In my last update, the final image shows a single section of Alimast standing on the concrete. I bought four sections of Alimast from Aerial-Parts of Colchester, each being 2.5m long for a total of 10m (33ft). These four sections were delivered with one being fully assembled and the rest being parts for me to […]
The next stage of the new mast – Mounting the pivot pins in concrete
My new Alimast from Aerial-Parts of Colchester tilts over using a pivot system and so the ground anchor consists of two pivot pins mounted in the ground. These two pins have been linked together for ease of securing in concrete and to add a little extra resistance against pulling out of the ground. Here you […]
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 […]
Days 243, 244 and 245 – Late night data
These days were while I was still on holiday and as tends to happen when I’m not at work, I become slightly nocturnal. On one day in particular I went to bed, really couldn’t sleep and ended up getting up, coming back into the shack and playing radio. On day #243 I first worked OK1DX, […]
To tune, or not to tune? Would you use an ATU?
Today I’ve been measuring the SWR of my 40m delta loop on different bands and frequencies using a borrowed MFJ-269 analyser. 40m 7.000 – 1.5:1 7.100 – 1.4:1 7.200 – 1.5:1 20m 14.000 – 1.6:1 14.100 – 1.7:1 14.200 – 1.8:1 14.300 – 1.9:1 14.350 – 1.9:1 15m 21.000 – 1.6:1 21.100 – 1.6:1 21.200 […]
Aerial work and digging a hole for my new Alimast
It’s taken a few weeks of planning but today a small working party consisting of myself, Colin (M1EAK), Yan (M0YNK), Chris (M6GSD) and Kevin (M0GWE) descended on my house to take down the mast with my VHF beam and move the 10m 5/8 wave to the standoffs the VHF aerial was on. That was completed […]
Days 240, 241 and 242
I’ve become a bit lapse in updating the blog with QSO details and so I’m a few days behind here – I’ll try and catch up over the weekend. But just because I’m not writing the blog doesn’t mean I’m not using the radio. On day #240 I first worked a few more stations on […]
Operating portable with homebrew aerials
One of the things I love about amateur radio is the fact that there are so many facets to the hobby that there’s always something new to try. At the meeting of the Colchester Radio Club last month there was a talk by Kevan, 2E0WMG about operating portable with lots of photographs of him operating portable […]
Days 237, 238 and 239 – some JT65, RTTY, SSB, PSK31 and even some FM
I’ve noticed that my operating tends to go in phases, sometimes I’ll work just 40m, or other times I’ll be operating exclusively on SSB and at the moment I’m in a datacomms phase where a huge chunk of my time is spent operating the data modes. So to kick off, on day #237 I first […]
Review – August
A good number of contacts made this month and the second highest number of DXCC entities worked mean that things are going well here at QSO365. I’m still behind on my QSL cards though and am slowly working to catch up. I enjoy writing cards but it is getting a little tedious so once I get […]
