AmateurRadio.com

The UKube-1 satellite was launched this evening with the first pass due over the UK at 2014 local time.

Coincidentally, supper had finished around 2013 local time, so I sped upstairs and switched on the FT-847 with the V2000 vertical connected. The UKube-1 CW beacon on 145.840 plus minus doppler was the first target. It doesn’t transmit continuously, but I was pleased to hear it around 2018 local up on 846. Shortly after that, I heard the telemetry on 145.915 coming through at very good strength.

Congrats to the UK team responsible for the satellite!

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

I thought my hands and eyes were good enough to make a start on this kit, which I have only just unpacked, having had it for months. I was waiting until I was less clumsy. When built, this will make a really useful WSPR beacon.

The packing is wrong as I had asked for a GPS module, which is missing, but there is a surplus relay board in the box.  I was very careful unpacking the kit. and have left in packets those parts not yet needed. Some are anti-static.

Sadly, my eyes and hands are not really good enough: I started on the 10m LPF PCB and, frankly, this was a real struggle both for my eyes and hands. Tomorrow I shall test this with my generator and 50 ohm load.

Two people have very kindly offered their help building the kit. I fear I shall have to admit defeat and ask them to help me. This is a great pity as I was so hoping I’d be fit enough to build this. Sadly, this seems unlikely any time soon.  My stroke is taking its toll on my abilities. WSPR is OK, but I am struggling with building still.  Talking in tonight’s contest will be hard.

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

Like others, I enjoy learning about the early history of radio. It gives me an idea of how far the hobby and technology has come as well as inspiring the imagination.

I found a great site, MagazineArt.org, which allows the viewer to peruse many of the covers from a variety of periodicals from the early days of the wireless.

Check out some of them here:
Popular Radio
Radio Age
Radio Craft
Radio News
The Wireless Age
Shortwave Craft

Scott Hedberg, NØZB, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Kansas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Yet another variation on the Pixie arrived by email today from Sverre Holm in Norway who has LM386 mods to reduce BCI, provide mute and add sidetone.

See http://la3za.blogspot.no/2003/04/using-pin-7-of-lm386-to-reduce-bci-and.html .

This looks a very useful mod to this simplest of circuits. Sverre also added a much wider tuning range that helps to get contacts. Low power does not seem to be the main handicap.

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

6m July 08 Courtesy: ON4KST.org

50MHz continues to demonstrate its preference of early July to reveal its magical powers. Here in VE7 land, the band has been open continuously to some region for more than 48 hours. Yesterday's repeat west coast sporadic-E opening to EA7, EA8 and CT1 was capped with a multi-hour opening to Asia.

Six meter operators in the western part of the continent exchanged signals with Japan, Taiwan, China and South Korea beginning at around sunset on the west coast and continuing until 0230 the next morning! Many stations on both ends of the path filled their logs during the heyday event.

To add to the fun, BV2DQ (Ran) in Taiwan, was also active and gave several 6m ops a new country, working as far east as Colorado.


BA4SI (Li), in mainland China also handed out contacts to two old hands on six, K7CW (Paul) and KE7V (Johnny) who also happen to be brothers.

BA4SI 6m stacked Yagis

Paul also worked two stations in South Korea along with his 310 JA QSO's, beating out his brother's 300 contacts with Japan. KE7V reported working over 100 JA's on phone during the amazing conditions.  W7FI (Jim), in Seattle, also did well, with his comment from the ON4KST 50MHz chat page summing up the event

" W7FI Jim - That blows away my 113 JA last night, pile still calling when I qrt'd at 0800z. "

I was also present for the action, but worked only a few dozen of the strongest signals as I have been plagued with exceptionally high power line noise this summer, directly in line with Asia. Additionally, a new source of QRM has cropped-up in the form of an S9+ 49MHz wireless headset that has drifted up into the band. As the days get warmer, it has now drifted from below 50MHz up into the working part of the band and last night had settled itself smack on 50.090. Being a wide band FM signal, it effectively destroys any reception for about 50KHz of the band. As Murphy would have it, the crud is coming from the exact same direction as my beam heading to Asia. Yesterday I was able to roughly determine its location with a handheld Icom scanner and today I will use a quickly-built 6m dipole to zero-in on the offending source. Hopefully I can eliminate the problem soon.
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Peter DL3PB has sent details of his version of the Pixie transceiver. He claims no broadcast breakthrough by using this configuration and lots of QSOs.

Peter DL2PB’s Polyakov Pixie

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

To quote Robert Burns

The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, For promis'd joy!

That sums up my weekend perfectly.

