The WA1ZMS Transatlantic beacon

For as long as I've been interested in VHF Dxing, which is over 25 years (how did that happen?) people have been talking about the possibility of making a contact across the Atlantic on 144MHz.

It really ought to be possible, particularly if you look at paths from the Eastern Seabo(a)rd of the US to locations like the Azores, Spain, France and Cornwall. It will just take a combination of the right propagation and people trying out the path.

Good news, then from Brian Justin, WA1ZMS who has installed a high power beacon in Virginia, USA located on Apple Orchard Mountain in FM07FM at an altitude of 4200 ft ASL. The WA1ZMS beacon operates on 144.285 with an erp of 1400W.

No reports of the beacon being heard across the pond so far, but it can be heard 600 miles away on a flat band, so it's working well.

Pie in the sky? I don't think so. There have been various reports of Band I FM from North America being received in Europe and the 50 and 70MHz multi-hop Sporadic E paths are well known. Next time there's a good Es opening to North America on 50MHz, point your beam to North America and listen on 144.285.

History is waiting to be written.

UK Callbook data

I noticed the other day that Ian, G3ZHI had made the UK Callbook data available from his website. Ian had applied to OFCOM to release the data under licence and his application had been approved.

The data can be downloaded in Excel format, so I quickly downloaded the data and imported it into an Access database which allows me to run queries on the data (eg by callsign, or by postcode).

For a bit of fun, I added some functionality that you can press a button on the screen and it will draw a map of where a particular station is, based on the postcode.

No big deal and I'm sure that others will have done the same sort of thing. If you enjoy this sort of challenge, you can download the callbook data from Ian's website.

A bit more on 50MHz mobile

Over the last few weeks, particularly in the evenings, I've been putting one of the VFOs of the FT8900 on the 6m FM calling frequency 51.510.

The results have been quite interesting, though I've not had any QSOs as yet! Several Spanish stations have been heard; EA4DS/M seems quite a regular as does EA7/G0WHX. So far, I've not heard either station at the sort of strength that I would expect to be able to have an easy contact - but it's interesting.

And there's been a few snippets of other stations coming through - so if you have FM on 50MHz in the car, why not have a listen as you're driving around?

Bristol 50MHz repeater GB3ZY on air

Listening to Des, G0RBD this morning on GB3TD, I was excited to hear that the new Bristol 50MHz repeater is on the air and I called in to get the details, which he very kindly gave me.

Actually located on Dundry Hill, GB3ZY's output is on 50.800 with the input 500khz higher and uses a CTCSS tone of 77Hz.

Having arrived at my destination of Didcot station's car park I quickly programmed up the FT8900 to look for GB3ZY and was delighted to hear it at around S3 (there seemed to be quite a bit of aircraft flutter on the signal, with the Green One airway overhead). I tried calling through without success, but I may well have missed something in the setup! I'll try on the way home and I'm guessing that the repeater will be stronger up around home.


View GB3ZY 50MHz Repeater in a larger map

145MHz Tropo today

Driving to the station this morning, I heard the Humberside repeater, GB3HS louder than I've ever heard it before - up to S4 as I drove into Didcot - over quite a fair distance, 160 miles or so. I recorded a bit of audio which I'll try and attach to this a bit later.

A weekend of Sporadic E

For no apparent reason, despite it seeming to have been a good Sporadic E season, I'd managed to miss it all this year, until last weekend when I made some contacts that I was pleased with.

I had a couple of really good contacts on 29MHz FM from the mobile; DL8MDH near Munich on the Saturday and PD1DTH on Sunday. Signals were really strong with both stations. Derk, PD1DTH, located in the centre of the Netherlands was using 25 watts to a dipole and was a massive signal - just like a local.

Six metres was busy, very busy, for most of the weekend with a contest. Actually, it was so busy that I only had a handful of contacts. I did hear the San Marino club station, T70A at one point.

Most interestingly for me was 70MHz, where I use the FT847 (rather deaf!) and a vertical. On Saturday evening, noticing that 50MHz was really buzzing, I tuned to 70MHz. I found the beacon CS5BFM on 70.166 which I'd not heard before. Tuning up the band I found a loud English voice and wondered which one of my locals it was. It turned out to be Keith, CT1JAD who I was delighted to work for my first 4 metre contact with Portugal. I heard Keith again several times on Sunday as well. With the band obviously open on Sunday lunchtime, but no stations audible with me, I tried a CW CQ just LF of 70.200 and was delighted when 9A6R came back.

5MHz operation from the Scilly Islands

The Cray Valley Radio Society are travelling to the Isles of Scilly this year for the IOTA contest in July. I've just heard from one of the operators that he will hope to be active on 5MHz during the trip. As we get nearer the time and I get more information, I'll publish it here.

Remembering Maurice Pay, VK4MP

I was talking to one of my Twitter friends who lives in Australia, Rosemary yesterday. She'd obviously looked at my bio and noticed that I was interested in Amateur Radio. She mentioned that her grandfather, Maurice Pay had been a radio amateur and had held the callsign VK4MP.

