AmateurRadio.com

1. Crystal oscillator for 98.5 MHz.  Check.
2. TUF-1 and TUF-3 mixers.  Check.
3. SMT protoboard.  Check.
4. MMIC amplifiers.  Check.
5. Larcan TV exciter amp.  Check.

Do you see what I see?  Yes, a 222-MHz transverter is on the horizon.

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

Paul Stam, PC4T, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from the Netherlands. Contact him at [email protected].

It’s the RSGB’s Centenary Year and the callsign G100RSGB has been doing the rounds of the clubs in the UK, a bit like an Olympic torch of the air! Well, this weekend was the turn of the Harwell Amateur Radio Society and they very kindly invited me to come and join in with some operating.

I popped down first thing on Saturday morning. I decided to try some 14MHz CW operation which was modestly busy. G100RSGB is a real pig of a callsign to send on a keyer you don’t know. So, after being very gently chided for sending G1??RSDD I decided that perhaps it would be prudent to find another mode!

We got the 50MHz station setup and although there was no Es around, it was fun working some tropo contacts on the band, including a number of stations setting up for VHF NFD. I was particularly impressed to work DJ6XV and another of the team worked a GM/P. On 144Mhz, Ann found some propagation to the south, working an EA1 portable as well as some French stations down in IN93.

Mike G8CUL gets the G100RSGB station at Harwell ready for some DX!

It was great fun to join in with the celebration and many thanks to the Harwell club for the very kind invitation.

In the afternoon, I made a few 50MHz VHF NFD QSOs, I was particularly pleased to work EI9E/P and GW2OP/P – not bad tropo with my vertical antenna – so definite ‘Golden Ears’ awards for the operators there for pulling me out of the noise.

By chance, later in the afternoon, I noticed that Dave M6RPI had launched another pair of balloons, one of them, once again, carrying Kingsley, the Reading FC mascot. It was fun to track the ascent of the balloon, and noticing the temperature figures reported, showed very clearly that a temperature inversion was going on. One moment the temperature was around -17C and then another 10000m higher and the temperature was just above zero.

It was fascinating to listen to the balloon transmission and for the first time, I was monitoring when the balloon burst. It was quite apparent as the steady signal suddenly started Doppler shifting as the payload fell at around 1km every 15 seconds. Poor Kingsley the lion! But have a look at Dave’s video of the balloon burst and see some stunning video footage

Video courtesy of Dave Akerman M6RPI

Then today, I was busy writing the PW column which was enjoyable. In odd breaks I made a few QSOs on 70MHz and again was particularly pleased to work GW2OP/P and EI9E/P. I did faintly hear a GM at one stage, but nowhere near workable. Very pleasing on the vertical.

After I’d finished the column and a few household chores, I noticed an FO-29 pass was due. I decided to have a listen and put the Elk antenna together quickly. There seemed to be some FM interference, but it was nice to hear Bob G0FGX coming through nicely. It turns out Bob is close to where my Mum and Dad used to live in Cornwall.

Finally, as I had the Elk hooked up to the FT817, I decided to see what I could hear and work with the Elk, handheld in the back garden on 144MHz in NFD. I was delighted to work GW2OP/P (again) and even more surprised to work MM0CPS/P in IO84. More Golden Ears awards, fellas!

A nice varied weekend’s radio!

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

My Motorola Droid has been sent away for repair (requiring a part from China, a two week wait and a cost of over £50.) As I am therefore without a phone, I thought that I would try to install XDAndroid on my old HTC Touch Pro. I tried it once before about 3 years ago and it worked well enough to convince me that Android was a better phone operating system than Windows Mobile 6.1, but not well enough to be usable as an everyday phone.

This time I hoped that there would have been some updates to make Android more stable. The installation process seemed easier than I remembered. I thought I would document it, not just for others but for my own benefit in case I want to repeat the procedure for a third time.

You will need a blank microSD card. 4GB is plenty big enough. Then download the XDAndroid package from the repository at http://htcandroid.xland.cz/. I chose GBX0C_Full_Bundle_2012.04.24.zip because it was the newest.

Unzip the package to a temporary folder. The result is a folder named after the bundle,containing the files. Copy all the files (but not the folder itself) to the root directory of the microSD card.

The next step is to identify your model of phone. There is a long string of letters and numbers under the battery near the serial number stickers in tiny print. It will be 4 letters and a number. Mine said RAPH100: Raphael is the code name for the Touch Pro.

Having determined the code name, look in the files you unzipped for a folder named Startups. It contains several folders with names to match the phone. In the RAPH folder was another folder named RAPH100. That folder contains a file named startup.txt. Copy this to the root directory of the microSD card along with the other files. Now you can put the microSD card in the phone, replace the battery and switch it on.

Using the WinMo file manager look in the root of the storage card. There should be a file named Haret.exe. This is a Windows program. Run it. You should see a window that says “Booting Linux” which quickly changes to a console screen with tiny writing scrolling up the screen (I needed the extra strength reading glasses I use for fine electronic work.)

Watch the boot process carefully. It should stop at one point and ask you to perform the screen calibration. When I did this before, I recall that the the script displayed boxes on the screen that I had to tap with the stylus. This time there were no boxes displayed, so I had to guess the positions. The first time I guessed wrong: the result was an installation of Android that was insensitive to my touches.

