AmateurRadio.com

With my KX3 on the fritz (boxed up, ships out tomorrow) I won’t be able to join in on the fun in chasing K1N on Navassa Island. But I did manage to sneak in some time this evening on K2SDR’s internet enabled software defined radio station. Just listening to the CW pileup makes you wonder if you’ll ever be good enough to pick them out of the pile! Here’s a view of what 20M CW is like….K1N is the station on the left…the rest to the right are in the pile!

Michael Brown, KG9DW, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Illinois, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

This evening I listened for G6ALB on 70cm. Andrew is 3km from me. We both have V2000 vertical co-linear antennas. He was using a very low cost SAW locked TX module, which produced as much FM as AM when modulated with an electret mic. The biggest problem was Andrew’s low power and low level of modulation.  He needs more mic gain, more TX power (10dB more?) and some pre-emphasis on the audio. TX power today was very low milliwatts. From 433.925MHz up to at least 433.990MHz a lot of squeaks and whistles could be heard, presumably from more local ISM devices. I was receiving G6ALB using an FT817 at about RS41 on FM and weaker on AM. This very initial test produced results that were expected. To use a super-regen module on RX (the intention is a very simple AM voice transceiver) will require G6ALB to be considerably stronger than on these first tests.

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

I was excited to see the Raspberry Pi 2 announced today

One is on the way. It will be interesting to see how it works out – particularly for some of the more heavy duty apps I have tried in the past such as FLDigi.

A new version of the OS compiled for the new processor is required and can be downloaded here

More news when it arrives!

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

I was excited to see the Raspberry Pi 2 announced today

One is on the way. It will be interesting to see how it works out – particularly for some of the more heavy duty apps I have tried in the past such as FLDigi.

A new version of the OS compiled for the new processor is required and can be downloaded here

More news when it arrives!

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

As most know today is Superbowl Sunday and most if not all are watching the game and for sure the half time show. I wanted to include ham radio in my Superbowl Sunday, so I was able to have radio to my left and the football game straight on in front of me. I made three contacts all State side North Carolina, Michigan and Missouri. I did have another op deep in the noise floor trying to contact me after one on my contacts ended. After several tries it just was not going to happen so we both moved on. The bands I stayed with were 20m and 30m I am not sure what the condition were like on the bands but I was being heard in the U.S. according to the reverse beacon network.  No huge distances were made this evening but I was able to get a good morse code workout.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].