A RATHER BLUSTERY DAY!

 

Brian and I decided to brave the elements again this week.  The forecast was mixed but looked to be improving throughout the day. (Spoiler: it didn't!).

It was rather gusty and the wind followed the tree line, so we were afforded little respite.  Never mind, onward brave adventurers ;)

The bandhopper went up like a dream.  I really have the hang of it now and it takes no time at all.  The shelter was a different proposition :)

Linda suggested the shelter to me last week and we had a look for a suitable one.  We ended up with this one from Amazon

It all packs down into a 2ft long bag and I think once I have got the hang of it, it should be possible to erect it in under 5 minutes.  The ground sheet is good and strong and fitted via toggles.  The two short poles are built in and there is one long sectional pole to thread.  The poles are held together with an elasticated cord and they can be a bit of a pain until you realise that pushing in one direction is the way forward, rather than trying to pull them.  There is a short video on YouTube showing how to do it but it does not really show too much.

As. you can see above and in the short video below, there is enough room for a small table and chair.  You could probably get a table and two chairs if you knew the other person well enough ;)

It certainly worked.  The main shelter was pegged down with the supplied pegs and just to be sure, I guyed the shelter down with the 4 supplied guys.  Again, there is no instruction on how to do this but I attached them to the four loops on the shelter as it seemed to be the correct thing to do.  You can see one of them here..

It didn't blow away, so I guess I got it right :). For someone used to camping or other shelter/bivvy type tents, this would seem simple but to me, it was completely new.

In all, it took me about 20 minutes to erect this time but I know a lot more about it now.

As well as this, I have been looking at alternatives for logging for some time.  I have been using my phone with HAMRS so far and although this works really well, it means having the phone on a stand of some kind and renders it unusable for filming.

The previous week, Brian brought his Amazon Fire tablet with him.  What a brilliant idea!  I managed to get a refurbished one from Amazon at a good price and downloaded HAMRS on to it.  HAMRS is available on the Amazon App Store.

Now I found my first frustration!  The standard keyboard is large and even in portrait, covers the Save button.

The obvious thing to do was to find a smaller keyboard.  The only one I could find that allowed resizing was Gboard.  The only way to get this was to hack the tablet a bit and install the Google Play stuff.  This was surprisingly simple to do and I got Gboard and set it to its smallest size.  Now in portrait mode, I can get to the Save button easily.

Job done there then.

My next frustration was found almost immediately.  Neither keyboard gave be a 'Return' key.  They both appear to simply tab between fields.  I suppose that I could simply tap 'Save' but it was bugging me.  A good friend offered me a small Bluetooth keyboard to try.  As soon as I connected this, the internal keyboard vanished and I had a full screen app with a 'Return' key :). Now all I need to do is enter a callsign, let QRZ and HAMRS do their magic via my iPhone hotspot and hit 'Return' to log it.  result!

All in all, a really nice day out and we mostly managed to miss the rain.  I had *just* managed to get my gear away when the heavens opened!  Brian was not so lucky but we got his gear away with no issues and left feeling a bit damp but happy :)

The video is short but shows the shelter nicely.

73 Ian

GRAND DAY OUT 2

 

Brian and I went back to Dave's field this weekend and had a great time.  You cannot underestimate the sheer amount of fun to be had with portable radio, especially when it is a shared experience.

One of the things we wanted to achieve this time was to get Brian's station running well.  We identified a bad connector from last week and made a couple of leads up to correct the issue.  He took the TS480SAT and powered it from his new Beaudens power station.  

This little unit performed flawlessly throughout the day, running the radio at 50W SSB quite happily.  The great thing is that it is small and light.  Absolutely perfect for this kind of operation. If used at QRP levels, it would last ages! At 50W SSB, it would certainly last for most of the day.  As it was, less than half of the charge was used.

It proved to be very quiet, RF-wise, which is obviously the main focus for us :). Bear in mind that the radio in use is not the most power efficient portable radio.

The next thing was how well I could put up the BandHopper.  This was erected in much less time than the first and will be even quicker next time.  Every day is a learning day!

We managed to get the aerials up just before it started to rain.  We quickly relocated the radios to the cars and started to operate.  The bands were not great, there having been a couple of minor flares, but as our noise floor was zero, it was not a problem from our side.  I started on 40m and Brian was on 20m on the Slidewinder.

In fairness, I think I had the best of it. The bands were not great but 40m is usually fairly busy on a Saturday and I had a slow but steady start.  20m was not as good but Brian was managing a few contacts.

