AmateurRadio.com

There was an announcement on the RSGB and OFCOM sites advising some UK full licence holders that 70.5 to 71.5MHz is being made available for one year by special permission for further digital experiments, a bit like 146-147MHz here in the UK.

Sorry, but has OFCOM gone stark raving mad???

I can see no good justification for this 1MHz of spectrum. 2m was already under-used and the 146-147MHz allocation is probably being used by a tiny handful of people from time to time only.  DATV tests could quite as easily happen at 70cms.

I can think of far better parts of the spectrum OFCOM could have allocated e.g 100kHz around 40MHz (for Es propagation experiments), 73kHz, below 8.3kHz and a contiguous 5MHz allocation. Oh no, these require a brain to be engaged by OFCOM people.

Maybe this is an April fool’s wind-up, although  I suspect it is true.

Surely if OFCOM wants to further real experimentation in radio science there are better ways of going about it?  Yet again, I am totally unimpressed. Between OFCOM and the RSGB, I think this is, yet again, a stupid stupid decision. So we now have 2MHz of extra spectrum for 12 months that a very few might use. Big deal. OFCOM, engage brains, think radio science. If you want to help grow future engineers that we so badly need, these allocations will not help at all. Think again!

See http://www.rsgb.org/ .
See http://www.70mhz.org/ .

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.

My site has been down for a few days due to a “security problem” that I encountered. it seems that some malware showed up on the server and my host disabled the site. It took a bit of ftp’ing to get the offending files removed but we are back on the air.

I can’t say for certain how the bad guys got into the site but it would appear they were specifically targeting sites using WordPress. I was already running a security plugin for WordPress but since the attack I’ve tightened up the parameters considerably. If I inadvertently locked you out, my apologies.

It is interested to watch how many attacks are reported by the security plugin, mostly from locations outside of the US. If you are using WordPress and don’t have a security plugin installed, I highly recommend installing one and locking things down tight.

73, Bob K0NR

The post WordPress Security 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].

For me South America, Australia, and Africa are quite rare on WSPR. But they all heard my tiny 0.2 W signal the night between 31 March and 1 April in addition to North America, Asia and Europe. That’s a new one for me and worthy a brag post on the blog, I think! Hopefully, it may also inspire others to try low power WSPR.

In Australia and South America I was heard on the 10 MHz band, in Africa on 21 MHz, in Pakistan on 14 MHz, while 7 and 10 MHz worked into Siberia. North American stations also heard me on the 7 and 10 MHz bands.

This was on my untuned 80 m horizontal loop fed with open-wire feeder and a 4:1 balun. This shows both that the bare-foot Ultimate 3 kit is very tolerant of loads with SWR much different from 1, and that WSPR gives amazing results.

Sverre Holm, LA3ZA, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Norway. Contact him at [email protected].

For me South America, Australia, and Africa are quite rare on WSPR. But they all heard my tiny 0.2 W signal the night between 31 March and 1 April in addition to North America, Asia and Europe. That’s a new one for me and worthy a brag post on the blog, I think! Hopefully, it may also inspire others to try low power WSPR.

In Australia and South America I was heard on the 10 MHz band, in Africa on 21 MHz, in Pakistan on 14 MHz, while 7 and 10 MHz worked into Siberia. North American stations also heard me on the 7 and 10 MHz bands.

This was on my untuned 80 m horizontal loop fed with open-wire feeder and a 4:1 balun. This shows both that the bare-foot Ultimate 3 kit is very tolerant of loads with SWR much different from 1, and that WSPR gives amazing results.

Sverre Holm, LA3ZA, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Norway. Contact him at [email protected].

The KX3 being used in my lap.

