AmateurRadio.com

The Raspberry Pi may well be in the public domain and a few of us who have got the boards are busily scratching our heads trying it to get it to do ‘stuff’. There are far brighter people than me who’ve managed to get ‘stuff’ done on this low cost machines and they’re shouting about it in a digital magazine called MagPi, which is available here.

The initial results on the SDR are good – I’ve used the setup on an internal antenna and it’s received Band II FM stations, my own transmissions on 70, 144 and 432MHz as well as aircraft and various ‘utility’ transmissions around 433MHz.

I’m just awaiting some hardware to arrive so that I can connect the receiver up to the external antennas such as the triband vertical for 50/144/432MHz and see what I can hear.

You may have seen a post indicating that Dave, G4ASR had some problems with his dongle showing up as a different device. Happily that has been resolved – Dave took the IT professional’s approach, deleted all the files, started again and it worked fine. And no, I’m not being sarcastic! Glad it worked – I was feeling guilty that it hadn’t been straightforward.

Great to hear from John, G4BAO today regarding the new beacon which is planned for installation in Northern Ireland to facilitate research into the transatlantic path on 144MHz.

John says, ‘Over in the US, Brian, WA1ZMS, is making the final preparations to ship the beacon transmitter over to Northern Ireland. 

Thanks to the kind donation of antenna parts and clamps from G4CQM at Powabeam Antennas, beacon keeper, Gordon GI6ATZ, is in the process of building the antenna system for the beacon, and installing the emergency shutdown system. 

We are aiming to have the beacon up and running before the year end.’

Band conditions may have been in the toilet; but at least the scenery was good!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

My trip to the top of Mount Prospect was a semi-bust.  Band conditions were not to be. Steve NU7T sent me this on the Polar Bear e-mail reflector:

Sorry Larry Bear,

ALERT: X-Ray Flux exceeded M5
Threshold Reached: 2012 Jul 12 1626 UTC
NOAA Scale: R2 – Moderate
Potential Impacts: Area of impact centered on sub-solar point on the sunlit side of Earth. Extent of blackout of HF (high frequency) radio communication dependent upon current X-ray Flux intensity. For real-time information on affected area and expected duration ( 1800 z ).Grrrrrr
15m – 6dB attenuation Grrrrrr
20m – 3 dB attenuation Grrr
40m – 17 dB attentuation Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Steve, NU7T PB #300

And Steve was 10000000% correct – the entire time I was at the summit, I heard one, watery and warbly signal on 20 Meters.  All my CQing went for naught.  I was heard on the Reverse Beacon Network, however (by at least one skimmer):

WZ7I	W2LJ	14061.0	CQ [LoTW]	7 dB	20 wpm	1629z 12 Jul

  
Oh well, Maybe things will pick up for tomorrow.  In any event, I’ll post some of the photos I took, later tonight.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

Is the plan for tomorrow.  It doesn’t qualify as a SOTA Summit, but as per the brochure, the views are supposed to be breathtaking

There’s supposedly a picnic area at the summit, so maybe I can toss the EFHW up a tree and make some contacts.

I’ll take my phone alone and will hopefully will be able to spot myself on QRPSPOTS.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!