I tried again after watching a YouTube video of the process which showed the screen calibration and saw that the tap points were: top left, top right, screen centre, bottom left and bottom right. After you have tapped the five points the boot process then carries on for several more minutes after which you should see an Android opening screen. Swipe the lock to the right and away you go!

In Windows Mobile you can create a shortcut to the program Haret.exe in your Start Menu which will make it easier to start Android next time. Do be certain that you create a shortcut not a copy because Haret has to be run from the root of the microSD card.

This version of XDAndroid seems a bit more stable than the one I installed three years ago. It’s good enough  for an emergency phone, which this is, but it runs slowly and functions like Bluetooth and GPS don’t work reliably. Development of this Android port ceased a year or so ago so there won’t be any updates. Interest in running Android on HTC Windows Mobile devices ebbed away as the users got themselves real Android phones. But it will do for now. It whiled away an afternoon and resulted in something I can use until my Droid returns from repair.

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].

Hanz and I went canoeing on Hermit Lake this morning. We made a QSO with NC while /mm and then we stopped on an island and made a few more… it was all makeshift because I forgot a tuner!

It was 85 degrees on Hermit Lake… hot and humid, but with a nice breeze. We set out about 10:30 with an FT-817, a bit of wire and hopes for a great adventure. That’s when things started going wrong…

As I began to raise the 14 foot fiberglass pole, I broke off the tip and had to rethink my strategy for attaching a wire. I knotted the wire around the tip and pretended everything was fine. I reached for the tuner, only to discover I had left it behind in a last minute gear switch. I thought the adventure was over… but recovered quickly. Oh well… who needs a tuner? We’ll just find the band with the lowest SWR and hope for the best.

After putting up the antenna, I stuffed the wire into the center conductor of the SO239 on the back of the rig. I didn’t even use a counterpoise. I turned the rig on 17 meters and there was K2J, the 13 Colonies Special Event Station from North Carolina, calling CQ with an S9 signal. I called him signing /MM. He came right back to me. Hanz and I grinned from ear to ear. I told the operator I was on a lake in New Hampshire and thanks for the contact! Then I realized I had forgotten to switch on the external battery. I was running with 2 1/2 watts on the internal AAs with no tuner. And all that with a few feet of wire wrapped around a 14 foot pole lashed to the canoe with rubber bands… and no counterpoise. To make things worse, the bands were clearly very poor. Geepers!

We floated around for a while but there wasn’t a lot of activity. At one point we heard KG4TO in Guantanamo Bay. He heard us and tried coming back to the /MM, but he couldn’t quite get our call. We headed for an island to get
out of the wind a bit.

Once there, we decided to land and set up a dipole cut to frequency. We grabbed the gear, and headed up a short but steep hill. At the top was a clearing with some tall trees. We heaved a wire over a branch and pulled up 33 feet of wire and laid a counterpoise over the tops of some bushes, and listened around. 20 meters sounded like the best bet. We had to shorten the wires a bit to lower the SWR, but quickly made contact with Paul, KW7D in NM. Paul gave me a 579 and we were thrilled. Hanz took the key.

Hanz worked K2G, the 13 Colonies station in Georgia. Tim gave us a 599. We figured we’d beaten the odds of an outing with no tuner and called it quits.

Jim Cluett, W1PID, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Hampshire, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

QRP at Luther Marsh... note one of Julies cameras

On Saturday morning Julie and I decided to take a hobby trip (Julies photography and my ham radio) we were off to a place called Luther Marsh. We have never been there before so we Google mapped it and off we went.....what could go wrong.....LOTS. This was a place that Julie was recommended to go by some bird watchers. It's about an hour and a half from where we live but they say getting there is half the fun.....and boy was it. Our trip according to Google maps brought us zigging and zagging all over the map. Once the road adventure was done we ended up on a lonely dirt road with a gate saying " DO NOT ENTER" Hmmmm it was time to bring out the Iphone GPS and find out where the heck we where. Well it was about another 20 minutes of driving  and we did arrive at our destination. We loaded up the camera and ham gear into our "hobby stroller" and ventured down a path in the wildlife

A view from below

sanctuary. We were not alone on the trail it was me, Julie and 

Julie's shot of the day an Osprey

deer flies!!!  We did have bug repellant  but it just had no affect on them at all. I was not bothered but poor Julie had at least 10-15 buzzing around her head all the time....and biting her!! We turned around and decided to call it a day, on the way out we noticed a path and this path lead to a lookout about 3 stories high. We went up to have a look and low and behold no deer flies. We had our lunch up there and Julie was able to take pictures and I was able to have to some radio time.
I took with me my Elecraft KX3, Alexloop, tripod and a spare battery. It was great, there was no noise level at all on the KX3 and one would wonder if the rig had a receive problem. I started to call CQ and it was not long before VE1AB in Nova Scotia  came back to me. John gave me an RST of 559 and we had a nice long CW chat it seemed that John had been to Luther Marsh several times when in Ontario.  I did have to say 72 to him as my batteries had to be changed in the KX3. I then called CQ again on 20m and WW2SUB came back to me.......hey guess where he was???? This was the first time EVER I had contacted a Submarine . He was on the USS batfish. I thought my CW was off and it was supposed to be copied as battleship. When I got home and did a QRZ.COM search....it was in fact called the USS Batfish!

Camera and ham gear stroller (mainly camera gear)

Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].