She asked if I'd be interested in seeing a picture of him in his shack. Of course, I said yes and with Rosemary's permission, here's a wonderful picture of the Rev Maurice Pay, VK4MP in his shack, probably around the 1940s.

I wonder if anyone here remembers working Maurice on the air?

HAM-MAG: E-magazine for radio amateurs

I was just browsing through the Southgate Amateur Radio Society's RSS feed and I came across a reference to HAM-MAG. This styles itself as the First E-magazine for ham radio operators. It says 'A magazine without paper is a tree saved'

You can download some samples from http://www.ham-mag.com and if you like what you see (which you will, I'm sure) you can subscribe and it will be sent to your inbox every month.

The editor is Vincent, F5SLD who says that new articles are needed for future issues.

Mapping and Amateur Radio slides...

Here's a link to the presentation I did this evening at the Harwell Club on Mapping and Amateur Radio

Mapping and Amateur Radio talk at Harwell on Tuesday evening

I was asked recently if I'd do a talk at the Harwell Radio Club. I said I'd be delighted to and we settled on a topic of 'Mapping and Amateur Radio'.

What I'm planning to talk about (and I've just finished working on the slides!) is how we can use some of the excellent free mapping software that's available for amateur radio purposes. I hope there will be something of interest for everyone and if I do my job right, hopefully some attendees will go home wanting to try it out for themselves.

The talk will be held this Tuesday, 9th June at Rutherford Appleton Lab's Social Club at 8pm. If you're in the area, it would be great to see you there!

G4VXE likes this...

Last weekend, I was working away up at the allotment, planting beans and doing all those sorts of things. As I was up there on my own, I took the Icom E-92 and had it scanning around. I was pleased to find a good QSO going at the Swindon 70cms repeater, GB3TD. For a couple of hours, the repeater was kept busy with some interesting discussions.

Though I was busy, I was quite tempted to call in, but muddy hands and handhelds don't mix really! Really wanted to have a facility a bit like the Facebook 'Tim likes this', to show that I was listening and enjoying the QSO. Maybe there's something we can build into a D-STAR system to show that though we're not taking part in a QSO, we're there, listening and enjoying it.

Ted Collins, G4UPS - Silent Key

I was sorry to hear this morning, that Ted Collins, G4UPS had passed away on Wednesday morning. I'd known Ted since the mid 1980s, when we were first allowed on 50MHz. Ted was probably one of the first stations that I worked on the band and we kept in touch off and on, ever since.

On 50MHz, particularly in the 'early years', if there was an opening, Ted was there. In the days of the 'Squarebashers Expedition Group' and our trips to Gibraltar, Malta and Madeira, we had numerous QSOs with Ted.

Prior to the release of the 50MHz band in the UK, Ted had operated from Ascension Island when he was out there 'on business'. He'd made lots of contacts from there as ZD8TC and it was always interesting to talk to him about his experiences there.

In later years I tended to work Ted more often on LF but we always enjoyed a quick natter and a catch up.

Sorry to lose you, old friend.

The start of the season's Sporadic E

Good to see that some Es is starting to happen. I've only really noticed signals on 28MHz so far, but apparently last weekend, just after the 144MHz contest had finished, there was a Es opening into Bulgaria.

Let's hope we see some more. It'll be particularly interesting to see what happens on 70MHz this year, with an increasing level of European activity.

D-STAR Newsletter

Just saw a link on Twitter for a new D-STAR Newsletter. It'll be distributed at Dayton this weekend, but you can see it online too.

Some interesting stuff to digest...

View the newsletter

RadCom's 'Sport Radio' column

Though I've never particularly mentioned it here, I've been writing the Contesting, later 'Sport Radio' column for RSGB's RadCom magazine for over 10 years. For a variety of reasons, mostly time related, I've been planning to retire from it for a little while now.

This morning, I sent the e-mail to Elaine, the editor of Radcom advising her of my intention to stand down. The current plan is that my July column will be my last.

I've very much enjoyed writing the column, but it's time to move on and do other things. Time too, for someone to bring fresh ideas to the column. That's important too.

28/50MHz Crossband Repeater Proposal from the Wessex Repeater Group

I was just looking for some information on QRZ.Com when I found this interesting nugget:

6m to 10m Cross-band Repeater

The WesseX Repeater Group is proposing that a 6m to 10m cross-band FM voice repeater be established in South Wiltshire in the UK, on the site currently occupied by GB3WX.

GB3WX, the group's existing 6m repeater, has a significant coverage area, which can be viewed at: http://www.ukrepeater.net/repeaters/gb3wx.htm

It stretches from the IOW to South Wales, with similar distances to the NE and SW. It is anticipated that the 10m coverage should be very similar.

There is of course the potential for significant Sporadic E's and MUF DX propagation, which should of course greatly improve with the increase in solar activity, as we start to move towards the next solar maximum.

Therefore, as this would be an significant and ground breaking project, since cross-band repeaters, 6m/10m, have not previously be allowed in the UK, the group would like to assess the level of support from the general Amateur Radio community, prior to making the formal application to the ETCC / Ofcom.

