AmateurRadio.com

It doesn’t surprise me but G1KQH has told me that Moonraker (and others?) is offering the FT817ND for just £459.95 after a Yaesu cashback deal. I paid £499 from MLS for cash a few months ago.

Based on the favourable change in exchange rate much lower prices should be expected soon. And, of course, the replacement for the FT817ND is nowhere to be seen.

BTW, I recommend you don’t buy patch leads from Moonraker – the ones I bought were useless at both ends with intermittent joints. I guess they just buy these in, but it would be good if they actually checked some as well! All I am saying is Moonraker (and others?) should periodically do quality checks on products they sell. There really is no excuse in the 21st century for selling poor quality goods. I did complain to Moonraker who offered me money back or exchange. Exchange for the same quality?  No thanks.  Andrew G6ALB kindly replaced the coax connectors at both ends  – a decent solution. I guess buying a rig from them is low risk. Patch leads? Definitely dodgy unless you know the supplier checks stock for quality.

OFCOM is consulting on the agenda items for the World Radio Conference WRC2015 which takes place November 2015. See http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/consultations/wrc15/ .

The proposal is to support moves to allocate 5250-5450kHz to the Amateur Service on a secondary basis. This would replace the messy channels currently available. I recommend you write to OFCOM to support this move, which would give us a new ham band at 60m – ideal as the current sunspot cycle declines.

If allocated, it could be a few years before available.

Some would say it was 30 years too late, but here in the UK, today was the day that AM and SSB CB was made legal on the CEPT ‘mid’ band, with an output power of 4W AM and 12W SSB. Good news as far as I am concerned and it will give me the opportunity to make contact with various friends who are active on CB and not amateur radio.

Not much about in the way of Es today, although I did manage a late afternoon QSO with HA8IB on 50MHz. Pretty quiet apart from that.

Late in the afternoon, I caught a couple of VO-52 satellite passes. The first was a very low angle one, around 2 degrees over Russia. I had a nice snappy CW QSO with Imre HA1SE. I was pleased to find I could work a pass at that distance and elevation, as I’d love to try working UA9CS and potentially even UA0SUN.

The second pass was a bit higher and I had a sketchy exchange – I’m not going to call it a QSO with 4X1AJ, but we heard each other before some noise kicked in here and that was that. As we’re both reasonably regularly active, I’m hopeful of making a QSO before long.

There’s no way to sugar coat this.  My marriage of nearly 21 years is over and my XYL and I are separating.  It’s been a rough past two months leading up to this (actually, come to think of it, maybe it’s been a rough few years), to the point where I’ve been physically ill thinking about everything from family to how will the grass at the house get mowed.  The emotions involved are overwhelming…. sadness, hurt, anger, hate, bitterness, uncertainty….relief…. But with every chapter that ends, a new one begins.

I’ve been house and building lot hunting, and getting an education on home owners’ associations, the bane of many a radio artisan.  I have a few good real estate prospects, one house in particular is ideal for an amateur radio QTH as it has a relatively high elevation, is wooded, has few other houses around, and I have information from a good source that the HOA is rather loosey-goosey.  It will be quite awhile until I can get a tower up again, so it’s back to basics with dipoles strung in trees.  Basics and simplicity appeal to me at this point in my life.  Now that I’m in my 40s and my daughter is heading to college next year I don’t need much of a house.  It seems most nice houses on the market here are just too big for me.  I’m looking at house plans in case I need to construct a home, as a “Plan B” option.  In any case I’ll probably settle on something that would normally be classified as a vacation cottage.

Despite the gut-wrenching situation with the marriage and my family, I’m looking forward to this transition and journey.  Outside of the mundane legal and administrative tasks that need to be completed and the grieving process with myself and the family, I’m somewhat excited about the transition.  While I’m losing a lot I’m gaining freedom and the opportunity to retool my life, simplify, be true to myself, and be happy.  Freedom and happiness have a lot of value, more value than material items.  My bucket list has expanded significantly and I plan to accomplish everything on the list these next 40 years.  I’m sure there will be a significant-other YL in my future after things settle down.  I hope to chronicle my journey here in the coming weeks and months.

Today I’m off from work, getting stuff done around the house and preparing for Field Day, one of my most favorite events of the year.  See you on the air this weekend!

Overnight, I remained on 10m but the only spots were by Es were from Norway, France, Spain and Germany plus G4KPX( local). No Es “super DX” here sadly!

At around 0904z I moved back up to 6m WSPR. with 1W ERP.  G0OQK (98km) was spotted 3 times (so far)  with moderate drift or Doppler , G4IKZ (18km) was spotting me at good strength and OH7AI (2000km) spotting me by Es at 0928z at -21dB S/N for the best DX so far today.

Sunspot count is 72 and 20-30MHz propagation “normal” so I’d expect F2 DX N-S today on 10m.

It’s almost the fourth weekend in June and you know what that means — Field Day 2014 is just around the corner!

Download: Field Day 2014 Information Packet

Are you planning to participate? If so, tell us about your operating plans in the comments below.

(And good luck!)