Back in 2012 I wrote about some new test gear that I’d bought for the shack. Well time doesn’t stand still and it’s always nice to have new toys in the shack, especially if they’re useful. My miniVNA Pro always did me well but recently I’ve started doing things on higher frequencies, such as building aerials […]
Category: Amateur radio
A new record – G to ZL on 60m QRSS
Returning to data modes after an enforced break
My shack computer is an Apple iMac. For a few years, I’ve operated a lot of data modes and been very successful in data contests. I’ve always enjoyed data modes and in 2012 I operated GO6NHU to celebrate the London 2012 Olympics exclusively using data. Back in 2015, Apple released a new operating system called El Capitan and […]
New aerials for VHF/UHF (2m/70cms) and 28MHz (10m)
How to replace the noisy fan in an Icom ID-5100 with a much quieter one
5B4AGN bandpass filters – The measurements
I’ve been moving some boxes around recently and I unpacked the bandpass filters I built for one of the Martello Tower Group DXpeditions and successfully used again during our activation of the MV Ross Revenge in August 2016. It struck me that I’d never produced a full set of figures showing rejection on each band, insertion […]
MB7UIV is back
A little history In January 2000 I started running the first licensed APRS Internet gateway in the UK originally with the callsign GB7UIV. Within a week of experiments starting on the 26th January 2000, the gateway was on air and connected to the internet 24/7 except for periods when the connection dropped out and the […]
Setting up an APRS RX only iGate using a Raspberry Pi, RTL-SDR dongle and a pre-built image
After my previous post, it was suggested that an easier way to set up a receive only APRS iGate would be to provide a pre-built image which only needs slight tweaking to go live. That seemed like a good idea to me so I’ve prepared an image that just requires a handful of configuration changes which I will […]
A guide to setting up an APRS receive only iGate using a Raspberry Pi and an RTL-SDR dongle
** This is now outdated, I recommend the pre-built image from here rather than following these instructions. I can not support this method any more ** I originally bought a Raspberry Pi back in October 2012 but as I didn’t have a specific purpose in mind for it, I quickly sold it again. A few […]
Video of the ten minute multi QRPp mode transmission
After my entry a few days ago, I’ve made a video of my Hans Summers Ultimate 3S transmitter going through all four modes in a single ten minute frame. It’s annotated with comments along the way describing what’s happening at every stage.