It would be very much appreciated if amateurs could share their thoughts with us, by completing the group's on-line survey, at the group's web site: http://twxrg.web.googlepages.com/home

Get ready for the Sporadic E season

Had a nice chat with Keith, G6LLX on the way to work this morning. He told me that he'd been working some 28Mhz sporadic E over the last few days.

Yesterday evening, he said he'd worked into Algeria and Morocco on ten and had worked around 10 countries this week.

I was telling Keith that I'd been planning to put my 10 metre aerial on the car, as the barrier at the station had been open. As soon as I had that thought - the barrier came down and I'm restricted to being able to drive through the gate with the smaller aerial. Still, no matter, I can easily stop just outside and put the bigger aerial on.

Hopefully we'll see more openings on 10 metres and in due course, openings on 6, 4 and 2 metres.

In the meantime, check out Tony's 10m report on the Southgate ARC website.

A few quick thoughts; HF JT65A, WSJT and 6m mobile

I know when I don't update the blog for a while, people think I'm losing interest. I'm not, it's just a time thing! So, I wanted to take a few moments to tell you the various radio projects that I'm thinking about at the moment.

JT65A on HF

Don, G3XTT made a casual reference to JT65A (one of the WSJT modes) being used on HF, last week. I thought about it quickly and realised that it could be a great way of making some contacts in the poor HF conditions. I did a quick google and came up with this useful document by Andy, K3UK on getting started with HF JT65A. Happened to mention it to Paul, 2E0BHA on Saturday and he was trying it out in an hour! Paul tells me he's heard his first JA on any band using the mode as well as copying many other DX stations. So it sounds really interesting. I'll check it out shortly.

And whilst we're on WSJT

I was tinkering with WSJT on my laptop and hooked it up to the FT847, listening on 144MHz. As I was monitoring, I heard an number of bursts which the program decoded. Nothing spectacular, but maybe worth investigation.

I was thinking that I could leave the 2m rig monitoring during the day and watch the decoding from work, by remote control. And in fact, I have some embryonic thoughts on remote control, following an interesting chat with Dave, G4FRE/WW2R in a car park at Harwell yesterday morning.

More on 50MHz mobile

Using the FT8900 on 6m FM is working out really well, especially on the Farnham repeater, GB3FX which seems to have enormous coverage. With the Es season approaching, I was thinking I might add the FT817 (probably) and a 50MHz whip to the mobile setup so that I can keep an eye on the CW and SSB part of the band.

Getting power to the rig may be the biggest challenge as I'm already using the cigar lighter plug for the FT8900. So I think I'll pop a battery under the seat and a solar panel in the back window and do it that way. With a maximum of 5w RF out, it should work just fine. I need to find somewhere to put the rig too!

Marconi Day: GB6MD

The team from G6PZ are manning the GB6MD station in celebration of Marconi Day on 25th April. The plan is to run 3 stations simultaneously - with a target of 1000 QSOs per station in the 24 hours.

Listen out for them and give them a call!

GB3UK 70cms repeater

I was chatting to Richard, G4ERP the other day on the GB3WH repeater and he mentioned the GB3UK repeater on 70cms. I tune around a fair bit on the VHF bands and I was conscious that I hadn't heard it.

So I did a little research and found that GB3UK is located on Cleeve Hill near Cheltenham (at around 1000 ft asl). It uses, to my mind, some unusual frequencies which is why I'd not come across it! Anyway, the output is on 430.8625 with the input on 438.4625.

Once I'd worked out how to make my rig do the split, I've had the repeater running on one of the VFOs in the car and also on a HT around the house. It's a great signal with good coverage. I can use it all the way down to Didcot - which must be a good 50 miles from the repeater site. It's nice to be able to work down into the Severn Valley too.

So, if you're in range - have a look - maybe we can have a QSO? Since the repeater is well located, you may find that you can hear it from considerable distance if you have a good site.

D-Star from Central London

Armed with my new D-STAR handheld, I've managed a little portable operation this week, when London hasn't been revolting!

Yesterday, I made a couple of contacts through the Bromley 2m D-STAR repeater, GB7OK. Signals were excellent down at Tower Pier, near Tower Bridge. I did also get some garbled copy of the Amersham 70cms box, GB7AU.

Thunderbox Down Under

Nice to hear from my friends over at Team Thunderbox today, in an e-mail from Jon, 2E0DBD. Callsigns to be used will be 2E0KGV/P, 2EODBD/P, 2E0RJP/P, M3XGE/P and M6USB/P with operation between 9th and 14th of April.

Here's what he has to say about their latest project

We have been extremely busy on several projects, mainly the second tower, and a truly superb mobile power supply unit.

The second tower has been finished, and will be used in our next outing "Thunder Down Under"

The idea behind "Thunder Down Under" is to work as many stations as possible in the Southern Hemisphere during the 6 days we are operating portable.

The equipment we are planning to use is as follows.

For 160/80 metres we plan to use our doublet antenna installed at 60'

For 40 meters we will be using a 2 Element Cubical Quad @ 60'

For 20 metres we shall use a 3 Element Cubical Quad @ 60' on the new tower.

For local 2/70 work, we will assemble a Diamond X700H @ 35'

We plan to operate as greenly as possible, and the power will be supplied by a 30 amp wind turbine, and 12 solar panels supplying approx 10 amps fed into a distrubution system.

