This is a question that’s being asked a lot these days. For me, the answer is fairly simple. If it involves RF leaving my station on a frequency which requires me to have an amateur radio licence to transmit on, then it’s “real radio”. That is, it’s “Amateur radio”. That includes, HF, VHF, UHF, etc […]
Category: Rant
QSLing – Is this in the spirit of Amateur Radio?
In April last year I made two QSOs with a group of people on a DXpedition to an African country, this was a new DXCC to me and after the trip I looked up the callsign on qrz.com where it listed a QSL manager. I checked that callsign on qrz.com and it confirmed that he […]
Royal Wedding callsigns – A minor rant
I applied for my Royal Wedding NoV nice and early on when they were announced and it came through promptly, all good. With a couple of days to spare, I applied for an NoV for the Martello Tower Group so that we could use GR0PKT on our planned radio play night the following Tuesday. I’d […]
Ignorant and rude operating – A rant
I got home from work this evening and within about thirty seconds of getting in, the phone rang. It was Tony, G0MBA so I put the wireless on and we had a chat on 28MHz. Tony was on the outskirts of Colchester in his van and was a good signal with me. As we signed, […]
The Archers and Camilla – A rant
Strange title? Not radio related? Correct. No apologies though. I listen to The Archers, I’ve listened to The Archers for more years than I care to remember and I like it. For fifteen minutes a day my mind goes to Ambridge and I think it’s great. For a while now the press (specifically the BBC […]
Days 26, 27, 28 and a minor “DX only” rant
On day #26 I decided to have another bash on 144MHz to see if it was as successful as when I’d called a week earlier. It took a few attempts and some beam tweaking but I had a nice chat with David, 2E0YUB up in Lincolnshire. Day #27 was ‘cool’. I spoke to SI9AM on […]
73 – A rant
In amateur radio terms, the numbers 73 are an abbreviation for “best wishes” or “best regards”. Note the plural. At the end of a contact people generally sign off using that abbreviation, it’s polite. But if you say “seven threes” or “seventy threes” then what you’re really saying is “best wisheses“. That sounds a bit […]
