Category: How to …

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** This is now outdated, I recommend the pre-built image from here rather than following these instructions.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 […]

Data (RTTY/PSK) contesting – The anatomy of an ideal QSO

I like contesting.  I like data contesting and I operate a lot in data contests.  I don’t generally have the time to dedicate to making a winning entry although for the big events, I’ll try and make a good score and aim to finish high up in the table.  I’ve done well enough though and […]

How to apply for the NoV for your Olympic and Jubilee special callsigns

I posted a while ago about the special callsign prefixes for the Olympics and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee here and I’m pleased to be able to report that the process to apply for these has now been published and it’s much simpler than it was for the Royal Wedding last year. There is a basic form […]

Building a Nixie Clock

A week or so I was inspired by a post on a forum I frequent to build a nixie clock.  If you don’t know what a nixie tube is, the best way for me to explain it is to reproduce the first few sentences from Wikipedia. A nixie tube is an electronic device for displaying […]

Building a dummy load

Dummy load in oil

Some time ago I decided that I really ought to have a dummy load in the shack.  I used to own a very good BNOS load a long time ago but I really have no idea what happened to it.  At some time it probably was either sold or stashed in the loft, I really […]

Building a 40m (7MHz) horizontal delta loop

My 40m loop installation

Over the last few weeks I’ve spent quite a lot of time reading about different options for wire HF aerials and one kept coming back into my head as being something I could easily try at this QTH – A full wavelength horizontal ‘delta’ loop for 40m.  My garden is the right sort of size […]