Snippets

Something I’ve always enjoyed doing is giving talks & presentations to radio clubs. I do so with the hope that someone watching might learn something new, or even better be inspired by my mumblings to go try something new which…
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I’m in the middle of a house move, therefore I am unable to process any orders from the shop. Please check back soon (hopefully by early November 2020) where the shop will be open again, and I should have additional…
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The Issue I got an email from Goran, S55OO, who was after the ‘Tmate software’ to actually use the T-Mate control knob as it was no longer available to download from the web.  I’m quite good at organising and keeping…
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The 2019 Camb-Hams DX’Pedition is over, and to me this year again clearly demonstrates how much easier VHF is from the right location. This year, with little Sporadic E, GT3PYE/P managed 160x QSOs on 6m, 24x QSOs on 4m &…
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I posted this to Facebook in response to someone asking about if FT-8 was popular on VHF, I thought the information might be useful for others so I’ve copied the same message below; FT-8 is very popular in Region 1…
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Manufacturers have had built-in Voice Keyers for some time now, Icom have had it in various radio models with varying functionality.  Voice Keyers are useful for many types of operating, contesting being the main one. As mentioned, Icom, have implemented…
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KST2Me is an application written by Bo OZ1M, and makes using the ON4KST chat pages much simpler.  It uses the Telnet connection to the ON4KST server so it’s also much quicker on slower connections. One aspect which always bugged me…
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The Eltek SMPS 1800 SI 48v switch mode power supply is capable of supplying 37.5A (1800w) so is great for powering 48v amplifiers. The only issue, which is common to most rack mounted SMPSs is they have proprietary connectors on…
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I bought the TMate v1.0 “VFO Tuning Knob” a few years back at Friedrichshafen for use with my Flex-1500 as the TMate was much cheaper than Flex’s own “FlexControl”. When I bought it I was probably still using Windows XP,…
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NOTE: This article was written before FT-8, and even MSK144, became popular. Many of the principals I mention are applicable to both, where I mention FSK441 then MSK144 can be substituted, and where JT6m/JTMS etc is mentioned then FT-8 can…
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For Easter 2015 Bex and me decided to visit my parents in Dumbarton.  While there I took the time to catch up with Stevie MM6ZFG a couple of times to play radio. Kilcreggan – IO75OX – 3rd April 2015 The…
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The Problem As a member of the G3PYE contest minions, I bought two 25m runs of Ecoflex-15 back in 2011. A year later we started to notice less power at the antenna end of the runs, we initially put this…
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My mod was based on this article here http://www.rtl-sdr.com/improving-hf-reception-disconnecting-switching-power-supply-rtl-sdr/ I had no success using diodes myself so instead I used an LD1117A 1.2v regulator, which I think is a better solution too. This is the RTL-SDR (R802T) after fitting the…
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The brake in my G-400 rotator bell fell off and got jammed in the gears, this is not the first time this has happened and previously nothing was damaged, other than the brake disk, and I managed to get new…
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As with my other radios (IC-756pro3 IF Tap page, IC-910H IF Tap page & IC-706mk2G IF Tap page) I wanted to tap the IF (Intermediate Frequency 68.33MHz) out of my Yaesu FT-817 to allow monitoring on an SDR radio and…
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As with my other radios (IC-756pro3, IC-910H & FT-817) I wanted to tap the IF (Intermediate Frequency) out of my Icom IC-706Mk2G to allow monitoring on an SDR radio and associated software. The IC-706Mk2G has two IF frequencies, I tapped…
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To save a bit of desk space and to save me getting annoyed at solder getting tangled in my projects I decided to make a couple of solder holders / dispensers.

In my car I use an Icom IC-2820 which is a dual band (dual receive) mobile radio, but only ever monitor one side at a time (the other side has the volume down) and in the previous car I used…
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In the car I use an Icom IC-2820 as my VHF/UHF radio.  This has a packet port on it and previously I used to use an APRS tracker on it which would be switched on and off with the car…
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The Icom IC-756pro3 has 2 options for tapping the IF, one is at 64.455MHz and the other is at 13.345MHz taken from the bands scope circuit.  This article covers tapping the IF at 64.455MHz which I found more useful for…
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In reflection (which is a good thing to do) and in regards to my ham radio activities, my attitude is changing. I find myself questioning my skills and abilities and on DX’Peditions I get the feeling I irritate people more….
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Everyone needs an FA-SM Station Manager.  I got one after using a BX-184 (boxed) for a while but wanted some more features. It has these features; A voice keyer with up to 60 seconds memory in total. 4 memories are…
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From Monday 2nd – Friday 6th December 2013, G3VFC, G3ZAY, M0BLF, M0VFC and M1BXF will be operating as ZD8UW from Green Mountain, Ascension Island. We’ll be active on 40m-10m, mainly SSB and CW. (Being equatorial, there’s little point in taking…
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So to go along with my original 4m Tranverter System which had a decent PA I needed a LPF (Low Pass Filter) on the output.  There are lots of designs online [1, 2, 3] (thanks), take the construction methods from…
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By default the Yaesu FT-817 only supports the VOX (Voice Operated Xmit) from the microphone input. This is generally fine as it would generally be used on SSB with a headset for example. However with the increased adoption of smartphones…
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As bunch of us from the CUWS (Cambridge University Wireless Society) headed to the Faroe Islands for a weeks DX’Peditioning between Monday 17th June 2013 and Monday 24th June 2013.  We are currently staying in a hostel in Torshaven. I’ll…
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Off back to Mull we went for the 2013 Camb-Hams DX’Pedition. Flickr Images…

What is Polymorph? Polymorph’s full name is Polycaprolactone which is basically a mouldable plastic when heated, normally in warm water. The problem I had, which seems to be a common one, is the threads for the thumb-screw which holds the…
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So I recently changed cars from a Volvo S60 to a Nissan 350z Roadster.  The 350z came with the GT pack which includes a Bose sound systems however surprisingly the standard double DIN head unit had a tape deck!  It…
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I had a question about how to ‘remove’ the “Out Of Band” message you see in PowerSDR when using it with a transverter on 4m.  Natively Flex do not have the 4m allocation in their .XML config file so PowerSDR…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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So I build loads of project which in the end require labelling, but how to do it so it seems professional?  In the past I used to just make lines of text which was more or less the project name…
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So after sending a quick picture to Twitter showing my clean shack I got quite a few replies.  I thought therefore it would be good to show the shack in its entirety. I first Googled to see if Picasa could…
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So I can’t get it out of my head all the grief I got after operating within the top 3 KHz of the DX window on the 6m band…  The conditions were such that there was a chance of some…
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It has been a busy month.  First I was on holiday for 2 weeks, one week at my parents in Scotland and the 2nd I was on the Isle of Arran for the Camb-Hams 2011 DX’Pedition.  The DX’Pedition was sponsorship…
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So about a week ago I tweeted that my PC had crashed and on boot-up I got error messages saying there were missing DLL and SYS files for the programs which were running when the crash happened.  All week the…
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So I’ve been after a few RF switches to allow me to switch various radios to various antennas. In this instance I wanted to switch antennas to my IC-910 radio (the 2m and 70cm side only), my funcube dongle and…
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I looked about on the net for how to modify my Icom IC-910H to bring the main band IF out on a connector at the rear of the radio but couldn’t find anything so I dug out my service manual…
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