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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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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