Category: Data

I’ve had a busy January

There’s been lots going on in my life throughout January but that hasn’t stopped me playing radio – I’ve made a point of sitting in the shack for a few minutes every day just to take my mind off of other things and as a result, I’ve managed nearly 550 QSOs so far working 73 […]

I’ve successfully worked DXCC on 30m

Stations worked on 30m

Over the last couple of months I’ve been concentrating on 30m using the dipole I installed late last year because I was keen to complete my 30m DXCC before the winter kicks in. Most of my contacts on 30m are using digital modes, either JT65, JT9 (remember them?) or FT8 and I knew that I’d […]

Digital audio noise on receive when using WIRES-X

Back in February, I bought myself a Yaesu FTM-100DE with the intent to use it connected to a PC for WIRES-X. In the meantime, I’ve been using it to talk to friends via a YSFReflector and I wrote about how to build a Yaesu System Fusion reflector on this site here. When I finally got […]

UTC clock for macOS

Menu Bar UTC

As radio amateurs, time is important to us and Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), often called Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the most important. We log our QSOs in UTC, (ideally) we give net times in UTC and our clocks need to be accurate to the second for data modes such as FT8, FT4, JT65, JT9 […]

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 […]

Receiving weather fax pictures on HF using fldigi

fldigi receiving a WEFAX image from the Northwood transmitter

A week or so ago I saw a weather fax (WEFAX) picture someone had posted that they’d captured on HF. This grabbed my attention because I like maps and I like to see things to do with the weather. I’d tried a couple of years ago to receive satellite weather pictures with little success (due […]

QSO365 #2 is complete – A QSO per day in 2018

Top ten countries worked during QSO365 #2

To start with, I’ll post the basic statistics for the entire year of 2018 and then go into the background. QSOs made: 3789 Unique QSOs made: 2962 Average QSOs per day: 10.4 Days missed: 0 <- This is the most important statistic, it means that QSO365 #2 was a success. DXCC entities worked: 160 New […]

If you use WSJT-X for FT8/WSPR/JTx etc, you should upgrade to V2.0.0 as soon as possible

WSJT-X version 2.0.0 has been released and everyone who uses this software for any data modes should update as soon as possible.  This new version is NOT compatible with previous versions so everyone is encouraged to upgrade to 2.0.0 as soon as possible. New features in WSJT-X 2.0.0 Compound and nonstandard callsigns are automatically recognized […]

Statistics for the third quarter of 2018

A gorgeously lovely summer means I spent less time on the wireless for these three months, making just over 600 QSOs and working only 80 DXCC entities. My data / phone / CW ratio is still about the same as earlier in the year and I’ve picked up three new entities on 160m and two […]

Visiting GB6NT at Walton-on-the-Naze

View of GB6NT from the top of the Naze Tower

A few days ago was the International Lighthouse Lightship Weekend and a group of locals under the umbrella of Colchester Radio Amateurs operated a special event station using the callsign GB6NT from the Naze Tower at Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex. This location is very close to me and I visited on both Saturday and Sunday.  On […]