Until recently Practical Wireless was only available on the newsstand at larger branches of WH Smith. Getting hold of a copy proved useless at smaller branches unless you had it reserved in advance, infact I gave up many years ago asking why it wasn't present every month?  In the end I got a local corner newsagent to reserve it for me, I guess he has been grateful of the business ever since.




However could the tide of policy changed it's direction at my local small branch of WH Smith and others? PW is once again available on the shelf, forefront, alongside with it's sister magazine Radiouser.

Practical Wireless is the only independent magazine representing the amateur radio hobby in the UK, it is good to see someone has finally done something to get it back where it belongs, so a new generation can peruse and purchase it along with us old timers.
Steve, G1KQH, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from England. Contact him at [email protected].

Amateur Radio Weekly is curated by Cale Mooth K4HCK. Sign up free to receive ham radio's most relevant news, projects, technology and events by e-mail each week at http://www.hamweekly.com.

The monkeys are out, the roosters are in. If you are celebrating or not, a happy Chinese New Year to you.

Not much to report from my side. Amateur radio has taken a back seat, partly due to work, partly due to the enormous noise levels that plague me on HF. With the sun not cooperating there is little to be found on the bands, except for way down low. Steve (VE7SL) has promoted NDB DXing more than once here on Amateurradio.com and I am hooked (again), too. Even with my limited antenna I can pick up new stations every time I turn on my TS-440S. My best DX sofar is an NDB from Indonesia; over 3000 kilometers away. Not bad, but not good enough either. Unfortunately I have many AM stations in the area putting out ghost signals on Long Wave. Dealing with them is a pain, but it’s necessary if I want to join the fun on 630 meters. So far, no luck, but we’ll keep on trying.

Hans "Fong" van den Boogert, BX2ABT, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Taiwan. Contact him at [email protected].

With all the recent Yahoo data breach furore and various problems at times of access to Yahoo groups, many Amateur Radio groups are turning their backs on Yahoo and moving to a new group service.

Groups.io is the new place where Hams and I guess many others are moving their discussion groups from Yahoo. I was first notified over a month ago that QRPLABS was moving over, I created an account with groups.io and sure enough if by magic it apppeared in my new groups.io account. Using it has become very easy and straight forward, and I find it doesn't suffer from the access lag that Yahoo groups suffered. Since joining, the BITX20 group has also moved and so have a few others, I expect many others will follow.   

Groups.io has a full automated transfer service for groups that wish to transfer over:https://groups.io/static/transfer  I have not used the transfer myself, but all the groups that have moved I am member of that have chosen to move to the new service appear to have gone over smooth, and they popped into my group.io account.
Steve, G1KQH, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from England. Contact him at [email protected].

With all the recent Yahoo data breach problems and various problems at times of access to Yahoo groups, many Amateur Radio groups are turning their backs on Yahoo and moving to a new group service.

Groups.io is the new place where Hams and I guess many others are moving their discussion groups from Yahoo. I was first notified over a month ago that QRPLABS was moving over, I created an account with groups.io and sure enough if by magic it apppeared in my new groups.io account. Using it has become very easy and straight forward, and I find it doesn't suffer from the access lag that Yahoo groups suffered. Since joining, the BITX20 group has also moved and so have a few others, I expect many others will follow.   

Groups.io has a full automated transfer service for groups users that wish to transfer over:https://groups.io/static/transfer  I have not used the transfer myself, but all the groups that have moved I am member of that have chosen to move to the new service appear to have gone over smooth, and they popped into my group.io account.
Steve, G1KQH, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from England. Contact him at [email protected].

Beat the winter blues and enjoy part two of our informative series on HF and VHF propagation. Steve Nichols G0KYA concludes with his explanation on how space weather affects our ability to communicate on the HF bands. Bob parts with some cash at Hamfest and Mike chats to Phil Willis M0PHI and Cathy Clark G1GQJ, two movers and shakers in the world of amateur radio.

We hope you enjoy the show!

www.txfactor.co.uk

Nick Bennett 2EØFGQ co-hosts TX Factor with Bob McCreadie GØFGX and Mike Marsh G1IAR. Contact the team at [email protected]

On Saturday, we returned to the Most Radio Active Mountain in Colorado, Mount Herman (W0C/FR-063), for a combination VHF contest, SOTA activation and winter hike. Our radio crew consisted of Steve/WGØAT, Caleb/W4XEN, Joyce/KØJJW and me. I’ve worked Steve forty times on various summits and often when he was activating Mount Herman, but this is the first time we did an activation together. What a treat be on the same summit as the Goathiker! Not only that, Peanut goat came along to supervise the entire operation.

My objective for the day was to chalk up another VHF SOTA activation, while also making some Qs in the VHF contest. For most SOTA activations, I just focus on 2 meters. During a VHF contest, I bring more gear to cover the other bands. The main rig for SSB/CW was my FT-817 driving an Arrow II dualband yagi for 2m and 70 cm. For 6m, I used an inverted Vee dipole supported by a crappie pole. I also had two FT-1D handheld radios listening on 146.52 and 446.0 MHz.

I made 21 contacts on 6m, 2m and 70cm, with 7 grids/mults and a Single Operator Portable score of 164. Not that great of a contest score but it was only a few hours of operating. From a SOTA perspective, this is an attractive number of VHF QSOs in a relatively short time.

Surprisingly, even during a VHF contest, most of the contacts were on FM with the usual SSB contest stations rather scarce. It was very handy to be able to use 146.52 MHz for the contest, finding a number of casual contesters on that frequency.

The high point of the day was working Jay W9RM on the other side of the state in DM58 using 2m CW on 144.210 MHz. The distance was about 170 miles on a path that went over or through several mountain ranges. Not too bad for QRP. (Oh, I guess it doesn’t hurt that W9RM has a serious weak-signal VHF station: 2M-5WL yagi at 50 feet.)  This contact demonstrates the advantage of CW and SSB on 2 meters. Most VHF SOTA action is on FM due to the convenience of a 2m FM HT. But FM has poor weak-signal performance so much better range can be achieved with both CW and SSB. When is the last time you made a 170 mile QSO with an FM handheld?

This was the first SOTA activation for Caleb/W4XEN. Judging by the smile on his face, it won’t be his last one either. While I played on VHF, Steve did his usual thing on HF using CW, using a KX3 to drive an end-fed antenna. Caleb did a bit of both HF and VHF, managing to get a nice pile up going on 20m SSB. Joyce made a few contacts on 2m FM but mostly took pictures and occasionally tossed GORP in my direction.

On my last winter activation, my iPhone quit in the cold, so I did not want to rely on it for logging this time. I had a clipboard with my paper log on it, also holding the dual-paddle key. The key moved around a bit and my Morse code sending was sloppy.  I don’t work a lot of CW for SOTA but it does come in handy at times, so I’ll be looking at improving my setup.

The 6m inverted Vee worked out OK but it was a little inconvenient to run the coaxial cable to the apex of the antenna. I’ll be looking to swap that antenna out for an end-fed half wave, which is so common on the HF bands for SOTA.

 

Steve brought along a large umbrella for use as an instant-up wind shelter. That looks like a practical way to block the wind.

The weather was not great…we had a few patches of blue sky but it was mostly overcast and cold (probably 25 degrees F). We lasted about 2 hours before the cold started to take its toll, then we scooted on down the mountain.

Thanks to Joyce, Steve and Caleb for a great day playing radio in the mountains.

73, Bob KØNR

The post 2017 Mt Herman Winter Activation appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Bob Witte, KØNR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. Contact him at [email protected].