Croeso i Gymru

Or 'Welcome to Wales' if you dont speak Welsh.

I have just started my 11 day break from work, I work a set pattern and so my time off is pre defined, and now I am off HURRAH, it can never come quick enough.

The good lady and myself like to get away up to Shropshire at least once a year, she grew up there, and last year we walked up Mount Snowden which was great fun, so we have booked a wooden log chalet for the week from Monday at Bala, in the Snowdonia National Park, just a little west of North Shropshire.

We love to do lots of walking and wildlife watching and evenings in with nice food and a few beers, we will be taking our telescope with us, and of course a couple of radio's and the laptop and dongle, hmmm, just like being at home then !

Morse mayhem.

Ok, well not really, I just like to have catchy titles to lure the reader in !

Last night at the Radio Club it was our 'morse exam'  for the Foundation License, I say exam in quotes because it's really just a test to see if you understand what a dit or dah, or a dot and a dash is.

So Pete our tutor sends some morse to us to decode, we have morse crib sheets in front of us, we are allowed to write down the individual dots and dashes then decode with the crib sheet, Pete sent the two of us a call, something like the following -

PC4T DE M6RDP YOUR RST 599 73 ADAM

We then had to send Pete a similar 'qso' to show we could send morse.

It's really just an assesment and it went really well, to be honest I have no interest in using Morse (at the moment) Alan (the other FL student) was very keen and had been practising at home, just not for me though, I like talking too much !

Beamed here

Well the little beam has just arrived, unpacked to find four continuosly wound fibreglass whips, a little like cb dv27's with screw thread adjusters at the ends with the aluminium beam and so-239 socket.

Initial tests at less than optimum heights show that it's resonant on 20 and 40m (not 40/80 as incorrectly posted previously), on the analyzer it shows a pretty narrow bandwidth for a <2:1 swr, understandable really given it's physical length.

I would have thought once it's up on a pole away from the ground it will behave better.

Also some more good news, Ron at the Radio Club has confirmed the date 8th March for my Foundation License exam, barring a complete b@@ls up I should at last be on the bands with my 10 watts, it really cant come soon enough.

Beam me up Scottie

I sometimes wish I didnt have a computer and an internet connection..well actually no I dont because this fine technology allows us to search google, check the weather, and buy/sell on eBay..AGAIN !

Yes the trigger finger has been busy and we have a 'lightweight 2 element beam' advertised as for 40/80m, this beam is small so I dont expect great performance with lossy traps and small radiating elements, I am hoping it will load up on 20m with the atu.

I have searched for some more info and cant find anything much, no reviews on eham.

Fortunately it was pretty inexpensive (<£55) so if it's not so good then it'll be reebayed.

Here is a link to an Italian seller of this antenna.

http://tinyurl.com/ya92hq4

Some new wire.

I am currently working night shift's, so am asleep in the morning, as is usual with me something always wakes me up, next doors children/dog is the usual along with the Postman, and as an avid eBayer the latter waking me up I dont mind.

I won some 'various amateur aerials', so anyway I opened the box to be greeted with lots of new wire and a feeder that I have never used, the twin open wire.

As we know this stuff has a higher impedance than coax, 300/450 ohms versus the coax's 50 odd ohms, my location and structures means an end-fed with coax is a more practical solution, but I can never resist a bargain and the opportunity to try something different.

My mind is now racing on how I can put up a centre-fed aerial, perhaps inverted-vee in the loft and bring the ladder line straight to the back of the MFJ tuner, hmmm, happy days !

UPDATE - Listening to a station LZ10ARDF on 20m, and heard him call back PC4T, Paul, who follows my blog, could not hear Paul unfortunately, this contest is great for anyone in Holland, they are very much in demand !

http://pacc.veron.nl/

A visitor to the shack..

My new pal Adam (M6RDP) from the radio club came around on Monday, I wanted his advice on putting up a longer wire (45m) and ideas on how to get it up and over a high tree branch in the copse backing onto my garden.

Also I wanted somone 'radio' to see my shack, I'm quite proud of what I've put together, but the only people who have seen it are not radio-types and dont really appreciate what's gone into putting a station together.

I think Adam liked my station, he seemed most impresssed with the lack of noise on the bands, that could be down to the antenna though !

On it's way is a commercial wire antenna, very similar to what I am using now perhaps, but I want to see it's construction and performance as I have a little idea milling about building and selling wire ham antenna's on a well known auction site, there are only a few people doing this, and if I can build the right type of product easily and find the right target market, it could be an enjoyable and maybe profitable sideline..?