******** The Official amateur radio thread ********

[Feek]

Wait. What!

You take that tiny wee thing, power it with half a phone battery. Send out morse over 7m cables and theres some dude in NZ who can pick it up?!

Feek, you have blown my mind!

Surely attenuation is a significant factor at such weak strengths? Is that why the signals are so long?

You've got it - It's using a simple half wave dipole aerial, probably one of the most basic and straightforward aerials you can make.

I have a homebrew dipole in my loft for the 50MHz band and I've spoken to people around 3,000km away using it. It's two pieces of wire and a length of coax, that's it.

The signals are very weak from our slow Morse beacon, you couldn't have a conversation at that sort of signal but the fact is that the signal does make it and can be displayed. Our beacon has been described by someone in Pensacola, Florida as one of the most important there is for propagation testing because we're always the first one who drops onto his screen as the conditions change throughout the day. If he doesn't see our signal appear then he doesn't bother listening for any other Europeans

 

[Feek]

Such as?

I suppose sending morse over such vast distances using home made kit is sort of cool but beyond that and chatting to people about the sizes of your aerial I can't really see the point in this. But you could say that about most hobbies maybe? So, beyond talking to fellow radio fans about radio stuff and sending low strength code where is the attraction?

I suppose a lot of talk is about the hobby, it's like when you get two people who have a similar interest, they'll talk about it. I do remember a contact I had with someone a few months ago who told me that if you don't know the name of the other persons dog at the end of the conversation then you're not trying hard enough! I said that I don't own a dog but if I did, it would be called Bonzo. His reply was that he doesn't either but he does own a cat and his cats name IS Bonzo

This isn't at University of Bath is it?

No, they're doing fine.

Today I've been operating using Radio Teletype (RTTY) which you may remember from years ago when the footie results used to come up at the end of World of Sport and they'd appear on a teleprinter. It's all done by computer now but the actual audio tones generated are the same, for a sample click here. I've communicated with people in the USA, Aruba, Latvia, Sweden, Ukraine, Belarus, Bulgaria, Japan, Macedonia, Indonesia, Georgia, Bermuda, Canada and others using RTTY today.

 

[Feek]

Do you have any pictures of your... you know... inside gear?

Not really, I'm on the verge of stripping my shack out completely and rebuilding it to give me more space so will post pictures once that's done.

So... I just contacted my local amature radio club for the foundation training. It does say on their website that they will only run it if there is enough interest

Am I able to put up an aerial and just listen for now? So I can get a feel for things? I have never used amateur radio stuff before :/

Yes, there's nothing stopping you doing that - For receiving then a simple bit of wire strung around as high and as long as you can get it will be fine.

 

[Feek]

Really interesting thread, thanks for posting it.

So are most of the people you contact able to speak English?

Also, how good is a connection to someone, like can you lose a signal during a conversation and not be able to get it back sometimes, e.g. if the weather suddenly takes a turn for the worse or something?

From seeing the morse being sent, could you transmit data i.e. computer files to someone and if so at what kind of data rate? Or would it be fairly useless for something that large.

Almost everyone speaks English, I know a few phrases in some languages that I use from time to time but the common language is English.

It's very possible to lose a signal. Propagation can change very rapidly and signals can go from being incredibly strong to being inaudible. Back in September I had a few RTTY contacts in a contest first thing in the morning before heading out for a while and conditions were good. On my way home I had a text from my brother saying that he'd put his radio on and the bands were dead. I had a look at a site which monitors solar activity when I got home and saw this.

There had been a massive solar flare at 09:40 which totally wiped out all the HF bands. That image should be completely black!

Checking a couple of the slow Morse grabbing stations around the world, it was possible to see exactly when the solar flare hit the planet. The first one is in Essex, the second is in the Netherlands and you can see the signals just vanishing as the solar flare hit us.

File transfer by radio really isn't practical, the bandwidth just isn't there.

