Members of the Secret Nuclear Bunker Contest Group (SNBCG) assembled at Kelvendon Hatch to try 144 MHz (Earth Moon Earth) EME and MS (Meteor Scatter) over the weekend of the ARRL EME event As a group we have tried with some success MS QSO and this helped lay the foundation for this weekend’s EME event. […]
August has turned out to be a very enjoyable month on the bands, with plenty of activity from the home QTH and some particularly interesting DX finding its way into the log. By the figures, the month produced 342 QSOs, with 312 unique callsigns worked across 67 countries. Even more interestingly, I added 18 new […]
LEFARS field weekend, in the middle of May can go either way with the weather. This year we were lucky, and while the sun did shine, the HF bands had other ideas. Equipment used IC-7300 Antenna 7 MHz – 1/4 wave ground mounted vertical with 4 elevated radials Power Car V2L The weekend’s HF operation […]
What is an End Fed Half Wave (EFHW) It’s a multi-band antenna that is a half-wave on the lowest band of your choice. The simple calculation is 144 / f (MHZ) 3.6 MHz = 144/3.5 = 41.15m of wire So we can construct a simple, handy table for construction Freq Length 3.6 MHz 41.15 m […]
In a previous article, I discussed the APRS LoRa 433 MHz project, and how these little units provided an impressive range on +20 dBm or 100mW. The range in the car can or course be optimised by a resonant antenna and the addition of a PA amplifier. The PA suggest its capable of a 13dB […]
On one of our summers days, LEFARS my local club organised a field weekend and it was sunny. The idea was to play some radio in the sun, with multiple stations operating from in the hired field. Members were advised to use band pass filters, this helps keep things friendly to multiple operators. The weekend […]
If you are a licensed amateur radio operator, then the small meshtastic boards can be used for APRS as a fun project. 433 MHz mesh never took off unfortunately, so if you have these boards around, then they can make a great APRS tracker or igate! The good news is you don’t need a NOV […]