Packet Radio

Some of you may remeber the 80's when packet radio was all the rage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packet_radio Times changed and the use of the Internet all but killed it off apart from APRS Recently, and expecially with 'Off grid' thinking it has begun to grow again. I've been playing for a while with my TMD-700, but recent changes have shown it's restrictions. Over the weekend I built a new TNC and through the local club have a dedicated raio and the system is working very well using WhatsPac This has moved things into the 21st century and now with speeds of 9600 it's becoming a robust way to comunicate. Below is the TNC and radio.

Dual 10m and 6m Dipole

With the nice weather I have been experimenting with dipoles. I don't have enough space for beams but recently put a 6m dipole up which works very well. Came across some info on fan dipoles and noticed some use two or more dipoles sepearted with spacers. So I deceided to give it a go and results are pretty good. Not the best photo but hopefully shows enough. The spacers were made using a 3d printer. I have added the VNA plot.

FT8 Setup

I've finally got my FT8 setup the way I want it. Took a while and a bit of reseach, but I can now switch between radios easily and the logging, including LOTW, which is a black art of its own. There is loads of information avaiable so I wont repeat it. My final scrren layout is shown below. What I did find was that if I just closed the PC down the gridtracker display didn't save. What I have to do is close gridtracker with the close button before shutting down.

FT8 RF Issues

After my experiment with Linux ended, mainly due to lack of apprpiate software, I managed, quite easily to get the machine back on Windows 11. After reinstalling all the software I noticed an issue with FT8. That was RF getting in somewhere and stopping WSJT transmitting. This also seem to be an issue with the FT710. After some seaching I obtained some screened leads for the USB connection to both radios. These are the ones Tripp Lite USB 2.0 Hi-Speed A/B Device Cable Ferrite Chokes (M/M), 1.83 m (U023-006) These seemed to work but still found situations where it failed. I think this must have been cable location and the position of my feet under the desk!!! Anyway I found some extra large ferrites which I added to the leads and I am currently running 50w of FT8 on 60m with no issues, yet. Innfeeltech 5 Pcs Ferrite Ring Core Black Clip-on Ferrite Core EMI Noise Suppressor Cable clip with 13mm inner diameter for USB Cords, Square Type Enhanced Hopefully this is the final fix but time will tell.

Encouragement

A recent contact has made me think how many people have encouraged me over the years. Particularly in Amateur Radio, which led to a very successful career. It might have just been a note on the back of a QSL card or watching them operate. I am proof that even the smallest push in the right direction can have a massive impact. So, if you can, encourage someone, impart your wisdom to someone else, you never know what impact it could make.

Malta

 Went to Malta again, beautiful country and just love it. However, on the way back captured these wonderful shots of London.

New radio

Very fortunate to have a new radio in the shack. This time a Yaesu FT710AESS. This is a full SDR radio and it shows. The receiver is extremely good and I'm very pleased with the radio.

Linux 2

 The Linux machine is working and extremely stable. I have installed Google Chrome, which gives me access to almost everything I use. Microsoft 365 with One Drive, access to my router and of course general Internet access. So at least I now have a machine without having to worry about lack of support. My next aim is to get as much software duplicated, such as Echolink.

Linux

 I have always been a Windows man and have used it since day 1. Unfortuantly my progress to moving to Windows 11 resulted in one of my PC's failing during an update. This gave me the push to see if 

a. I could load Linux and

b. If it would do what I wanted and

c. Would it be a useable alternative to Microsoft?

I intend to use this blog to chart my progress for my own benefit and in that may help some of you. I am not very good at putting my actions into words, but hopefully it will serve as an 'idiots' guide.

The equipment I have.

PC HP Elite desk 800 G1 USDT with 16GB of RAM. This worked well on Windows 11 until it didn't.

I started with this site https://itsfoss.com/install-linux-mint/ as it seemed to run through the stages step by step. 

Basically I downloaded the software to a bootable USB stick. 

I used https://rufus.ie/en/ to create the drive. It is very straightforward.

I encountered an issue here in that the PC had a BIOS password which I didn't know. Fortunately YouTube came to the rescue. 

I used this site which was very helpful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKoRY7NL6vI.

I could now change the system to boot from the USB drive.

This was the moment of truth.

Following https://itsfoss.com/install-linux-mint/ I powered up the computer and to my surprise it actually worked. I followed the instructions. At that point I made the decision to fully download Linux on this machine. There are other alternatives, but given the situation I have I was able to dedicate this machine. 

THINK VERY CAREFULLY BEFORE DOING THIS AS IT WILL WIPE YOUR HARDDRIVE.

Anyway. After a short time Linux Mint Cinnamon was loaded and running.