Hope to work some of you.

Kind regards.

TT

My first steps in D-Star

If you've been reading this for a little while, you can't help but notice that I've been interesting in how the D-Star system has been developing. A Hambrief podcast recently, where Chris, N7ICE demonstrated D-Star in action was the final straw! I wanted to try it out for myself.

One of the issues that caused me to stop and think was the fact that there's no local activity here - or at least, there aren't any D-Star repeaters within easy range of Longworth - or indeed on my regular commute. I didn't want to use one of the D-Star dongles, as I wanted to try D-Star through RF.

I decided that I'd be best off getting one of the Icom IC-E92D handhelds. For one thing, it is a lot cheaper than the mobile radios - and I don't really want to replace my FT-8900 which I use in the car - it's just such a great rig. For another thing, since there's more D-Star activity in London, I thought I could take the rig into London and maybe make some contacts during lunchtime. I'd been wanting to try it for a while, but the time was right recently to make a purchase!

So the rig arrived in mid week. First impression was of a very nice unit - solidly built, well featured both for analogue and digital modes. I quickly got the rig going on the local 145/433 analogue repeaters and made a couple of contacts. On GB3WO, which is Echolink enabled, I enjjoyed using the DTMF keypad to set up links - something I've not been able to do.

Yesterday, Julie had an OU tutorial in Reading for the morning. I decided to take the rig in to Reading, hoping that I might be able to spend a little time setting up D-Star. I also hoped that I might be able to hear the Amersham D-Star repeater, GB7AU. So, there I was, sat on a bench by the Kennet and Avon Canal with the handheld and the instruction book.

Actually, setting up the rig for D-Star isn't difficult. I quickly got the MY callsign set up as G4VXE. What wasn't immediately obvious to me was what to set the R1 and R2 parameters to and there were a couple of false starts, trying to call people through GB7AU whilst I didn't have things setup properly. But, I was quickly hearing people through the repeater from all over the UK as well as Denmark - since GB7AU was connected to the REF005 reflector.

Reading a few more pages, I discovered that I could get obtain the parameters I needed by listening to other stations and found the magic parameters to make things work was to set UR to CQCQCQCQ R1 to GB7AU B and R2 to GB7AU G

I also found that it is possible and apparently, general practice to place your name after a / in the MYC parameter, hence when I work someone - my callsign will display as G4VXE/Tim on their screen, which is clever. It also seems to be possible to have another text message scroll on their screen, so I've added my e-mail address in there which seemed like it might be useful.

Did I work anyone? Yes! My first contact on D-Star was with Ellis, GM4JLZ in Aberdeen, followed by Mike, G1ZRN and Rob, M0ZPU.

Great fun and the biggest learning experience I've had in ham radio for a while! Thanks, guys!

Have you worked EP2IA recently? Don't QSL!

I had an e-mail from my friend, Roger, G3SXW just now. He asked me to pass on the following information. Clearly, if it turns out that the recent EP2IA activity is legit, then we'll let you know, but it doesn't look hopeful. Here's what Roger has to say;

"A station signing EP2IA has been QRV this week on 40 mtrs CW, asking for QSL via qrz.com. This was my call in the 1970's but I know nothing about the current operation. If the call-sign had been re-issued I would expect him to give a valid QSL route. But qrz.com points at G3SXW so I must conclude that this is a pirate operation.

Please help me to spread the word: PIRATE! I will receive many QSLs that will be returned to sender (extra work for me) and very disappointing for many DXers who think that they have worked a new country. There are some very selfish people in this world. "

Greetings - 73 de Roger/G3SXW.

A truly impressive mobile installation

I was catching up with N7ICE's Hambrief podcast this morning on the train and enjoyed it as ever. This week, edition 20 covers a trip to the Scottsdale Hamfest.

It's well worth a look for two segments in particular, some more AO-51 operation by Pat, WD9EWK (I hope I've got that right) and a 'tour' of a really impressive mobile installation, nicknamed 'The Pigeon Shredder' owned by AC7E (I think!).

Anyway, take a look!

A few minutes in the Commonwealth Contest

This last weekend was the RSGB's Commonwealth Contest. Though we had a busy weekend with one thing and another (all good), I found a few minutes to get on and enjoy the event. The nice thing about the Commonwealth Contest is that because it's not a high volume event, you can treat it as a DXers contest and still make a reasonable number of contacts by going at the right time.

Or, in my case, just making some interesting contacts by picking the best times. I took a few moments on Saturday afternoon to look on HF, but conditions were pretty horrid. I worked ZC4VJ on 15m and a number of VEs, including my friend VE3EJ on 20m.

We went out for dinner on Saturday evening, which meant that looking on 80m at sunrise on Sunday morning was 'off'! However, I was up in time to take a look on 40m and was delighted that I did, finding VE3EJ again as well as more distantly, several stations from Australia and New Zealand. VK7GK was a huge signal in particular.

Though it's not everyone's cup of tea - I think it's a wonderful contest!

