Oldham based amateur radio blog also on Mastodon
Mobile 20-meter band antenna mounted on a speaker stand Today I mounted my Diamond HF20FX (a mobile 20-meter band antenna originally bought to use with my mag-mount on the car) on a speaker stand in the spare bedroom, along with counterpoises (or radials). I found a counterpoise calculator on the website of M0UKD ( https://m0ukd.com/calculators/quarter-wave-ground-plane-antenna-calculator/ … Read more
Hello Mastodon, bye-bye Twitter Why am I saying “Hello Mastodon”? Well, for a long time, I have felt that Twitter was just a lot of people shouting in a vacuum. Even though Facebook has groups, especially the groups for amateur radio enthusiasts, I didn’t find Facebook much better. Hurray: we now have Mastodon. My Mastodon … Read more
Maidenhead Locator In the world of amateur radio, it is very useful to know your Maidenhead Locator. The Maidenhead Locator is a system of geographical squares that can be used to define the location of radio stations anywhere in the world. This can be useful for calculating points to be awarded in competitions for example … Read more
WSPR The Weak Signal Propagation Reporter (WSPR), commonly called ‘whisper’ is a beacon system that can be used to assess propagation and antenna performance by amateur radio operators on amateur radio bands. To check that your signal is being effectively radiated from your antenna, you might want to send a WSPR beacon signal and check … Read more
Fibreglass Poles I mentioned in my previous post that I had taken down my Fibreglass Poles that I had used as a mast for my Diamond V2000 collinear and later my Diamond A430S10R2 10 element yagi. Of course, my thoughts then went to ask myself, how I re-utilise these poles. Just to recap, I had … Read more
My new Sharman Collinear Antenna Today I erected my new Sharman Collinear Antenna – a Sharman 2m/70cm Dual Band Base Antenna. My previous collinear antenna had been a Diamond V2000, but it had reached the end of its life. The joints between the fibreglass tube and the chromium-plated had degraded on the Diamond V2000 and … Read more
UK amateur radio callsigns. Amateur radio callsigns issued in the UK to individual operators, with class of licence and dates issued alongside, are listed in the table below. For simplicity, these UK amateur radio callsigns are categorised against the current Foundation, Intermediate, and Full classes. The dates shown have been obtained by researching the RSGB … Read more
What is qrz.com ? Commonly just referred to as QRZ, this is the directory of amateur radio operators around the world. If you hear a callsign and want to know more about that operator, qrz.com is the website to visit. Not all callsigns are registered with an individual person – some are special events callsigns … Read more