The highest point on the house/in the garden is my TV aerial (no longer used) - Would that do, maybe if I ran the wire the length of the garden and back?

I wouldn't double it back on itself but if you can go down one side and back the other, that'll be OK.

 

[Feek]

Yeah, that's Slow Scan TV (SSTV) that PB mentioned. I used to mess around with SSTV on the 2m (144MHz) band many years ago but really it quite bored me. Two minutes to send a grainy picture isn't really my idea of fun but some radio hams spend a lot of time doing it. Each to their own.

 

[Feek]

Kinda cool, I guess.

Seems like an utter waste of time and money, why do this when we have the internet.

You didn't read my first post then where I said that the thrill is doing it all unassisted. I can communicate with the world without having to rely on anyone else whatsoever.

It's a niche hobby though, no doubt.

Stiggeh, the 950 is a nice wireless. I have no brand loyalty though and when I was looking to replace my 847 I went with the Kenwood TS-590 and what a cracking piece of kit it is.

 

[Feek]

Have you thought about doing a live web feed so we can listen to your dulcet tones?

Feek FM

Oh my word, not a chance! Besides, I very rarely use FM

Interesting thread, I always wondered about amateur radio and this has cleared a few things up.

I think it would have definitely interested me if the internet had not evolved as it did as it could have been very practicable apart from a hobby.
Where would you say the future is in this though, has this kind of technology peaked?

Nope, new stuff is still being done all the time. There's always work being done to improve the data modes and as technology moves on, equipment changes.

Also, when you say you do not go over 400mhz - is that a legal limit?

No, the 400 is 400 watts, the legal limit in the UK for power is 400 watts. We are allowed to use frequencies as high as (get this) 76GHz. That's pretty specialised though and there's not much going on that high.

I remember when I was young my dads friend had this hand-held scanner for picking up emergency services voice-wave (he said this was legal), but I remember him scanning once and it started picking up mobile calls!
Are mobile calls still sent out by this kind of system or is it all encrypted somehow now?

Police transmissions have been digital (using the Airwave system) now for quite a few years and they're very heavily encrypted. I'm not sure about the fire and ambulance services. Mobile phones are all digital as well now. Baby monitors can be a good source of entertainment though

my uncle is into ham Radio, G4XFC

He also helps with the Lincoln short wave radio club http://www.g5fz.co.uk/

The callsign is familiar but he's not in my log for the last year. I have spoken to the Lincoln club though, they ran a Special Event station last year to commemorate the Dambusters raid.

I know from previous threads that we have a few people in the forums with licences, it'd be good for some of them to join in here.

 

[Feek]

How much of it is it realistically possible to make yourself?

It's possible to make everything yourself. It's possible to build entire transceivers, aerials, tuners, power suppies and even the feeder that goes from the radio to the aerial. But it's very unusual for people to have complete 'homebrew' stations. I make my own wire aerials and as I said previously, I'm in the middle of building my own 3.5MHz transceiver.

So do you have to "renew" every five years? Is it different for the different tiers?

Can't remember now but I think it was an annual payment. It was the same for everyone but I'm not sure how it works now. Also, I believe I can apply for a new callsign now that would allow me to use HF, as they scrapped the morse exam some time ago (shame, IMO).

There is no longer any licence fee, that was scrapped a few years ago and the licence is now a free renew every five years. That just consists of logging onto the Ofcom site and clicking renew! If you had a callsign previously you could just get that reissued and you'll have a full licence.

It does look incredibly interesting, but probably like a few others here it seems like a massive investment. When you search for "what HAM gear for beginners" you always find the things that are recommended are in excess of a grand, and that's not even counting the aerial (or is it antenna?). I'd be up for some scratch building but there's very little i can find on the subject.

Anything you would recommend keeping an eye out for? HAM or CB...

You can get a 100m reel of cable that's good for making wire aerials from Rapid for about £25. Even if you were to buy a brand spanking new radio such as an FT-897 or FT-857 you're looking at under £800 or if you go for an FT-817 which is effectively the same radio but just 5 watts output then that's around £520 I think. Second hand prices are much lower.

