Category: Amateur radio

How to set up a Yaesu System Fusion reflector (YSFReflector)

NOTE – 22nd April 2023I have provided a new version of install.sh, if you have had problems with a ysfreflector.ini error, please start the install again from the first ‘sudo wget’ command. Over the last four or five years I’ve been a regular user of two digital voice modes, D-STAR and DMR. I don’t particularly […]

A new year, a new callsign

In 2013 I applied for M7P as a Special Contest Callsign, and have used it successfully in a large number of contests throughout the years. One of the reasons I chose that particular callsign was for the rarity value when working the WPX contests, my logic being that people are always chasing new multipliers and […]

Rebuilding and raising my ADS-B receiver

Hexbeam with ADS-B aerial

Earlier this year I replaced my Hexbeam (with another Hexbeam) and I wrote about it on this site. There was a gap of a couple of weeks when I was between aerials and to take advantage of that, I temporarily moved my ADS-B receiver to a temporary stub mast, effectively raising it 7ft from the […]

Building an MMDVM hotspot on a budget

MMDVM Hotspot attached to the Raspberry Pi Zero

I bought myself a new handheld at the Newark rally earlier this year, an Anytone AT-D878UV to use on DMR. When I went on holiday in October, I took a couple of copies of RadCom with me and in one of them there was a review of my handheld. The author mentioned that he’d used […]

My new Hexbeam is broken … and fixed

Working position for the top of the Hexbeam

Nearly two weeks ago the UK suffered from ‘Severe storms’ with high winds across most of the country. I went outside in the rain on the Saturday morning, looked up at my aerial and was disappointed to see this. You can see the 40m element in the top is very loose and blowing freely in […]

Installing a dipole for 30m

Dipole at sunset

I’ve never had a decent aerial for the 30m (10 MHz) band and have struggled to work much on the band either with my old doublet or the inverted L that I’ve had up for the last couple of years. About a month ago, I realised that I could hang a single band 30m dipole […]

Anderson Powerpoles

Powerpole tail all ready for my PSU

Some time ago back in 2012 I first heard about the Anderson Powerpole in episode 53.5 of the Practical Amateur Radio Podcast and I immediately bought a load of them to use in the shack. I have a number of tails hanging off my PSU, all terminated in Powerpoles. I’ve always soldered the metal contact […]

Replacing my hexbeam with… another hexbeam!

My new hexbeam with 40m

At the end of July, I happened to glance up at my aerial and noticed the 15m element hanging down. It was broken. It didn’t look serious though and I was sure that it was just that the connector on the end of the element had snapped off. Around the same time, I was offered […]

Installing a radio into my car

Mazda 6 with Watson W-770HB

About a year ago I changed my car and it’s taken a while to get around to fitting the radio into it. I’ve missed having a wireless in the car and recently resorted to keeping a handheld in the glove box so at least I could natter on the local repeater while driving around town. […]

1090 MHz ADS-B PCB antenna from eBay

That's better - The repaired ADS-B PCB antenna

About a month ago I bought a 1090MHz PCB aerial on eBay and immediately forgot about it. It arrived a few days ago and I had a good look at it before I connected it to anything to try and work out what it actually was. I decided from the construction that it was a […]