Category Archives: Ham Radio

Got an antenna up

Today I spent some time and got my G5RV / dipole back up in the air. It’s only temporarily up, the ends are on poles and the middle is on a ladder in an olive tree 🙂

Oh and the coax feeding the balun/600ohm ribbon is pretty horrid.. So I have some work to do before it’s a permanent or useful fixture.

Still this afternoon a quick listen on 20m CW I copied KH7Y from Hawaii, and a quick tune up to the shortwave band I heard Voice of Malaysia on 15Mhz.

So maybe not too bad for receiving, although transmitting at this point isn’t an option. Will see how much I can improve it or what other options I can find to get a signal back on air.

-.-

More radio kits – Small Wonder Labs

Been looking around for some kits to build and one of the places I came across was Small Wonder Labs.

I’m a bit taken by the Rock-Mite CW transciever, even a kit building noob like myself should be able to have a go at that.

The PSK kit for something like 30m might be interesting, although some of the stuff that you can do with SDR makes it a bit pricey for a once use type kit.

I dropped an enquiry email to Dave K1SWL asking about stock of the RockMite and I had a response in aobut 30 minutes, pretty good customer service.

Will make an order soon I think, mmm the smell of solder smoke, can’t wait 🙂

Tracking

Last Saturday I took a Luca for a drive up to the NERC buy & sell. Caught up with a few guys I haven’t seen for years.

Anyway the APRS track worked pretty well, so that was cool, looks like I’ve finally got the settings in my OpenTracker+ all sorted.
track1.png

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Tracker

After a bit of mucking about I got the OT+ from Argent Data going in my car.

Here’s a track from one day this week.

Home to my parent’s in law, where I catch the bus, then from there back home again.

Nothing exciting but you get the idea 🙂 Will probably do some more driving over the weekend and draw spots all over the map!

Met John!

Some time back John NA3J told me he would be in AU some time around the beginning of April, I hadn’t heard a lot back about it and had forgotten about it.

This morning on the way to Office Works to get a printer cartridge I turned on the rig in my car and who do I hear on the local repeater, John NA3J.

So after that freak on air meeting I just had to catchup for a eyeball QSO. Thanks to Bob VK5HAG for organising a catchup, ended up meeting with John NA3J, plus locals Bob VK5HAG, and Kevin VK5KKS at the local Fasta Pasta and having a chat for a number of hours.

I reckon it’s about 9 or 10 years since I first started talking to John over IRLP, I’d be on my way home from work in sunny SA and he’d be on the way to work in freezing Denver.

Great memories and awesome to finally meet up after all these years, a good start to the weekend. Enjoy the rest of your trip and time in VK land John.