Last weekend was the Ukrainian DX Digi contest and I intended to run for a while but not make a serious entry, I’d decided to do a single band for a few hours. The contest started at 13:00 local time and I kicked off using PSK63 which turned out to be a good choice because […]
BBQ on the Martello Tower – How to start a fire the ‘Yan’ way
It’s been a couple of years since we last had a BBQ on top of the Martello Tower so last night was time to correct that. Tuesday is our club meeting night and we decided to have a BBQ and do some repair work on the 10m vertical. It took quite a while to get […]
This is what happens when one doesn’t have a full address on qrz.com
For various reasons I don’t have my full address showing openly on qrz.com but it’s there in the form of a QR code. I’m also QTHR in any callbook. Luckily Royal Mail and the Post Office are on the ball. This arrived today. That’s the second QSL card I’ve had delivered with that ‘address’ on […]
I’ve been on HF for two years exactly
It was while we were setting up for the 144MHz May contest back on the 15th May 2010 that Tony, G0MBA mentioned he had an FT-847 for sale because he’d replaced it with a TS-2000. Without worrying too much where I’d scrape the cash from, I said I’d have it to replace my ageing FT-736 […]
Statistics – May 2012
What a great month May was – A nice number of QSOs, the most DXCCs I’ve worked in a single month ever and a decent amount of new entities including Yemen, The Philippines, Mauritania, Jamaica and Bhutan. I also worked South Shetland Islands for my first QSO into Antarctica. QSOs made: 801 DXCC entities worked: 117 […]
CQ World-Wide WPX CW Contest 2012
This weekend was the CQ World-Wide WPX CW Contest, the second largest CW contest of the year and I decided to give away a few points and perhaps try and pick up some new DXCC entities on the way. I’m still not fully proficient at Morse so this was never going to be a serious entry […]
Amateur radio on the beach
Tuesday night is club night for the Martello Tower Group. On the first two Tuesdays of each month we operate in the RSGB 144MHz and 432MHz UKAC contests from the roof of the Martello Tower and for the rest of the Tuesdays in the month we go to a nearby pub for conversation and a glass or two […]
It was thirty years ago today….
…. that I sat the RAE. Monday 17th May, 1982. In those days the examination was run by City And Guilds and consisted of two papers, the first one was Licensing conditions and Transmitter Interference and the second was Operating Practises, Procedures and Theory and one had to get at least PASS grade in both […]
Replacing my Cushcraft MA-5B with a G3TXQ Broadband Hexbeam
I’ve mentioned a couple of times recently that I’d ordered a replacement aerial and it was delivered on Friday. I bought a G3TXQ designed Broadband Hexbeam, from Ant, MW0JXE. Ant manufactures these on demand and so therefore there’s a waiting list, it took around six weeks from order to delivery but it was well worth […]
Working the 7O6T DXpedition to Socotra Island, Yemen
It was just over a week ago that I started seeing tweets and mentions on blog posts of an upcoming DXpedition to Socotra Island, Yemen. My interest was piqued because I’d noticed Yemen when looking at the DXCC Most Wanted List at ClubLog. I checked the list and noticed that Yemen is shown at number […]