VHF/UHF at the RSGB's HF Convention

Reg, G8VHI kindly sent me details of a VHF/UHF stream at the RSGB's HF Convention to be held in October. Here's the press release.



RSGB Convention – Wyboston 9th–11th October 2009. This years event, at the Wyboston Lakes Conference centre in Bedfordshire, will for the first time, see the inclusion of a full stream of VHF lectures and presentations This new stream will run alongside the usual streams of HF, DX, Technical and Beginners lectures.



Here’s a great opportunity to meet the people involved at the leading edge of the use of the spectrum, in the usual lecture environment but more importantly in a social environment. As in previous years the Convention will be hosting the full range of UK licence exams. A detailed programme will be available in due course. So remember - RSGB Convention – Wyboston 9-11th October – see you there.


You will note that the RSGB Convention now encompasses VHF and above; Reg (G8VHI) and Neil (G3RIR) have been asked to run the new stream which will have the theme of
VHF/UHF/SHF DXing and Contesting through technical excellence and development but not forgetting the beginners to these bands.


We already have a number of excellent lectures planned but we would like to receive suggestions of which topics and lecturers you would like incorporated. Also, perhaps, some of you may wish to offer to give a talk within the theme.


Please feel free to distribute this e-mail to any one you think may be interested including any relevant reflectors.Neil, G3RIR g3rir 'at' yahoo 'dot' com and Reg, G8VHI regwoolley 'at' aol 'dot' com will be pleased to hear from you

Six Metre Mobile - More results to report

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been making most of my mobile activity on 6m FM, since finding that David, G4HZA is commuting around the same time as me in the morning and is to be found on the Farnham Repeater, GB3FX.

GB3FX has really super coverage and with the odd patchy bit, is a solid signal on my journey from Longworth down to Didcot railways station.

As well as working G4HZA, there have also been QSOs with G8ZLL and M0UHF, who was also worked simplex. So there really are some QSOs to be made on 50MHz FM if you look.

On Monday, I drove down to Southampton and found that GB3FX was a good signal for the vast majority of the journey, until just before Winchester.

If you're in range of GB3FX - I hope to hear you - and I'll be looking on 51.510MHz simplex as well.

Coverage Map courtesy of the Farnham VHF Group

Why so quiet?

Gosh, it's been ages since I updated the blog! Nothing's wrong, but it just seems to have been a busy period, so haven't had the opportunity to sneak down here at lunchtime and write some items. There's been the Sports Radio Supplement to complete for Radcom, a couple of presentations to write as well as regular work!

The folder on my phone with 'ideas' for posts has been steadily growing! So, I'm taking advantage of a few minutes spare today and getting some posts written.

Wainwrights on the Air

I was pleased to receive an interesting e-mail from Julian, G4ILO who sends details of a new award for 'Wainwrights on the Air' (WOTA). Here's what Julian has to say.

As editor of the Sport Radio column in RadCom I thought you might like to be the first to know of a new adventure radio scheme I am launching on 21st March called Wainwrights On The Air (WOTA.)

As you may be able to work out from the name, it's a bit like Summits On The Air, but using the 214 Lake District fells described by A Wainwright in his famous hand-drawn guidebooks. As someone who lives close to the Lake District I was initially interested in SOTA as an incentive to get out on the hills with a radio, but was disappointed to find that only about a quarter of the Wainwright fells actually count for SOTA points. What's more, many of those are the tougher ones to reach, which are beyond the capabilities of many of us. A keen activator would soon have to drive long distances to find new summits to activate.

In online discussions it became clear to me that there was a lot of interest in more regionalised schemes that included more easier summits, and that didn't involve activators in driving hundreds of miles to reach them. It also became clear that the existing SOTA organization was unlikely to be interested in running regional schemes.

I was therefore persuaded to do it myself. In fact, it appears that WOTA will just be the first of a number of "adventure radio" activities being developed by various people. You can see the WOTA website at http://www.wota.org.uk The site is not completely finished, but it is pretty close. Anything else you might be interested to know about it will hopefully become clear if you go there. I hope that you will be able to give it a mention in a future RadCom.

(Map courtesy of http://www.guideus.co.uk)

George Beasley, G3LNS/5B4AGC

I was greatly saddened to hear of the death earlier today of my pal, George Beasley, G3LNS. If you're relatively new to DXing or contesting, you might not know that callsign, but perhaps you might have worked George as 5B4AGC or H2G (his contest call) from Cyprus.

I hadn't known George as long as some, but we first crossed paths at the GW8GT contest station in the mid to late 1980s. I immediately liked George with his blend of humour, affability and tremendous enthusiasm for amateur radio. We had lots of laughs.

Though I didn't experience it myself, Paul, G4BKI tells a lovely story of doing NFD with George. On the Saturday night, they wanted fish and chips, so George drove them down to the chip shop in his car, which was a Bentley! Paul felt a little uncomfortable about eating Fish and Chips in a Bentley, but George wasn't worried in the slightest!

George and his wife, Barbara moved to Cyprus and set up home there. George set about building a super station from there and he was ubiquitous on all the bands from there. I think I'd worked George on all bands between 80m and 6m over the years, including some wonderful QSOs when I was running flea-power to small aerials from different locations. George was super active and really helped a lot of people get Cyprus in the log.

