJT modes. I'd been thwarted up until now by the lack of an interface and I'd been reluctant to part with money until I could verify that things ought to work ok! I'd had some bad experiences with the FT-847 and interfaces in the past.

The random trigger for getting this sorted out was seeing a tweet from Colin G6AVK on Twitter that he had ordered a ZLP interface for his laptop. I hastily Googled ZLP Electronics and discovered a range of interfaces very competively priced. I e-mailed Neil, G4ZLP to ask his advice about interfacing with the FT-847 and he recommended the Pro Plus interface. On the basis of his advice I placed an order.

Two days later it arrived, well packaged. Getting the FT-847 setup proved very simple indeed - although I'd had a bit of fun and games getting the levels right from the Pro Plus interface to my FT1000MP. However, it was the VHF/UHF rig that I really wanted to interface with.

Armed with the interface and the WSJT software, I popped onto the ON4KST chat server to see if anyone was around to try a JT6M test with. Although I only have the vertical up, I thought it would probably yield some results. And so it proved, as I was quickly able to exchange signals with Pat, EI8IQ on 50MHz although the reflections ran out before we could complete a 'proper' QSO.

Yesterday evening, I set the receiver running on 144.370 with the FSK441 decoder going and I was pleased to decode a meteor burst from Martin OK1UGA. I shall be keen to try and work him sometime soon.

Will 50W from the FT-847 be enough? I have a 4CX350A amplifier here, but I'm sort of trying to avoid using it! And I wonder if I can make some JT6M QSOs with the vertical, or will I have to try and erect a dipole or a low beam? It'll be fun finding out!

A rig for £30 - the Baofeng UV-3R 144/433MHz dualbander

I’d had the chance to play with one of the Baofeng UV-3Rs a few weeks ago and quite liked it. Like most people, I’d seen them advertised in the UK amateur radio press at around £50. On e-bay you can get them for £20 plus £10 postage. I thought I’d plump for one of those and see what happened.

The radio arrived in about 8 days from ‘RadioBanker’ in Hong Kong, beaufifully packaged and with some nice stamps! It was neatly boxed and pleasingly presented. The box includes the transceiver, the battery, VHF antenna and UHF antennas , power charger and leads as well as an earpiece and microphone. Assembly was straightforward and just required the battery to be clipped into the body of the transceiver and the cover slid down and clipped in place. I’d opted for the jaunty blue model!

The rig fits neatly into the hand. Sorry about the grubby fingers - I'd been digging the garden!

Because I had put the battery into the transceiver, I did not need to use the ‘shell’ supplied for charging the battery and just plugged the lead from charger into the DC socket on the side of the rig and set it to charge overnight. The charger supplied was a wall-wart designed for UK 3-pin plugs, unlike some suppliers who, I understand ship a US type charger and adapter.

I’ve found that battery life was good. Not quite ‘charge and forget’ like some of the larger handhelds and bigger battery capacity, but certainly good for several  days operation during walks and monitoring whilst I was in the house – the battery life of 10 hours quoted by the manufacturer seems realistic.

The build quality of the rig is good. Clearly it’s not as good as rigs from the mainstream manufacturers (which are, after all, several times the price) and perhaps not quite as good as the Wouxun models. But it is entirely satisfactory. The ‘L/R’ button on the side of the rig as well as the p.t.t. button were absolutely fine but were of the type that made you wonder how they would last over time. The rig fitted nicely in my hand and also in my coat pocket, so ideal for taking out on a walk.

The manual? I should probably start by saying that if you are the sort of person that likes things to be ‘just so’ and for the manual to guide you effortlessly through the operation of the rig, then this is not the rig for you. The manual is one of the poorest that I have read. To me at least, it isn’t logically organised.

The ‘Getting Started’ section covers switching the rig on, adjusting the volume and that’s it. Then it’s onto the ‘Advanced operation’ section which is just a description, sometimes clearer than others, of the different menu items. One of the more mysterious items reads (sic), “ELAYM (Repeater Sound Response). The UV-3R comes with the Repeater Sound Response feature. When the feature is activated, the handheld transceiver will hear the sound from the repeater, that means the handheld transceiver is working via the repeater’. What?! Certainly the intent wasn’t clear to me. This is probably the most mysterious and cryptic description in the manual, but it is by no means unique. Incidentally, the ELAYM feature appears to be intended to suppress K tones from a repeater.