Brian was the first to crack and moved his station outside the car and I followed shortly after.  We swapped bands, with Brian on 40m on the Slidewinder and me on 20m on the BandHopper.  I discovered that I could lower one end of the dipole, keeping the tension on lightly and altering the aerial for 20m.  Much quicker than having to drop the mast.

Much hilarity ensued when Brian moved the slider on the Slidewinder and when checked, it was absolutely bang on on 40m!! I bet he couldn't do it again 😆

I then moved to CW and managed a couple of contacts but the bands were closing in a bit and we decided to close down.

What a great day again though.  I can really recommend getting out of the house and just having some fun for a few hours in an RF quiet place.  You really don't need much to do it.  If you make it QRP, you really need very little indeed and you could easily have a full station in a small backpack, as SOTA and WOTA stations know well.

As usual, I made a video of our day.  I was using a gimbal for the first timed I definitely need more practice :)

73 Ian

TERRIBLE CONDITIONS!

 

I had another go from the garden today and managed to nab a park for POTA and a couple of local portable contacts but conditions were appalling!  I tried several bands but it was hard going.  Even the FT8 frequency (don't even get me started there!) was fairly quiet on 40m.

I did manage to get one CW contact with David, G4HMC who was QRP.  Hard work but a valid contact and shows the power of CW.  I would never have managed to complete this contact on SSB.

Here is the video, for what it's worth.  Completely unedited this one ;)

73 Ian

MY CW YEAR

 

I passed my Morse test in 1995 to gain my callsign, G0VGS.  For those of you who are not aware of how the licence used to be structured in the UK, it consisted of two classes of licence.  The B licence and the A licence.

Both of these were full licenses (despite claims by some ;)) and the difference was that the class A licence allowed the use of the HF bands (30MHz and below).

I passed my City and Guilds Amateur Radio Licence in 1994, gaining the callsign, G7RXM and then started studying for my Morse test. This was a 12wpm send and receive test and in my case was taken at my local club.  I actually passed 2 Morse tests but I will maybe go into that another time ;)

Since then, I have never really used the mode in anger.  To be honest, I found it really stressful.  I can be quite hard on myself and I was frustrated that I was missing letters and words!  If I lost track, I could miss a whole sentence until I was able to focus again.

At the end of 2022, I was talking with a friend and he mentioned that we don't worry on SSB if we miss things, we just ask for a repeat.  No stress.  That made me think.  Why should it be different on CW?

I made a decision to get my CW up to scratch in 2023 and the decision was totally made for me when I got back in touch with an old friend, G0TUE.  Ray is a great CW proponent and very enthusiastic and encouraging.  We set a sked and had a contact on 40m.

This year (2023) I have disconnected the microphone from my K3s and I am only working CW from the home station.  I made a resolution to have at least 2 CW contacts a day this year.  This sounds a simple enough task but actually, due to the usual life events and poor band conditions, I am slightly behind.

I started around 12wpm and was missing words as I have always done.  This time though, I didn't worry about it.  I stayed around the FISTS frequencies to begin with and started calling CQ.  That way, I should be able to control the speed of the conversation.  In the most part, this worked.  There were still some who insisted on going at their own speed but hey ho, if I can't copy, I can't copy.  I thank them and move on.

Since then, I have increased my sending speed slowly and I can now copy around 16wpm and head copy is getting better.

During my last attempt at improving my CW, I was lucky enough to purchase a really nice Begali Simplex key.  That's the one on the right in the photo.  It is a lovely key and I find it very comfortable to use.  It has spring contacts and occasionally needs re-tensioning.  This year I reached State Pension age and for my official 'retirement' and birthday present, my lovely wife, Linda (G0YLM), bought me a fabulous Begali Pearl.  That's the one on the left in the photo.  This has magnetic 'springs' and is much more reactive.  I am still tweaking a bit ;)

I love Begali keys.  Pietro engineers them beautifully and Bruna Begali is fabulous to deal with.  Their customer service is legendary and I bought directly from them.  I cannot praise them enough.

I also have a portable key from CWMorse.  I have their N0SA key and it's great.  You will see this key in later YouTube videos.  Again, great customer service, although I could do without the religious tracts that come in the box.  Still it is a small price to pay for a great product.

I am really enjoying my year of CW and it actually felt really weird to try SSB on a portable activation.  I hope to meet you on the bands at some point :)