If you don't want to play HF just yet then you can pick up a simple VHF/UHF handheld from eBay for less than fifty quid! That'll do nicely for talking to locals on FM and through any local repeater.

One thing please - 'Ham' is not an abbreviation or acronym. It should not be capitalised.

 

[Feek]

It's not know exactly where the term 'ham' came from although it's conjectured that when people first started messing around with radio the term was used in a derogatory sense by the radio professionals. It stuck.

It's not a term I use myself, nor is it that common in the UK but I don't have anything against it.

Anyway.

Things to do tomorrow.
Check to see if I'm getting power to my SGC 237 Smartuner. If there's power at the end of the cable then check fuses and investigate to see why it's not working. If I've got no power then go in the loft to check the power cable.

Once smartuner is fixed, hang an random length doublet from the mast to the end of the garden. Mount the smartuner onto my mast and use 450 ohm ladder line feeder from the doublet to the tuner. This should allow me to operate on the 80m (3.5MHz) band.

If I can't get the smartuner working then I might replace my off centre fed dipole with a single band 40m dipole instead.

Then I need to lower the 20ft pole with my weather station on and move the rainfall sensor to a much more stable platform, extending the cable between them and installing a good ferrite choke at each end so that no RF gets in the cable and affects the readings.

There's a RTTY contest running from 12:00 on Saturday to 12:00 on Sunday that I might give away a few points in and if I get the smartuner working then there's an 80m contest from 14:00 to 18:00 that I'd also like to have a shout in.

 

[Feek]

So apparently there's a Class A IPv4 network reserved for amateur radio usage... that isn't being used for anything.

http://www.ampr.org/

I used to have 44.131.2.232 if my memory serves me correctly. That was a long time ago.

My dads a radio ham and I remember him doing compertitions where we would sit in a tent on a hill with a great big mast with all his raio buddies ...many many years ago
My Dads a G3, bet there arnt many of those left these days.

Not too many but if I search my log for the last couple of years I find 186 entries. Surprisingly there are fewer G1s, G6s and G7s about than there are G3s. I guess that's because at the time those callsigns were a stepping stone to the full Class A licence.

Contests like you've described still happen.

 

[Feek]

http://websdr.org/ is an index of web based receivers you can mess around with.

As a general rule of thumb, the lower bands (1.8MHz, 3.5MHz and 7MHz) go 'long distance' overnight and are local during daylight hours. By local I mean UK and Europe.

The bands from 14MHz upwards will be open during the day and dead when it's dark. 28MHz, 24MHz and 21MHz will start producing results in the morning from the east and the openings will move around to south america and then north america in the afternoons. 18MHz and 14MHz are the sams but not quite so pronounced.

The time of year makes a big difference as well.

Radio propagation is a fascinating thing

Incidentally, I wasn't able to sort my smartuner at the weekend. I deinstalled it and checked to make sure there was no problem with the power supply. Once I'd determined that was OK I checked the tuner itself. This is what I found.

It's supposed to be totally waterproof at 2ft depth for 24 hours. It's clearly not! That's been nailed to a wall on the outside of my house for around eighteen months but I've not actually used it since June last year and there's no way there should have been that water ingress through it just being fixed to a wall in a fairly sheltered location.

It's now gone back to the supplier for refund or replacement (I doubt it's repairable) as even though it's outside the one year warranty period, it's clearly not fit for purpose. I'd happily have another one and would modify the installation to ensure it's protected as it's obviously not as waterproof as it's supposed to be.

 

[Feek]

Feeling a bit overwhelmed

I've always said there's a lot to the hobby, it's not just talking to Vlad in The Ukraine and discussing the weather

Do you ever get conversations with more than two people?

Yes, regularly. The lower bands which are good for UK/EU propagation during the daytime have a lot of 'nets' on them. They're often arranged by clubs and groups and a lot of people partake.

