A quiet week on the radio

This time of year my day job takes over as the first term gets fully underway at my college. I like to squeeze in time to unwind and play some radio but it doesn't always work out thy way. 
I did get to spend a short time doing radio related activities though. 

On Tuesday evening I joined Tim M6ZRT and Keith G0RQQ for some activity on 70cm for the UKAC contest. There were quite a few local contacts and after I left some of more distance. This always happened when I leave the portable site. They were using an Elk antenna with 10w from the FT-857 to work stations all over the UK. 

After heading home I received a text message asking for assistance. It seems Tim had forgotten to run the engine occasionally and had a flat battery. I had to nip back out to te remote location with a spare battery and jump leads. I hope I don't make the same error in the future. Perhaps I should always operate from an alternative to the car's battery. Still a fun evening and some interesting stations worked from a very basic setup in IO93RH. 


Comments

  1. VE9KK 13 October 2013 at 13:10

    Good morning Alistair, I too find that radio is a very nice break from things. As for the flat battery I too have been mobile and had to be very aware to start the car so I would not have to make a call as did your friend who needed a boost.
    Mike

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alistair - M0TEF13 October 2013 at 13:56

      Hi Mike, we all think about these things, but as radio often seems to take us into a time warp we may forget the time spent on air. Luckily we had a back up plan and will most likely take a spare fully charged battery with us portable.
      As for relaxing it is a wonderful way to make the brain switch off and do something else. I am finding my CW practice is helping me lots. My brain is so focused on the CW everything else goes, it must be second only to meditation.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Modifying the FT-897 to get the best from it.

Image
I have been using my ft-897 for a while now, the main rig has a fault and I have been far too busy to get it sorted and repaired. I found it was not quite right, I have been spoiled by using quality receivers over the last few years and I couldn't quite put my finger on what was missing. Some reading online and some tests quickly helped me identify what it was, the AGC was a little too fast and the audio amplifier adds a certain hiss and noise to a signal. I found two fixes online, the first one was to add a capacitor in parallel to modify the AGC hang time adding it to C1503 - mod to be found on DG2IAQ modification sheet, a great source of information for any 897 owner. found here. http://www.ok1kng.netcontrol.cz/rs/download.php?soubor=25 The other fix was to reduce white noise, the info can be found here. http://ok1fig.nagano.cz/FT897D/FT-897D_LessWhiteNoise.htm By adding two capacitors to make up the 0.75uF and a resistor of 68 Ohm between pins 2 and 4 on the IC the TDA200
Read more

Improving the FT-1000mp Mark V RX

Image
I have been on a mission to make the most of the equipment in my shack, I didn't want to get sucked into buying more radios or very expensive new models to chase a very small improvement. I decided the next best thing was to squeeze every improvement I could out of my existing equipment. I have been really pleased with the RX on the FT-1000MP Mark V and wanted to get all of the filters loaded into it. It has taken me some time but I have finally tracked down the full set of Yaesu filters to install in the radio and improve the way the RX performs when using narrow filters. I have already done the NB mod that is documented earlier on my blog. I have now managed to add the 2.0kHz SSB 500Hz and 250Hz in both the 8.2MHz IF and the 455Kz IF. I can assure you that having two 250Hz filters inline can really help improve the signal to noise for CW and for RTTY/Digital modes. The 2.0kHz filters in line really help with SSB but it does make the signal less pleasing to the ear and require
Read more

Laserbeam delights - Audio DSP filter for CW

Image
Last Monday I had a bit of free time and I have been planning to help Keith G0RQQ put his new audio CW filter into a box for some time. It made sense to use the bench in the workshop here because everything is set up and read to go, Keith preferred that option to destroying the dining table at his place. He has a Laserbeam dual band filter module from Sotabeams http://www.sotabeams.co.uk/dual-bandwidth-filter-modules-ssb-cw/ and I have to say it is a great bit of kit for something so small. Well worth the money to add a new level to older or wider receivers. In the classic QRP style Keith wanted to fit the board into an Altoids tin to be the ideal companion to his Frog sounds QRP single band 40m rig. Keith did add on the additional filter integration kit from Sotabeams for an additional £5.50. VK3YE has done a great look at this and has a video demonstrating its use on home-brew kit. Have a look at the video to get a really good idea of how this works. We really were b
Read more