It's the Easter weekend and I normally get the Friday and Monday off work but this year I decided to also take the Thursday and Tuesday. Today was to be a great day with the temperature in around 17C the forecast was for sunny skies in the morning and early afternoon but then rain rolling in for later in the day. I decided early in the week that with the nice weather I was going to make today an outdoor radio day........well from the car just a bit muddy and wet to setup outside just yet. I took  my Elecraft KX3 and some mono band HF whip antennas that attach to a mount on my car. I set my sights on 15m and the conditions seemed great and the DX was rolling in. For the time I was on the DX contacts that I made were:
1. I1YRL from Italy and Luc was very strong and no fading what so ever. While talking to him I found out that in the summer of 2014 he and his wife visited Toronto. Luc gave my 5 watt QRP signal a report of 579. Luc was very surprised I was QRP 5 watts using a mobile whip from my car. 
2. EG90IARU/5 this was a special event  again they were booming in and I was able to make the contact on my first call. This was a very fast contact with the usual 599 report.
3. IT9NJE and Gene again from Italy gave me a 549 signal report.
Over all I was very pleased with my hour on the radio from the car out in the park. I was happy I did not have any Murphy moments but I did have an "old age" moment..................I installed the 15m mono band whip antenna on the car. For some reason (old age) I set the KX3 to 20m and could not understand why the antenna tuner was needed everywhere on the band! Then in occurred to me I was on 20m using my 15m antenna. Once that was sorted out the morning went very well.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Nick KE0ATH Spinnin’ the dial!

It has been way to long since I have posted here on the blog, and really I have done very little operating!

This past weekend was the CQ World Wide WPX SSB contest.  My son Nick, KE0ATH has been trying off and on to make some contacts on 10 meters since he is a Tech.  I thought this contest would be great for him, so we carved out about 45 minutes on Sunday to get on the air.

Tuning around 10 meters we heard some stations calling CQ without many takers, it was late in the contest.  Some of the stations we worked had like 3,000 contacts, and were handing out #001! 🙂

We ended up working exclusively into South America.  Nick would give them a call, and when he was successful I would give them a call.  Great fun!

We have the KX3 set at 12 watts into my 66″ dipole fed with ladder line.  Tunes up great.

If you look at the picture of the rig, you can see the stand that Nick 3D printed for me to hold the KX3.  He designed it in Autodesk Inventor and printed it – it also has my call sign inlayed into it in the lower right hand corner.  It works perfectly!

We worked everyone that we called as well.

We worked just 6 stations, but it was fun.  Here is who we worked:

PY3KN Brazil
NR6O California USA
PJ2T Cuaraco
CE3CT Chile
HK3C Columbia
8P5A Barbados

It was great fun, and Nick had a blast working his first HF contacts!  Plus I picked up several new DXCC entities for myself!

Burke Jones, NØHYD, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Kansas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Nick KE0ATH Spinnin’ the dial!

It has been way to long since I have posted here on the blog, and really I have done very little operating!

This past weekend was the CQ World Wide WPX SSB contest.  My son Nick, KE0ATH has been trying off and on to make some contacts on 10 meters since he is a Tech.  I thought this contest would be great for him, so we carved out about 45 minutes on Sunday to get on the air.

Tuning around 10 meters we heard some stations calling CQ without many takers, it was late in the contest.  Some of the stations we worked had like 3,000 contacts, and were handing out #001! 🙂

We ended up working exclusively into South America.  Nick would give them a call, and when he was successful I would give them a call.  Great fun!

We have the KX3 set at 12 watts into my 66″ dipole fed with ladder line.  Tunes up great.

If you look at the picture of the rig, you can see the stand that Nick 3D printed for me to hold the KX3.  He designed it in Autodesk Inventor and printed it – it also has my call sign inlayed into it in the lower right hand corner.  It works perfectly!

We worked everyone that we called as well.

We worked just 6 stations, but it was fun.  Here is who we worked:

PY3KN Brazil
NR6O California USA
PJ2T Cuaraco
CE3CT Chile
HK3C Columbia
8P5A Barbados

It was great fun, and Nick had a blast working his first HF contacts!  Plus I picked up several new DXCC entities for myself!

Burke Jones, NØHYD, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Kansas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].