The first time I spoke to ZL (New Zealand) it was two Kiwis talking to each other inviting others to call in. That was a nice contact.

 

[Feek]

I've been operating in a contest today, exclusively on the 21MHz (15m) band and here's an approximate map of the people I've spoken to. I say it's approximate because it's not possible to locate people exactly just from a quick exchange of callsign, signal report and serial number.

I'll do some more tomorrow morning, fill in some more Europeans and hopefully some far East as well, possibly VK and ZL (Australia and New Zealand).

 

[Feek]

You mean 9H1DE in Malta?

 

[Feek]

Not a good morning.

I managed another 25 or so contacts and then my aerial failed.

The first indication was my amplifier cutting out so I bypassed it and did a quick check on the VSWR which was showing high - Plugged the analyser into the aerial and this is what I found.

It looks as though the balun at the feedpoint of the aerial has failed. The figure to the right of the frequency which reads 2.9 should be as close to 1.0 as possible and the impedance should be 50 ohms, not 142.

A quick google shows me that this is a weak point and prone to failure. I can't do it today but I need to lower the aerial check this and then it should be a simple fix.

My final map for the weekend is this:

Not as good as I'd hoped but hopefully it'll be enough to win the division I plan to enter.

 

[Feek]

Oooops yours is brand new too not the quality i would expect when paying £500. I have read about burnt-out traps on earlier models, I would expect much better from Cushcraft. poor quality, Moonraker yes - Cushcraft no.

The fibreglass holding the elements together looked shoddy to me.

Funnily enough, that fibreglass isn't a regular point of failure but the balun and the traps are.
Mine was new but second hand, the original owner bought it a few years ago but due to deteriorating health it was never put up. It never even came out of the box. I believe that it was from the days before MFJ took over Cushcraft so it should be decent quality.

I'm pretty sure the problem isn't with any of the traps because if it was, only some bands would be affected but they all are, hence my feelings that it's the balun.

Hmm didn't notice the OCuK radio club before

Well I got my intermediate license yonks ago mainly for some outwards bound programme with lots of 13 year olds to organise and marshal. I must say that I never got into it to any real extent, only occasionally using a couple of little hand helds and my old man's serious mast. It's nice to see that there are more people lurking out there

My word... they get everywhere

We do! It's surprising how many people have taken the foundation and intermediate licences and then not really used them. There was a thread on here a couple of years ago and a few people said they've done it but let it lapse. It's a shame but at least it's there if they want to come back to it in the future.

 

[Feek]

Solar Cycle 24 should peak next year, it really started taking off about four or five months ago. It's fantastic! Radio conditions at the peak of the cycle have to be heard to be believed. The band that really benefits is the 10m (28MHz) band and it's been really good for a while now. It's the band I've worked the most countries on, I'm up to over 130 on 10m now with a huge chunk of those being in the last few months.

 

[Feek]

Thanks Rob

I've sorted the aerial - Or at least I've found the problem. Clearly a weak point, one of the coax tails between the matching network (balun) and the 12m/17m dipole was faulty so I've removed it which has got me going on 10m, 15m and 20m and I'll get it replaced next weekend when I can manufacture a new tail.

 

[Feek]

Hey Chris!

I post over on HamRadioForum which isn't really busy but you may get some answers. It's UK based which is a bonus - The only other place I could suggest are the qrz.com forums although you seem to be getting a good response on the UK Vintage Radio and Restoration forum

Good luck with your Foundation course - I wonder where you're doing it, which club?

 

[Feek]

You can't post there because your account is awaiting email verification so you need to click on the link you were emailed.

What you've suggested is perfect. I'd love to have an abundance of trees around my property as they really are ideal aerial anchors. It would mean that it would be really easy to chop and change around and try different HF wire aerials. I'm sorted for the higher bands (20m through 10m) with my beam and have a dipole up for 40m but I struggle with 80m and 160m. Considering one of my goals is a full five band DXCC, I'm going to need a decent aerial for 80m.