Hi! My name is Gavin, welcome to my webpage. I hope to use this space to chronicle my adventures in amateur radio and electronics. I’ll most likely add a few pages about other hobbies and interest as and when I have time.
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Camb-Hams Mull 2012 DX’Pedition
So the Camb-Hams headed back to Mull for their 2012 DX’Pedition which I took the main lead on the VHF organising, we booked a cottage in the slightly rarer square of IO66. We initially planned activations on 6m, 4m, 2m and 3cm using SSB, CW and JT6m. In the end we managed much more than we ever intended, including EME on 2m, 2m/70cm satellite operations and later in the week a few QSOs on 23cm after swapping the 2m and 3cm kit over. 3cm from [...]
Yaesu’s Quadra VL-1000 Will do 70MHz
So I had noticed a while back, when developing my Icom (CI-V or band Data) to Yaesu BCD Band Data Converter that occasionally I could get 70MHz to show up as the band. I always had it in mind to investigate this further. Today I set about finding the BCD which selected 4m (70MHz) and found it with all BCD lines high (Band A=1, Band B=1, Band C=1, Band D=1, ) great! On page 5 of the manual it shows the pin-outs, on BAND-DATA 1 [...]
To Do – 24/10/2011
Just thought I would share some projects I have bits for, and can recall at the moment, but are in the waiting pile: – APRS beacon built around a PICAXE-08M which periodically wakes up, beacons and shuts down. – 3 x Azimuth rotator controllers. 2 for the CUWS (G6UW) and one for John G4BAO. – Write up an AZ and EL rotator interface, basically my own version of an LVB tracker or ST-2. – 30m QRSS CW beacon. – RTTY modulator for my IC-756pro3 using [...]
SCAM12 Installation
So I was convinced for my new mast I would use a SCAM12 after seeing G4ERO’s installation (picture on his QRZ page). I had done some antenna work round at Colins QTH and seeing how simple it was to erect (BINGO!) and take down. The mast is approx 3m when down (with antennas on) and the top of the SCAM12 is 12m when up. The SCAM12 is pneumatic and requires about 22PSI of pressure when fully up and mine stays up for days. The SCAM12 [...]
40m 1/4 Vertical [Epic] Antenna
![40m 1/4 Vertical [Epic] Antenna](http://www.geekshed.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/4m_vert_40m_only_thumb-150x150.jpg "40m 1/4 Vertical [Epic] Antenna")
So the antenna farm at M1BXF QTH just got larger with the addition of a 40m 1/4 vertical. I’d been thinking about this antenna for while as verticals are good for DX, more in this in a moment, and require little space to erect, but does need space for radials. The antenna is based on a 10m fiberglass pole for the vertical element support, 17 radials and a clothes line ground screw to hold it up. I ended up with 17 radials as I cut [...]