George and Barbara joined the Five Star DX Association trip to the Comoros, D68C in 2001. As ever they were great company and George got stuck into the pileups. I remember lots of great conversations over food and drink when we weren't operating.

More recently, our paths hadn't crossed so often, but we always had a few words even when we worked in a contest.

I was just looking at George's page on QRZ.COM - I can't quite believe he's not active anymore.

Rest in peace, friend.

An Introduction to SSTV by Bob Razey, G0ADH

This morning I popped along to the Harwell Radio and Electronics Rally. It was really great to catch up with friends old and new, including some that I'd spoken to regularly but never met.

As I was wandering around, I found Bob, G0ADH doing a demo of Slow Scan Television (SSTV) using the MMSSTV software . It was such a great demo, I got my Flip video out and recorded a little. I hope you enjoy it too and pick up on Bob's wonderful enthusiasm for SSTV.

To facilitate an easy demo, Bob was transmitting SSTV from one computer to another - but was also able to receive pictures off-air.

UK 2m and 70cms Echolink gateways mapped

Chatting to Paul, 2E0BHA on the way to work this morning, we realised that we weren't too sure where all the different Echolink gateways were. I said I'd take a list and map them.

You can download a KML file to pull into Google Earth here


View Larger Map

What Amateur Radio is NOT all about...Going nuclear!

Last month, the Radio Society of Great Britain's magazine, RadCom, contained a wanted advert from a radio amateur advertising for a 1KW HF amplifier for use in his experiments into thermonuclear fusion.

This has raised many eyebrows in the amateur community over the last few weeks, but yesterday, the Times newspaper picked up on the story, which you can see here, as well as a comment from Giles Read, Technical Editor of RadCom.

As far as I'm concerned, much of the good work that many people have done promoting the hobby of amateur radio over the years has just been undone with that advert. Readers of the Times article will be left with the feeling that radio amateurs are fiddling around on their benches trying to set off a nuclear reaction. Just marvellous!

What are the RSGB doing about it? Nothing, as far as I can see. There's no mention, no retraction, no explanation on the RSGB's website

So, just to be clear, I, for one, would wish to distance myself from such experiments as would, I imagine the vast majority of responsible radio amateurs. This is NOT what the hobby is about.

Still, perhaps we can look forward to an article in RadCom next month about 'Building a Time Machine'.

Catching up with Hambrief TV; Satellites and D-STAR

I've mentioned Chris Matthieu's, N7ICE site, 73s.org before. Chris has been producing some interesting podcasts over the last few months. What I really like about Chris' presentations is his enthusiasm. I don't think I've ever watched one of his podcasts and not been inspired about something to try, or research. So, well done, Chris - and thank you!

This morning, I caught up with the latest two podcasts, which you can find over at Hambrief TV

Episode 11 was filmed at a Hamfest local to Chris in Arizona. The really compulsive viewing is of a live satellite demo by (oh, I should have written his callsign down...) KD9.... anyway, it's brilliant. It shows how simple and straightforward satellite operation can be and how viable it is, even with simple equipment.

Episode 12 is about D-STAR and in particular features a demo of the D-V Dongle. The D-V Dongle is, unsurprisingly, perhaps, a dongle which will plug into your PC or Mac and allow you to use the D-STAR network. Chris has a super and interesting QSO with a station mobile in Washington. DC from his computer. It's impressive in lots of ways.

In many ways, I'm not a fan of the D-V Dongle, because it isn't an RF device. It's not radio as such, although of course, it does connect into a radio network. But if you're miles from the nearest D-STAR repeater and want a gentle introduction to D-Star it may be a way in for you, so I wouldn't discount it.

The overall operation of the D-STAR network in the QSO was very impressive and certainly made me want to find out more. Whatever you think of the D-V Dongle I think you'll find it a thought-provoking and impressive presentation.

Well done, Chris - thanks for the inspiration!

CQ Awards to accept eQSLs

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 13, 2009
CQ to Accept eQSL Confirmations for Award Credit

(Hicksville, NY and Bedford, TX, January 13, 2009) - CQ magazine will accept contact confirmations made on the eQSL.cc electronic confirmation system for its operating awards effective immediately, CQ Editor Rich Moseson, W2VU, and eQSL Founder and Webmaster Dave Morris,N5UP, announced today.

There will be certain limitations and procedural differences for different awards, at least to start. Only confirmations from"Authenticity Guaranteed" members of eQSL will be accepted, and in accordance with existing eQSL policy, a membership level of bronze orhigher is required in order to participate in award programs via eQSL.

"This is the first time that CQ has formally accepted anything other than traditional paper QSL cards for its awards," said Moseson."We have been working with Dave Morris and his team for several months to assure that the integrity of our awards programs will be protected and to create mechanisms to make it easy for both award applicants and award managers to use eQSL credits toward our awards. All of our award managers have been involved in this process and support this action."

"We want to express our great appreciation to Dave and his team for their willingness to do whatever was necessary to make this agreement possible," Moseson added. "It has been a pleasure workingwith them and we look forward to a long-lasting relationship."

