Sotabeam

Following a talk at our club regarding POTA I thought of using the mast mentioned for a support for my dipole. And here it is.

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. 

Posts

 I'm finding that blogs are becoming less popular, with social media more popular. I tend to post on Facebook more than I do here. So if your desperate to find out more about me and what I get up to, you can find me at my Facebook account.

Broken Ankle

 Well, after a bit of an error in leaving my disc lock on, added to the fact I now have a DCT (auto) bike I have been left with a badly broken ankle. I now have a matching pair. Anyway I thought it may be helpful to document my treatment and recovery to maybe help someone else. 

24th February. 

The day the accident happened at Tesco. Lots of people came to my aid and waited with me while a waited for an ambulance. The wait was five hours! But fortunately a colleague from work offered to take me. Arrived there at 1830 and A&E sent me straight through due to the swelling increasing and the threat of bone breaking the skin.

After X-Ray I was taken to rhesus where the fracture was reduced. This involved Ketamine and a lot of pulling. Unfortunately not enough drug was given and it was a little painful. I did get an apology and explanation that the concern was so great they just wanted to get it done. Interestedly, I was told that if the ambulance had been called they would have done this without sedation!

The following few days were spent waiting for the swelling to reduce enough for surgery, nice room though.

Surgery day arrived and there were lots of options, some not pleasant. Fortunately I ended up with just one fracture fixed with the other left to heal on it's own.

I was left with a back slab to enable the leg to swell. Another day in hospital then discharged with return to hospital on the 11th March.

11th March.

Back to hospital for x-ray and stiches removal.

All healing nicely and no further intervention needed. This did mean that recovery would be longer than my previous fracture.

Today, 8th April 2024. 

Visit to the fracture clinic where an x-ray revealed the break is healing nicely so the cast was removed and I've been issued with a boot to wear when outside. I can now fully weight bear and had the first proper shower in six weeks! The images below show the repair and the condition of my leg when the cast was removed.

Just to start planning on a return to work.

Weather Station

 For a long while I have only been able to upload my weather data to a few services, and more annoyingly I've been unable to upload to APRS.

However, that's changed and thanks to the Cumulus MX software I am now able to upload to more services and view my station in a much better way.

The data can be viewed in the following places.

AWEKAS  Midsomer Norton

Weather for REDFIELD - a Personal Weather Station in Midsomer Norton, United Kingdom | PWSWeather

Midsomer Norton - Weathercloud | Global network of weather stations

Met Office WOW -

Redfield weather (qsl.net)

Internet Problems solved

 I have had Gfast broadband for some time and always had a problem with my HF signals knocking it out. I found no solution and others have had the same issue again with no resolution. 

Until now. I have just moved to full fibre FTTP, with Lit Fibre and the problem is gone, I also get 500Mb down load so a win win situation. 

RF Noisy laptop PSU

 My amateur radio operations has been spoilt by a very noisy PSU. This raised the noise floor by several S points. 

I have tried to fit ferrites to the lead with limited success. I also couldn't find a large enough one for the mains lead. However, I suddenly realised I could strip the outer back and therefore wind several turns on two ferrites. This reduced the noise down to below one S point. 

I must point out this should only be done by someone who understands the risk.

New mast base

 For many years I have had my 2/70cm beam located on a mast attached to my shed. This was not ideal as it was actually pulling the side off the shed. For ages I have be meaning to mount a base stub mast and attached the main mast to it.

Finally with a few days off the job is done. I dug a hole around 2 feet down and 18in wide, drove the stub mast a further foot down and filled the hole with Postcrete. I did of course make sure it was true, using a spirit level. 

The results are shown below.

Four Day Week

 There has been much discussion recently over working four day weeks. I have been on a four day rota for over ten years and I love it. I work 38 hours which means I work 12 hour days. This used to be called 'continental working'. Yes it's long days, but you only do four. I always have at least two days together off and, I save money because I only travel four days, which in my case saves 100 miles per month. 

There seems to be a feeling among people that this would mean less money, but it won't. We are still stuck in this 9-5, Monday to Friday world, while still expecting others to work when we have time off.

The world has changed and we need to adapt to it. Covid caused a lot of things to change rapidly. We need to catch up.

Mains Filter

 

This started out as a way to try and stop my Broadband being knocked out when on HF but has also cut the noise level on the HF bands.

Like most things it all got very complicated etc until I found a blog post from M0NWK https://www.m0nwk.co.uk/mains-electricity-filter-for-emc-noise-reduction/

The construction is simple and straightforward.

Parts list

Fair-Rite type 31 ferrite core. I got mine on Ebay https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/181209693756

Mains Cable. I used 1mm standard flex.

Box. Got mine from Screwfix

https://www.screwfix.com/p/british-general-ip55-weatherproof-outdoor-enclosure-180-x-110-x-135mm/96153

Construction was easy, I wound 6 turns around the ferrite. This is the recommendation og GM3SEK on his very useful web site http://www.ifwtech.co.uk/g3sek/in-prac/#big31  I used a couple of cable ties to hold it together.

 

The results so far are encouraging. I can now run 50w of FT8 on 17 and 10m without knocking out my G.Fast Broadband. Noise levels on the lower HF bands seem lower but nothing spectacular.

Completed. The 4 way block had been left in the sun!

Pi-Star Hotspot

 Been rather fascinated by the cheapness of the Raspberry Pi and the amount of stuff it can do. One is a radio 'Hotspot'. this is where you can access different digital modes without being in range of a repeater. While this may not seem to be radio, as far as I'm concerned it is and you able to communicate with other Radio Amateurs who are on a RF link.

The actual Hotspot comes as a 'kit' which you can put in a case. One thing I did was put the edge connector on the Rasp[berry Pi which meant it wouldn't fit in the box!! Not a problem as it only sitting on the shack shelf.

Setting up was relative straightforward apart from there being so much information it became confusing. The trick is to work out what you want to do and stick with it!!!

I have set mine to work on the FreeDMR  system. I have also set it so I can access some Fusion links from DMR as well.

Below is my configuration. You will need to slide the DMR and DMR2YSF buttons over (they didn't show)This works very well. You will need to put your call and DMR number in.

Covid jab

Wife and I had our first Covid Jab (Pfizer) back in February, I had some side effects which were fairly mild, flu like symptoms and sore arm. My Wife had none. On Wednesday we had our second and the side effects were much worse resulting in time off work. This is a blow by blow account. We had the Pfizer jab at 1230 on Wednesday. Everything was fine until around 2330. Started with back pain, headache, sore arm and shakes. By around 0300 I could hardly move and couldn't move my arm at all. These symptoms continued until around 1300 on Thursday where they eased slightly. It took till this morning, Friday, to feel normal which just very slight pain at the injection site. I publish these hopefully to give some of you a bit of a heads up.