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I use a magnetic mount to attach my relatively small VHF/UHF antennas onto the car for my daily activity on the commute to and from the station. I tend to need a new magmount every 12-15 months as repeated opening and closing of the hatchback eventually takes its toll on the coax!

The last but one magmount I had worked really well for the usual period on all the VHF/UHF bands I use from the car. It finally gave up and I replaced it, with one from the same retailer, with ostensibly the same spec. It certainly worked, but particularly on 70cms, the performance was considerably worse. Not catastrophically worse, more like ‘conditions aren’t very good today’ worse – so I just put up with it.

I had the opportunity this morning to try a different magmount – a slightly more expensive model (the original one I was using retail at around £16 and the newer one at about £25). On 433MHz the difference was enormous! GB3TD which had become unusable at the far end of my commute near Didcot, was just fine! I don’t think it was just conditions. but it will be interesting to see how the new mount affects the other bands.

So now I’m wondering what was ‘wrong’ with the old magmount. It’s not as if it really didn’t work, but perhaps it was just very lossy. Either way, I’m glad I tried the different mount. Your mileage may vary, but you may be well advised to spend slightly more on your next magmount!

Olga and I have returned from a long weekend in London. I took my VX-8GR along, hoping to see some APRS activity or even make some contacts. But I heard absolutely nothing, nada, zilch, not a braap on the APRS frequency nor any signs of life on the simplex or repeater frequencies.

Twenty years ago I lived in London, in Charlton SE7 and I seem to recall that in those days there were four London repeaters on 2m and plenty of activity. I also seem to recall that some of the repeaters were plagued with abuse. Last weeked even a kerchunker or a pirate playing music would have been a welcome sign that someone was using the amateur frequencies.

I took a laptop with me – the small Eee PC running Ubuntu Linux, with APRSIS32 under wine – to monitor activity and see if my RF beacons were heard. I received a greeting from G5YC via the APRS-IS internet network and that was that. What a contrast to Prague, where I was a month ago, where the APRS activity just didn’t stop.

Tim, G4VXE, posted yesterday about creating APRS objects for repeaters using OpenAPRS.net. I commented that it was all very well, but these internet created objects are never transmitted on RF so they never fulfil the intended purpose of the mode which is to inform visiting mobiles of the local repeater frequencies. Unfortunately with the lack of radio activity here in the UK one cannot deny that APRS works much better as an internet application than it does over RF. Anyone who has a computer can call up aprs.fi and see the local picture – if anyone has taken the trouble to create the objects. If they were transmitted on RF, would anyone hear them?

I could say much the same about 2m FM. If I’d had an iPhone I could have made some contacts using the newly released Echolink app, which again is more than I was able to do using my Yaesu. What has happened to ham radio that one can’t find any activity even in the UK’s biggest city? It seems to me that we have all decided that cellphones are a much better tool for contacting our ham buddies. If we lost the use of the VHF and UHF bands would anyone actually notice?

I’d wanted to create an APRS object for the Ridgeway Repeater Group‘s two voice repeaters, GB3TD and GB3WH for a while. In practice, this just means making sure that they show up on the map in the right place, when someone goes to http://aprs.fi and looks at the area.

I wanted to display an icon for them, showing the approximate position and their callsign, and some detail available, if someone clicks on the icon. I’d looked at various ways of doing it, but found OpenAPRS the best method.

I’d looked at doing this a few months ago, but had stalled, because OpenAPRS required me to verify my account using an ‘RF APRS client’ which I didn’t have – all my APRS interfacing is done through the Internet. Without verifying my account, I couldn’t create objects on the APRS map.

When I was looking at OpenAPRS the other day, I noticed that they were offering another method of verifying accounts, using Paypal and a small (dollar or so) donation. I was happy to pay this and sure enough the account was verified very speedily.

Having done this, it was straightforward to create an object for each of the repeaters using Tools/Create Objects and then clicking on the map in the appropriate place and entering the information. In some ways, rather than clicking on the map, I’d have preferred to manually enter the latitude and longitude, but this didn’t seem to be possible.

Either way, GB3TD and GB3WH are now represented on the APRS map. I like this – and it provides some useful information to people about where they may find activity in particular localities.

I noticed a D-STAR buzz on 145.6375 the other day when I was testing an analog set and a quick ‘Google’ showed that the GB7ML 2m D-STAR node was now operational from Tring. The coverage map at ukrepeater.net looks really impressive and showed potential hand-held coverage around our village here.

Sure enough, when I took the IC-E92 along the footpath this morning, I could just about get into GB7ML!

This should prove a great D-STAR resource for increasing activity around the Home Counties and beyond.