Mentioned in Practical Wireless! and some Christmas stress

I am not a fan of this time of the year. I know Christmas is supposed to be a time for joy and a time for families to re-connect and come together. Well this year it is true, the only problem is they are all coming here for Christmas day, night and Boxing day!

This has meant I have had to tackle some long put off home renovation projects. The first was to redecorate the bathroom and what should have been a simple paint job has snowballed into a major project and has sapped a lot of free time. Thankfully it is now all but done.

The second was to turn the third bedroom back into an actual bedroom rather than the study/computer room/indoor radio shack it had become. Again this involved more work than planned including dismantling and remodelling of a home-made desk and the removal of piles of collected radio/computer junk and books.

The upshot of all this work and de-cluttering is my outside workshop has turned into a bomb site! Most of the junk has been dumped in it and it is very untidy with tools scattered everywhere. I also had a minor catastrophe when trying to retreive a workmate when my beloved 2Meter YAGI, fell off its perch breaking off the reflector and a director! Thankfully Justin at InnovAntennas was able to sort me out some replacement boom insulators

With all this upheaval, combined with work pressures I have been unable to really do any radio or electronics for most of this month. Do I sound like the Grinch?


Despite this I have been able to capture the odd FUNCube-1(AO73) pass and have nearly reached 1000 telemetry packets.

It came as a pleasant surprise was finding out I was mentioned in the January issue of Practical Wireless magazine. Tim Kirby (G4VXE) reported on my ISS SSTV capture and APRS experiments. Tim  the magazines VHF/UHF editor has his own blog and is someone I converse with on twitter (@G4VXE)

I realised I didn't blog my SSTV capture back in October, but did post it on twitter feed (@nerdsville)
Here is a scan of my mention and the picture.. I can forgive Tim misspelling my name, it happens a lot! It also seems I might get mentioned in the February issue to following my ICube-1 reception report.

From Practical Wireless - January 2014 Issue

From Practical Wireless - January 2014 Issue

Andrew Garratt, MØNRD, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from East Midlands, England. Contact him at [email protected].

Leave a Comment

Subscribe FREE to AmateurRadio.com's
Amateur Radio Newsletter
News, Opinion, Giveaways & More!

E-mail 
Join over 7,000 subscribers!
We never share your e-mail address.



Also available via RSS feed, Twitter, and Facebook.


Subscribe FREE to AmateurRadio.com's
Amateur Radio Newsletter

 
We never share your e-mail address.


Do you like to write?
Interesting project to share?
Helpful tips and ideas for other hams?

Submit an article and we will review it for publication on AmateurRadio.com!

Have a ham radio product or service?
Consider advertising on our site.

Are you a reporter covering ham radio?
Find ham radio experts for your story.

How to Set Up a Ham Radio Blog
Get started in less than 15 minutes!


  • Matt W1MST, Managing Editor




Sign up for our free
Amateur Radio Newsletter

Enter your e-mail address: