Author Archives: Paul

A few weeks ago before payday I decided the time had come for me to start learning to drive (again).

I guess I had actually sown the seeds of this idea when I got my provisional licence renewed in September 08, but only recently did I have the final part really in place. The money.

I had brought the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) DVD/CD triple pack recently and got in contact with local driving school.

This week will be my first lesson in 8 years. A colleague and myself were being taught by a guy who left our office about 8/9 years ago, and I didn’t continue lessons at that time.

I have also booked my Theory Test for next week and have been studying whenever I can. I even brought some Mock test cartridges for my Nintendo DS. I might do a write about them soon.

Anyway, off to do tonights mock test.

I took part in the 2009 IARU HF World Championship Contest for few hours on Saturday Night a few on Sunday Morning.

I didn’t have a target and just worked mostly 20m & 40m on Saturday night and then 10m, 15m and some more 20m on Sunday morning.

Peter M3PHP just had to beat me getting 79 QSOs and 8142 points.

Still, was a bit of practice for the IOTA contest the Whitton Amateur Radio Group (www.warg.info) might be planning on entering as M2W.

From the graphic, it’s obvious I need to get better antenna on 80m & maybe one for 160m as well.

Log already emailed and need to look at doing the QSL cards soon with my Dymo Label Printer.

This was written at various times over the weekend I was at Friedrichshafen on my Nokia N95 8Gb phone. I was going to edit, but thought would be better to just post as is from the notepad on my phone. Only editing was making this into 1 post instead of three. Enjoy.

Photos are on my Flickr.com page http://tinyurl.com/FN2009

Day 1 – It’s 11pm here in Friedrichshafen and I have spent the evening being the guest of the Slovenians. I have even put my tent up in their camp area.

I’ve had a few beers and now just drinking a cup of tea. The East camp area has a feeling of community even though it’s a large amount of camper vans & tents that will be good in a few days.

The airport is quiet and even at this time of night I can see a Zepplin airship moored in the distance.

Tip of the day:- Get extra bag at airport they supply for liquids & use to store your normal currency when you need to use different currency whilst you’re away.

Day 2 – What a start to the day. Not long after I emerged from my small tent (got some comments about how it looks) I noticed the Zepplin was about to depart. I started the video recording on my phone and got a nice piece of it taking off & the moving into the distance.

After a cup of coffee was time to hit the show.

Wow. It’s big.

Compared to biggest Ham event i’ve been to in UK just the flea markets alone are 4x bigger. Then is another bit for vendors.

A few hours were spent trawling the flea markets, not that I could buy much as not really any space in my bag. Well I brought 2 Friedrichshafen 2x T-shirts with callsign on. Oh & ARRL membership.

At 2pm we went for beers. Was quite a few on our table drinking including 3 Germans, 3 Slovenians, and me. I also enjoyed a Wurst (German) sausage. 2 hours later I had to return to get the T-shirts.

Some of our group the tried the pile-up contest. I didn’t attempt to save me from showing myself up.

We them headed back to Slovenian camp but I was slightly delayed as found out where US exams where happening following morning.

Once back at camp no sooner were beers opened the skies opened and drenched the camp.
We were under am awning but a few leaks had to be quickly sorted. Also one of the beers was almost frozen. Then had a glass of wine made in 1984 when Slovenia played England at football, but I am sure he said England lost. Oh well.

For dinner was a nice pasta dish kindly provided by my hosts again.

After a few more drinks there was a group forming near one of the vans. Upon going round the other side there was some French Amateurs sending what looked like an SSTV image, but showed instantly on the screen when signal was lost and re-established.

A short time later I went to bed.

Day 3 – Started  Saturday early. I was dressed, tent & sleeping bag was packed by 8:30am.

There was a short queue for the “Ham Tram” free taxis to the main event.

Once at there I headed for the admin building to take my US General exam. There were about 12 people taking the exams at the 3 levels. Room was split with almost half taking Technician exam, and most others the Amateur Extra. Only 2 including me were taking General.

I spent some time in recent weeks studying for the exam, either at Hamtests.net or just reading the questions on my Sony Reader.

Well, it helped as I passed.

WØTZO/AG

Now just writing this while deciding what to do. The rain is coming down hard now & I have no more space for purchases.

To start this post I have gone digital.

I finally decided the time had come, and I had the funds to give D-Star a try. The choice is one I am not regretting (so far).

I purchased the very rig in the photo, it’s an Icom IC-E92D. I should point out that in some countries this radio maybe referred to as IC-92AD but more or less it works the same.

Also as can be seen in the photo the radio doesn’t say D-Star. There is some issue in Europe & Africa which means they call it Digital and not D-Star.

I have mainly worked through GB7AU (www.77hz.com) repeater in Amersham and it’s also the site I used to be registered onto the D-Star system.

I have spoken to stations in other parts of England, Northern Ireland, and USA, as well as a friend locally used D-Star in simplex mode.

The clarity of audio is great when it works, but if you lose the signal slightly it breaks up so nothing is heard, or it’s a garbled mess, but generally it’s been working.

I have also this weekend soldered some more bits onto my MKARS80. I have a few friends who keep badgering me and asking if I am finished yet. This is my first build of something this complex.

Prior to this my most complex build was a morse oscillator I have also posted in this post.

I think I am doing well, and I offer this challenge. If you want to moan at me about how long this is taking (I started in July 2008), then you should build one yourselves first. 🙂

A quick calculation in Excel informed me I have completed over 80% of the kit. I have spoken to a friend as I need some un-enameled wire. I have some 22gauge wire from the kit, but my current soldering iron is not hot enough to melt the enamal.

Well was about time. I have finally ordered my New QSL Cards from Gennady UX5UO http://www.ux5uoqsl.com

I have asked for 1,000 Luxury cards consisting of Full Glossy front image and single colour on the back.

The Photo is my own taken during a brief few days which almost closed London down due to lack of planning.

The box in the centre is for when I get around to ordering a Dymo Label printer, and made slightly bigger than size of see-thru labels I have seen on their site.

My congratulations on your design!
It is really professional, 100% suitable for processing.
73, Gennady

Even had above comment from the QSL printer as I sent my own card design to him.

Guess I have no excuses for not working HF now.

The Quality of the card image here is deliberately low (186Kb). The working file sizes were 20Mb front image & 9Mb rear image (4.9Mb & 3.5Mb flattened images sent to printer).