Radio amateur, mandolin picker, sea kayaker. Can be found on satellites, the moon, microwave frequencies, the sea, the hills or making some noise.
Northern Ireland
Joined September 2014
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Spending my radio club constructor contest winnings. Next year need to aim for first so I can get two Guinness, as long as the prices don’t keep rising anyway..
The crappy Icom charging cradle annoyed me to the point I made one that actually holds the radio. Not that I own a boat to need this, but it’s holding even if upside down now.
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Replaced my old Icom handheld marine VHF with an expensive new one. The new radio seems fine, but the enshitification of Icom charging cradles is something to behold. Pretty sure the radio's going flying in heavy seas. £45 if you want to buy a spare one🤡
Meshcore been interesting this past 24 hours, had to move to a local channel due to the massive number of folk on Public making it hard to talk local 😂
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30 years ago! Remember being driven 70 odd miles each way to the test (was 14yo) by my dad who didn’t really know why I wanted to do this or if it was worth the effort. It was :)
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Managed 15 3cm EME QSOs, 10 being initials, over the weekend without any complications or hassle. Fair to say the new antenna controller is doing the job.
New rotator mounted with dish to test it out. Now fighting with the controller software and I’m not winning.
Getting near the end point on the new rotator setup for the dish. Need to put up the ridiculously heavy new mount outside and run cables next.
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Chunky new rotator works okay with k3ng Arduino controller software, and a mess of wires, just fine.
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PTRX-9700 working well, decodes are the same using just an RTL-SDR, can monitor beacons or other people with SDR (top) while have the 9700 doing its own thing. Second good upgrade after adding reference injection which was more of a necessity.
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PTRX-9700 fitted and seems to be working well with the reference in. Decodes tiny bit down on the SDR compared to the 9700 but likely just need to tweak SDR settings. Good upgrade!
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Missing the RSGB convention but the postman took pity and delivered Radcom, CQ-TV and a PTRX-9700 at the same time to get me through the weekend.
Managed a 3cm EME contact with the new 20w amplifier in a bigger enclosure confirming its working! Unfortunately it is kind of held together by a bit of string as the enclosure weight is all on one side..
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Time to take the temporary IKEA chopping board mounted and 3d printed plastic fantastic 3cm EME setup with super crappy cabling apart for a new enclosure and bigger amp. Can’t promise it will look any better but as long as it mostly works I’m good :)
This weekends mission, turn a messy looking collection of bits in to something semi functional for EME. Will do it properly and in another form when/if I can acquire a bigger PA.