After becoming licensed my eagerness got the better of me and in a moment of weakness I'd purchased a couple of 10m ready made cables from a major supplier only to discover quite quickly they were made from low grade RG58 coax (you can literally count the number of strands in the braid) and the connectors while serviceable were so poorly fitted they fell off!

James that PL259 has fallen off again!

I had refitted the connectors using some solder this time and had managed to blag a 20m length of good quality RG58 (this actually has some braid) and I am ashamed to say these cables have been the weak link in my set up for far too long and needed to be upgraded.

I also needed to sort out the mounting for my aerials. Up till now I have been using a 5 meter telescopic painting pole that had cost around £16 from B&Q, it was okay when I was just clamping one aerial at a time to it but with the purchase of the rotator I has been chancing my luck with the loading, narrowly avoiding catastrophe when pushing the pole. I also couldn't fully extend the top section as the tube and joint were potentially weak. It was guyed quite well but was far from aesthetically pleasing, even in the summer sunshine!

6M Moxon up on temporary pole

I couldn't fit anything to outside of the house, not only for logistical reasons but also it wasn't sanctioned by the station manager. Anything on the side of the house would be highly visible from the road and the back wall of the house has too many large windows and an extension making it inconvenient to fit and access anything.

Never fear I had a plan, a 20ft (6m) scaffold pole bolted using swivel joints on to to an another pole concreted in the ground in the back garden. The garden was extensively landscaped a few years back but it was before I became licensed, so I hadn't planned ahead. With careful negotiations with the station manager I secured a location where I could put it.

Thanks to my local handy man I now have two 10ft scaffold poles, sunk to a depth of nearly 5ft and encased in concrete in the corner of the lawn. A few inches of soil was left on the top to allow the grass to grow. They have been left for over a fortnight to completely set.

Scaffold pole sunk in ground

I ordered a 100M reel of RG213 coax from Nevada Radio along with plenty of high quality N-Type connectors and various clamps and intended to sort out my antenna set up this weekend and banish the abysmal RG58 coax and PL259 connectors to some dark corner of the shack.

Before I took everything down on Saturday I managed to make contact with GB0TDF the special event station being run by the Denby Dale Radio Society from Cartworth Moor, Holmfirth for the Tour de France Grand Départ

A few months back I picked up a cheap rotator at the Dambusters Hamfest. It is designed for television aerials and isn't heavy duty but I was sure it would cope turning with the small 2M, 70cm Yagi and a 6M antenna on the same pole, with the X-50 collinear on the very top. However I was concerned by the potential lateral loading.

The rotator is a generic design and I spotted that an optional support bearing is available as an accessory. I chanced on one via Ham Radio Deals and had salvaged several good lengths of galvanised pole from a skip where I work. So the plan arrangement was as shown.. simple right? 

Planned arrangement

It turned it a frustrating morning after cutting the metal pole to length, bolting and clamping everything together I tested it at ground level with no antennas and the rotator refused to turn correctly and I narrowly avoided burning it out.

I checked poles and they were true, the rotator was free running as was the bearing. I unbolted, fettled and just couldn't make it work. I went away and had a beer while watching some of the Tour de France on the TV and in a moment of clarity realised what the issue was.

The problem was the diameter of the salvaged pole I was using. It was was slightly narrower (a couple of millimetres) than the hole in the bearing. I'd assumed it would line up with the rotator as it was similarly clamped, however when all clamped up top and bottom the pole wasn't perfectly perpendicular and wouldn't turn due to the eccentricity, Hopefully the drawing illustrates the problem.


Annoyed by this basic school-boy error I reverted to Plan-B for the short term, no support bearing! I was in bad mood now and so decided to leave the rewiring to another day. So I quickly put the 2M yagi on the existing coax as a test on the new scaffold pole to make a few contacts for the VHF NFD.

Temporary installation to test scaffold pole

Walking up the scaffold pole is straight forward, I have bolted a small cut off of scaffold across the top of support poles to act as a safety stop, lowering it likewise easy and I will certainly build up the muscles!

I managed to grab just 8 QSOs but was otherwise engaged for the rest of the weekend, however I was encouraged by the distances.

A few 2M QSOs during the NFD, Tour de France, Grand Prix and fixing a dripping tap took priority ;-) pic.twitter.com/BECaepRIlu
— Andrew Garratt (@nerdsville) July 6, 2014

I hope to get the 70cm antenna up tonight on the RG513 ready for the 432MHz UKAC on Tuesday evening.

The birds like the new setup

Andrew Garratt, MØNRD, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from East Midlands, England. Contact him at [email protected].