It all gets better from there. If you are happy to accept the manual as it is and work with the information provided you should soon get to grips with the radio. For example, though the manual says how to store frequencies in the memories, it doesn’t tell you how to recall them, but with some (not too much) experimentation, I discovered how to do this.

Programming the rig with repeater and simplex frequencies is reasonably straightforward once you master the menu system.  I found programming my most used frequencies into memory was the easiest way to use the rig, because the rig didn’t automatically sense repeater channels and apply repeater shift as some do. Not wanting to be fiddling around with changing the radio’s menu items with cold hands on a walk, then setting up the memories seemed to be the most convenient solution. Programming software and a USB lead 

is available, though I’ve not taken the plunge yet (it would double the cost of the rig!)

Having set up the rig with the local repeaters and a few simplex channels I made some experiments from within our house. The antenna on the UV-3R is quite small and I found that I couldn’t hear the 144MHz repeaters GB3WH and GB3RD (both about 15 miles distant) as well as on a ‘full size’ handheld such as my Icom E-92, but I could still get into them if I chose my spot. Likewise on 433MHz, GB3TD at Swindon could be heard weakly and accessed from the first floor of our house. So, if you are planning to use one of these handhelds inside your house to access repeaters or work local stations, you’ll probably need to be within 5 to 10 miles of them.

However, I was more interested in how the rig would perform when I was out for a walk in the Oxfordshire countryside. I ventured to our allotment which just happens to be on the ridge of the hills with a clear take off from west, through north to the north east. The 430MHz repeater GB3UK on Cleeve Hill in the Cotswolds is about 40 miles distant and I tried a call through it using the UV-3R. To my slight surprise, the repeater heard me easily and I put a call through it. Richard, G4ERP was operating mobile on horseback and responded to my call, as did Mike, G3TSO. Both Richard and Mike were able to confirm that the audio from the rig was good, although the deviation was just slightly low but in general the quality of my transmission was excellent. I could easily access the GB3DI repeater at Harwell and worked John G6LNU at Wantage. Rob G4XUT heard me on GB3TD and we QSYed to simplex and made a nice contact with me on the footbridge over the A420 to the south of our village and Rob at home – a distance of around 20 miles. Not bad for 2W and a small antenna! Experiments showed that the speaker/mike gave a better audio level than the internal microphone.

One issue discovered at this stage was the fact that even at bare minimum, the volume is quite loud. Sufficiently loud that if the rig is in your pocket and someone pops up on a repeater, their voice may be loud enough to surprise your walking companions or passers-by! Various modifications for this have been mooted from modifying the board to sticking some tape over the speaker. The supplied earpiece/microphone proves quite beneficial from this point of view too – the lowest volume setting seemed quite bearable through the earphone.

The UV-3R also features the capability to listen to F.M. broadcast radio, which the manual stated covered 87 to 108MHz. Somewhat intriguingly, when I first switched to F.M., it displayed a frequency of 65MHz! The tuning range appeared to be 65 to 108MHz for wideband F.M.. The tuning step is 100khz – so I was unable to tune to 70.450MHz (UK 70MHz F.M. calling frequency). However,  I did verify that I could receive my own transmission on 70MHz! Given that the receiver is set up for wideband F.M. and amateur transmissions are narrowband F.M., this will be of limited use, but it may prove a useful facility. Also, in Es season, it may provide the ability to listen to Eastern European broadcast F.M. – though presumably the small antenna may prove something of a handicap. The F.M. feature does what it is supposed to do, receive F.M. radio stations. Sensitivity seemed reasonable and I was easily able to receive our favourite local radio station from Oxford, Jack FM. I enjoyed that when a station popped up on the repeater that I was monitoring = even if I was listening to F.M., the rig would switch over to V.H.F./U.H.F..

A more serious, well documented issue with the UV-3R is that the second harmonic of the V.H.F. transmitter is not well suppressed and is only around 30dB down. Since I was planning to use the rig on 70cms, I didn’t really care. However, Steve G1KQH kindly provided a link to a site where a mod to improve the VHF performance is available. 

I enjoy having the UV-3R around. It is perfectly sized to fit in a pocket to take with you when you are out for a walkto the shops or on a hill. Good things about the rig are value for money, wideband receive coverage and excellent 433MHz performance. On the downside, the manual was very poor, especially for a beginner and the second harmonic of the V.H.F. transmitter gives cause for concern. Neutral points, but ones to be aware of, include relatively low power and small antenna will restrict the range and performance of the rig, balanced by reasonable battery life and easy portability.

