AmateurRadio.com

In China, there is a lot of passing around of designs, tweaking, improving upon, and re-branding.

In 2011 a company called VeroTelecom brought out a “UV-3R” radio which was picked up on by Baofeng and brought to a Western market where, eager for a bargain, it went down a storm. A year later, TYT made the TH-UV5R which again was picked up by BF and released in the West as the UV-5R. Initially meant as cheap SDR business band HTs, hams quickly noticed that they have a proper VFO making them perfect for our uses.

A year after that, Baofeng (now Pofung, internationally) designed and released their own radios based on the UV-5R; the UV-82, a more “professional” version of the UV-5R, and the UV-B5/UV-B6 with an entirely redesigned and far more selective RF front-end.

The first two are pants as radios go, with all kinds of weird bugs, overloading problems, and less-than-adequate phase noise and harmonic suppression performance.

The UV-82 crossed the line from “meh” into “good” with performance being on par with existing radios twice the price.

The UV-B5 blew all existing Baofengs out of the water, with on-air performance nearly matching that of Yaesu’s lower end Vertex (VX-**) series handhelds which cost five times the price. It has its quirks but for basic repeater ragchewing its value for money can’t be beaten.

The great thing is, all these radios can be had for under $35 if you know where to look: while not perfect they are a great way to get started, or to dip your toes into the hobby without spending too much. However, if you have the disposable income to put down on a more expensive radio, do – the Yaesu FT-60R is a good start.

If you’d like to read more about the differences between some of these radios, I go into a little more detail here.

Chris Northcott, 2M0FFY, is a special contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Edinburgh, Scotland.

I made another trip to American Sa’moa (KH8 for the radio amateurs in the audience) to deploy instrumentation.  It was a tight timeframe but the instruments seem to work and I managed to make a few ham radio contacts as well.

Ethan Miller, K8GU, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Maryland, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

At 1000z this morning I exchanged RST 579 reports with G6ALB who is 3km from me on my 40m Pixie on 7.023MHz CW. This was my first on-air QSO. Netting was perfect and I used the rig directly into my low Par triband antenna. An ATU might have helped. Andrew G6ALB said the channel was pretty busy but that I was a good RST579 with no hint of chirp. This afternoon we’ll put the rig on his spectrum analyser. I gave Andrew 579 probably reflecting the poorer MDS of the Pixie. I have no idea of his power or antenna.

My initial goals have been met: I built the kit and have managed a QSO on the air with it. With the fatigue associated with my brain bleed still very apparent (I am well and truly shattered currently), I was well pleased. A few more QSOs with the 40m Pixie would be good, HI.

$10 well spent. Excellent little kit. FB little transceiver. Works surprisingly well.

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

                                                   Visit to G-QRP Rishworth 2012.

So far it is the only Amateur Radio video I have made. I find I can write about this stuff, quicker and better than I can make video's. However I have not ruled out future output if I find something decent to record and I have the time to edit the footage.
 



For now I will leave it to the likes of VK3YE and  K7AGE etc, both who output some great "updated" interesting Video's over a wide area of various Ham Radio subjects.






Steve, G1KQH, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from England. Contact him at [email protected].

Hello, dear listeners. Linux in the Ham Shack is pleased to bring you Episode #141 of our program. In this episode, we talk about topics like satellite communications software for Linux, the new Raspberry Pi, The Walking Dead and making a quick, hot breakfast--among may, many other things. We hope you enjoy this program. And if you can help send us to Hamvention by giving us a donation, our campaign is almost over. Please check it out. And thank you for listening!

73 de The LHS Guys

Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

Well, it took a super-human effort on my part as a result of my extreme fatigue (brain bleed issue) but today I bench tested the little 40m Pixie kit I managed to build earlier this week. It is hard to explain just how exhausting this simple task was for me currently. I now need to recover my energy!

On receive a 1uV signal was perfectly readable and I could detect carrier on/off down to at least below 0.5uV. On TX it was putting out about 250mW into a 50 ohm load. On my antenna it was suffering some AM breakthrough, but less than I was expecting. I was using standard Walkman stereo headphones and a rechargeable 12V sealed lead acid battery. On a small 9V battery I’d expect about 100mW RF out, although this was not tried.

Overall, these results exceeded my expectations: it is more sensitive than I was expecting and the breakthrough of AM broadcasters is certainly OK in the day time. This is of course with no casing at all and no ATU. Using the fitted pot and fitted 1N4001 as a varicap it is easy to get the TX frequency and RX frequency to correspond, often an issue with very simple QRP rigs.

Next stage will be some on-air tests, but it most definitely works. Working the locals should certainly be possible. Sked with G6ALB (3km) arranged for 1000z Sunday on 7.023MHz CW.

UPDATE 2120z:  There is a contest in full swing and several Russians and Asiatic Russians copied on the little 40m Pixie. I did not stay on long but there was no apparent BC interference noticeable. So, on a quiet night I should able to use the rig in the evenings. The main issue on RX seems to be the lack of AF filtering, so one has to use “the filter that is between the ears” i.e.the brain.

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

From the World Radiosport Team Championship (WRTC) website:

The World Radiosport Team Championship (WRTC) is a competition between two-person teams of amateur radio operators testing their skills to make contacts with other Amateur Radio operators around the world over a 24 hour period. All teams use identical antennas from the same geographic region, eliminating all variables except operating ability.

WRTC2014 included 59 competing teams from 29 qualifying regions around the world. Competitors represented 38 different countries.

This is a unique contest in that the stations used are roughly identical so that operator skill is the main variable. I love watching these guys work the radios, especially the CW ops. Even if you are not a contester, take a look at this excellent video and enjoy radio hams having fun messing around with radios.

WRTC 2014 Documentary from James Brooks on Vimeo.

The post 2014 World Radiosport Team Championship 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].