"We are pleased to be adding CQ to the top of our list of amateur organizations that accept electronic QSLs," said Morris. "CQ has some of the most highly sought-after awards, and we have been working behind the scenes for years to create credit submission mechanisms that would ensure the integrity of their programs without introducing any additional labor for the award managers. We believe the electronic QSL can drastically reduce costs, and the award application mechanisms we have developed will provide for more efficient processing at reduced cost for both the applicant and the award manager."

Applicants for the CQ DX and CQ DX Field Awards must print out their eQSLs and submit them along with their traditional QSLs to a CQcheckpoint or to CQ DX Awards Manager Billy Williams, N4UF. eQSL has an automated process in place for applicants for CQ's Worked AllZones, WPX and USA-Counties awards. N5UP explains how that will workfor the applicant:

"The applicant goes to the My Awards screen. He clicks on the particular award he wants to apply for. This brings up a list of the credits our system 'thinks' he is entitled to. There are checkboxes that allow him to check which ones he wants to use, and we automatically pre-fill one credit per category so he doesn't have to do anything if he wants to take the defaults. At the bottom of the screen are two buttons: 'Submit to CQ' and 'Print Paper Application'."
The "submit" button will place all the selected QSOs into a filefor the award manager to access, while the "print" button will generate a printed list to be submitted along with the traditional application.

PLEASE NOTE that ALL applicants must send the award fee payment to the CQ Award Manager, regardless of how the application is submitted. Some CQ award managers are now accepting PayPal; see individual award web pages for details. All awards will continue to accept traditional QSLs as well as eQSLs. For the USA-Counties Award(USA-CA), applicants must note on their record books (or printouts) whether each county has been confirmed traditionally (with an "X" to the right of the entry) or electronically (with an "E" next to the entry).

For more information on eQSL, visit http://www.eQSL.cc

For more information on CQ awards, visit the awards page on the CQwebsite at http://www.cq-amateur-radio.com. Please note that the award rules posted on the website have not yet been updated to reflect theacceptance of eQSLs. This will be done as soon as possible, but the policy takes effect immediately.

Foundation and Intermediate Courses available at Newbury

I just noticed that my friends down at the Newbury radio club are running a Foundation course as well as an Intermediate course in the near future.

If you are interested in getting started with the hobby, or upgrading your licence to Intermediate, then let me recommend the course at Newbury. The tutors are really excellent and have a great track record.

Here's their press release:

Members of the Newbury & District Amateur Radio Society will be running training courses for the Amateur Radio Foundation and Intermediate licences.

The Foundation course will take place on the single weekend of 28th February and 1st March.

The Intermediate course will take place over two weekends, the 21/22 March & 25 April.

The courses will both take place at the Newtown Village Hall.

To apply, please contact Steve Elliott at s_elliott293 at btinternet.com or 07799 897 839

Steve, G3ZVW to be active from Ascension again

Via the excellent Southgate Amateur Radio site comes news that Steve, G3ZVW, who you may remember as an ex-editor of RadCom, will be active from Ascension Island (ZD8) once again.

Southgate Amateur Radio Club member, Steve, G3ZVW, will be QRV again as ZD8N from Ascension Island (AF-003).

Steve will be working in CW, RTTY and SSB mainly on 30m-10m from Jan 12-27.
QSLs direct or via bureau to G3ZVW.

The UK CW Ladder

From John, G3WGV comes the following. If you're keen on CW, are based in the UK, then why not take part?

The first UK Annual CW Table was started by Roger G3SXW and Nigel G3TXF in 1983.
This year will be the 27th table and will cover all 10 amateur radio bands from 1.8 to 50 MHz.

To all UK CW operators
You are invited to join the 27th annual UK 10-band CW table, starting 1st January 2009.

What's it all about then?
The purpose of the table is to encourage CW activity on the HF bands and six metres. Each year participants start afresh and work as many DXCC entities on each of the ten bands as possible between 0000Z on 1st January and 2359Z on 31st December.
All UK Radio Amateurs are welcome to participate. You do not have to be active on all bands to make an entry. You just have to make some QSOs using Morse Code.
All CW QSOs count: rag chewing, contests, general DXing. No QSL cards are required: you are on your honour to report your score honestly.
There are no prizes, it's just a bit of fun and it helps to keep CW activity going throughout the year.
Full details at the UK CW table web site: http://ukcwtable.g3wgv.com/

How do I take part?
The 2009 table has just started. Start keeping track of your band scores and submit them via the easy to use web site form. That's it! It's really a lot of fun - and it will amaze you how your score can mount up, especially if you take part in a few contests along the way.
I look forward to welcoming you to the UK CW table. Any questions, just ask.

73, John
G3WGV, N3GV

Archive of table since 1983http://www.g3txf.com/UK-CW-Table/TableFrames.html
Annual UK 10-band CW tablehttp://ukcwtable.g3wgv.com/

A change to the Fiddlesticks Weather Station

Thanks to Pete, M3PHP I've just made some changes to the weather station software I use here.

