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Before the decking project was formally sanctioned and actioned through the domestic funding board / xyl I had thought about ordering a little kit to build over the summer. I had built the v2 QRSS kit from Hans Summers, G0UPL and have used it on the 30m band and frankly enjoyed both the built and the fun tinkering with it.

The v3 kit changes the design slightly in as much as it used a more common 16×2 LCD and the PCB size as increased slightly. But from what I can tell there is a deal of difference between the two designs. Both encourage the builder to tinker with the PA’s, increase functionality with GPS and use the add on LPF relay to build a multi band TX. The one big and obvious change is the used of the dedicated DDS.

Plans for this kit are to still do the build and then buy up 10 kits and build them at the BEC fab lab one Saturday. I will no doubt get a suitable date for the build day at next weeks club meeting. Until then its finish the decking or be in trouble with the domestic CEO.

For as long as I first heard about SDR i wanted to get involved. Unfortunately children and jobs got in the way of significant investment. Until now that is. I received an email from a local ham who had an Angelia board that he no longer wanted.

‘Did I want to buy it off him?’

‘Yes’ said I before even mentioning it to the domestic CFO / xyl.

Long discussion ensued and eventually I have come away with this….

Needless to say some of the domestic staff were not amused. As a consequence I have an FT817 and a VX8-GE for sale. Any takers?

Not strictly Ham Radio but worthy of a mention, I dropped into the BEC Fab Lab today to talk to them about laser cutting some cases for our clubs summer build. We’ll be doing something simple this year ( the Hans Summers, GoUPL Ultimate QRSS kit v3 – mine is on order) and I’m keen to tie in what we do with them as we could use their services and they could potentially open up amateur radio to a wider audience.

I was really impressed and can’t wait to get my hands on their 3d printer, I just don’t know what I ought to print…perhaps a callsign badge

BEC Fab Lab

Are of course untrue

Quite a bit has happened over the last few weeks. Primarily domestic and work duties have kept me away from the rig other than the occasional VHF contest appearance.

At home I have spent a considerable amount of time replacing cables and renewing bits and pieces that have succumbed to the Cumbrian winters and salt spray. The salty, windy air has corroded connectors, got into the coax outer (my poor connectors to blame) and generally caused some ‘issues’

So cabling all done

New telescopic mast purchased

New antenna purchased

So to the purchases. I bought a simple, manual 12.5m mast from Spiderbeam that is pretty substantial. Why no fixed mast? because radio is a hobby that I do and not the rest of the family and we enjoy the sea view more on that in another post. The antenna is a lightweight hexbeam from folding antennas. Again more info on that in a more detailed post. But suffice to say its all going down the same path. Simple radio. Nothing complicated. Nothing that can’t be easily moved or changed and no chasing the next rig / antenna / thing. Just turn on what I have and enjoy the simplicity.

Hold on a minute. I haven’t done the remainder of the decking….well at least I got to think about radio

Yaesu MHG-1 hand strap for FT-450 works great on the K2.

If I had a dollar for every tirade I read or heard from a U.S. amateur regarding the “difficulty of setting up ARRL’s LoTW” software, I’d at least be able to buy another roofing filter for the K3.  These tirades are almost invariably qualified by the assertion that the complainer is “an IT professional.”

Personally, I find LoTW’s security simple and logical: they are simply trying to make it hard for one individual to generate a lot of untraceable certificates (to sign enough falsified logs to get on the “Honor Roll”).  And, since they optimized the database last (?) year, the processing and web interface are pretty good, too.  I kinda just followed the directions and it worked.

I don’t believe in Karma, but every time I read one of these rants by “an IT professional,” I feel a small amount of revenge has been exacted on them for all of the frustrating interactions (mercifully few, all things considered) I’ve endured with incompetent IT drones over the years…

This is the photo I wanted to headline this post, but I refuse to hotlink or copy it.  Positive, regularly-scheduled programming will return to the blog shortly, including a couple of construction projects…$50 HF triplexer, anyone?

Change is a really handy tool. I’m in the business of delivering projects which always means change. So when it came to managing some change at home I thought I knew what I was doing. When I say change I mean a little bit of landscaping that a fellow ham was going to do and at the same time put in a new cables and a post ready for my new mast and antenna. This mean a bit of planning, cost control and some stakeholder management. Or so I thought.

I had originally decided on extending the house and had some lovely plans drawn up (which included a mast and antenna), put them through planning (domestic / xyl and local council) had them approved only to find that the local builders wanted huge sums for a small job. Hence the scope was reduced to meet the budget.

For the last few weeks I have toiled int he freezing rain to drill new holes in the side of the house, removed old and corroded (poor finishing by me) cables and then set about running new ones before removing some old decking that was the cause of our problem (wooden decking and West Cumbria should be avoided). What is going to go in its place is a mast stub in the ground, ground mounted rotator, heavy duty 12.5m mast and a folding hexbeam.

The schedule is hectic but I imagine in a matter of 4 weeks I will be back on the air on hf and there will be a very tired out g7kse, ready for for some leisurely operating on hf and perhaps in time for some early Es. Until then its the UKAC VHF tuesday nights for me still.