For £30, I think this represents exceptional value – I’m delighted. And you can also get the rig in red, yellow, camouflage as well as regular black!

One of those QSOs....in a good way!

I've mentioned before that some contacts really grab your imagination. This evening was one of those. Generally, over the last few weeks 10m has been closed by the time I have got to the car on the way home from work. However, this evening, when I switched on the 10m rig I could hear a station close to 28.400MHz where the rig was 'parked'. As I drove over to the supermarket, I could hear W8ERN in Michigan working his way through a steady stream of callers. Driving through urban Didcot is quite noisy on HF, so I hadn't really expected to hear any more on 10m by the time I had finished my shopping for a Valentine's meal for Julie.

But as I drove away from the supermarket, with goodies in my shopping bag, I switched on the 10m rig and he was still there, if anything, stronger! To my surprise, Angelo, W8ERN heard 'mobile' as someone else called him and asked for the mobile. I called and was thrilled to get a 5/8 report from him.

We had a very easy QSO and I was able to explain that I was running around 10W from the Anytone AT-5555 to a CB whip on the car. Angelo told me about his website and I told him about this one!

Great to make my first inter-continental QSO from the car on 10m with the Anytone rig! Thanks Angelo!

Chris N7ICE's first steps with the Flex-1500 SDR

If like me, you're interested in seeing how SDR performs 'for real' you may well enjoy Chris, N7ICE's HamBrief video about getting started with his new Flex-1500. As with all Chris' podcasts and videos, it's fun and informative in the right proportions! Take a look



Not for the first time, I am tempted to save up for one of these!

A visit to the Harwell Radio Rally, 2012

Although we had a busy weekend, I was keen to visit the Harwell Radio Rally at Didcot yesterday. After all, it is only half an hour's drive from home and many friends were planning to be there.

I arrived just as the doors were opening - and delighted to meet Pete 2E0SQL, his Dad, Paul M3JFM and David, 2E0DAB in the queue. The queue wasn't too long, but it was good to see plenty of people wanting to visit.

Once inside, I had a quick spin around; great to see my bosses from PW there; Rob, G3XFD and Tex, G1TEX with Phil, G3XBZ who often features in the magazine. The Harwell club had a good 'junk' stand and it was great to see many familiar faces there, including Des G3NNG, John G3VPW and Mike G0MJW. Mike was kind enough to mention that I hadn't updated my blog much recently.

This is true! It's not a lack of interest, so it's just a temporary thing. Unfortunately Julie's Mum has been quite ill for the last month, so we have been doing a lot of travelling back and forth to Cheltenham Hospital where she's being looked after (happily, we hope that she is slowly, very slowly, on the mend). Add to that the fact that the recent Blogger changes mean that I can no longer update the blog from work in the lunchhour (we're on IE7 at work...) and you can see why updates have been sporadic.

Another stall that I enjoyed was being run by my friends from the Cheltenham ARA; Derek G3NKS and Tom, G3XMM. They had some really lovely classic Drake gear with them which was from a silent key sale. I hope it found a good home - it truly deserved to. I should really have bought the enormous, but lovely NATO style morse key that was on the stand but it was a bit big and I don't use a hand key much!

I met lots of other people whilst I was wandering around including Andrew M6BBP, who I first met when I was very first interested in amateur radio, probably over 30 years ago! Andrew is friends with Jon, G6BHS who lived three doors away from me in Cheltenham. I first realised I was living close to a radio amateur when I heard Jon and Paul G8VSH on my airband receiver! Exciting times.

So - a great hour spent with friends. Congratulations to the Harwell Club for organising such a successful event. Here's to next year.

Oh - and I bought a copy of RadioUser magazine - not too expensive a  morning!

G4VXE's QRZ.COM biography updated

For ages, I'd been intending to update my QRZ.COM biography! Finally got around to doing it this week. Hopefully it may even bring a few new viewers to the blog!

See the bio here

The picture is a little out of date. The HF rig is no longer in the lounge and sadly, Bitzy the cat is no longer with us - but it is a happy picture!

Operating from Gibraltar with VA3ITA

Back in 1987 I first operated from Gibraltar as ZB2/G4VXE and then the following year, as part of the Square Bashers DXpedition group we visited again, operating this time as ZB2IQ.

It was fun. therefore, to see this video from Ed, VA3ITA of his trip to Gibraltar, some of the sights and sounds (and the apes) as well as some operating on 50MHz. It's quite a long video, but I enjoyed it!



Good also to see Ron ZB2B featured as part of the video!