This has had various effects - and if you use the web page, you'll need to bookmark the new URL which is here - though if you link from either the G4VXE or Fiddlesticks blogs, then I've updated the links on those pages.

Most excitingly, though, the software supports Twitter, so the weather station will 'tweet' a weather report every half hour. I'm sure you'll agree that the software is excellent. If you have a weather station, you might like to check it out, it's free from Sandaysoft and it can be downloaded from here.

All that being the case, I probably need to update things so that the wind and rain gauges register properly!

Time to WSPR again

Last April, I included a few details of the WSPR program and what people were doing with it. Over the last few days, I saw something on Twitter about WSPR being a big thing for 2009.



I had a chance to hook it up this afternoon and had a listen. For several minutes, I couldn´t understand why I couldn´t decode anything! It then transpired that the clock on my PC was quite a way out. I synchronised it to an NTP source and then things started to work. Only 2 stations were heard in the hour or so that I was listening on 10MHz this afternoon; DH8SA from Northern Germany and VE2DC from Quebec. I shall try it out again tomorrow and see what can be heard during the day time.

New Year´s Eve Tropo

New Year´s Eve dawned foggy here, with the temperature well below zero. Any sign of fog and it´s always worth looking on VHF//UHF. Sure enough, the GB3VHF beacon on 2m was well over S9 and the F5XAM and PI7CIS beacons were well above normal, also on 2m.

Interestingly, the PI7CIS beacon on 70cms was much, much louder than normal peaking up around S7-8 on fades.

I tried a few CQ calls on 432.200 beaming to the east, but without any luck. After all, many people were probably at work. Around lunchtime, I popped into the shack and there was a huge signal on 432.200. So loud that I thought it was one of my locals. It turned out to be Frankie, PA2M in JO21IP. We had a really nice QSO - I think we last worked in something like 1989 when I operated, with the Squarebashers group from Porto Santo, as G4VXE/CT3.

Interestingly, the good conditions moved away quite quickly. I checked the beacons about two or three hours later and signals from PI7CIS had dropped dramatically, although the F5XAM beacon on 2m had increased in strength. Iḿ guessing the tropo had moved away from us and slightly further south - the weather map seemed to bear that out.

Ubuntu and Amateur Radio

I had the chance over the last day or two to install VM Player on my Windows machine and install Ubuntu. It´s working well and I´m delighted with the ´regular´ software, Firefox and Twhirl working just as it should. Openoffice is fine, of course.

But what ´must have´ Amateur Radio software for Ubuntu is there to try? Let me know what I should try - I´d love to hear from you.

The Fine Art of making a QSO

I was listening to one of the Echolink gateways this morning and a couple of guys were having a contact. Well, should I say, one of them was trying to have a contact. The other chap, who, I´m guessing was newly licenced, really seemed to have little idea about how to make a contact - one word overs, no indication of what his callsign was and so on.

It would be easy to ridicule, but I don´t want to do that. It is difficult, when you first get on the air, perhaps, to work out how to conduct contacts. I daresay in ´my day´ it may have been easier, as we had been listening around the bands before getting a licence. Things have changed though - and though there is some rudimentary advice in the licence syllabii on how to make contacts, it is pretty minimal.

If you´re a beginner, what can you do to sound like you´ve been on the air for years (in a good way!)

- Listen around - this will help! Get an idea of how more experienced operators conduct their contacts, what they say and so on.

- If you suspect you may be tongue-tied, then write out some postcards with ´template QSOs´ on them (eg ´My Name is..... My QTH is..... Your report is.... Hope you copy ok..... M?XXX from G?XXX Over´ And then the next over might be something like ´M?XXX from G?XXX all copied. My equipment is.....´. And so it goes on. Hopefully you´ll soon feel more comfortable, will ad-lib and will never need your postcards again!

- Callsigns. Though you are not obligated to give callsigns on each transmission, it is good practice to do so unless you are engaged in a quick-fire back and forth. Just give your callsign at the end of each transmission. No song and dance is required ´from G4VXE over´. Phonetics are useful. If you haven´t worked someone before, then it may be helpful to give your callsign phonetically when you call them first of all. As soon as you have established contact and you are confident you have each others callsigns ok, there´s no need to spell it all out phonetically. Don´t forget at the end of the contact, though, to think about giving your callsign in phonetics. After all, someone else may be listening who might want to give you a call!

- Perhaps you may have operated on CB before hand. Don´t worry, you are very welcome on the Ham Bands. But please, leave CB jargon on the CB band where it belongs. Your ´personal´ should become your name and your ´twenty´ your QTH or location. We have our own jargon, you see! And never, ever, say ´Call´ after your callsign when you´re on the amateur bands, as in ´M3XYZ G4VXE Call´. Never.

- Sounding enthusiastic and interested! I´ve heard some people that sound like they couldn´t careless what the other person says - in fact - it almost seems the fact that someone else is on the other end of the contact passes them by. They just go along, ´talking to themselves´. Engage with your QSO partner - ask questions and respond to them. It IS meant to be fun, after all!

Well, I´m sure there´s much more that could be included, but I hope this might be of some benefit to people starting out - in how to make your contacts more interesting - and hopefully - you will sound like a seasoned pro!