steve's blog
My Antenna
Posted by steve on Sat, 10/10/2009 - 19:20
Living in a pretty quiet suburban housing estate has its disadvantages!. The location is great as the estate has 100 houses tastefully built on an excellent site and proximity to amenaties is also pretty good. So the downer is the size of the garden and a few local regulations about antennas and poles supported from the side of the house or from the chimney breast. I was lucky to have a few good tall trees at the bottom of the garden, The conductivity of the soil is good and a wire antenna should not be too unsightly.
Renovation and Restoration
Posted by steve on Sat, 10/10/2009 - 18:17
I still have my very first Radio Station - A Codar AT5 transmitter and T28 receiver. This was an AM/CW transmitter working on 160 and 80 metres. Quite a piece of kit in its day and also took a few months to pay for with paper round and pocket money. It uses tv coax plugs and prefers an 75 0hm load to achieve 10 watts output. My Codar CR70 MKII communications receiver is also still working very well but needs a little retuning. It is reasonably stable after a period of warming up.
Solder Smoke
Posted by steve on Sat, 10/10/2009 - 17:16
Inspired by Bill O'Meara of Soldersmoke fame, the workbench has been very active to date. Many projects have been completed and some are still in the final phases of completion. I tell a lie, they just need to be put in boxes and have the final few pieces of hardware wired in and they are ready to go. Sadly there are more projects in this state than fully completed. Those that have been fortunate enough to reach the final stage of completion have produced excellent results which is encouraging.
Digital Modes
Posted by steve on Sat, 10/10/2009 - 16:24
Ham Radio Deluxe.
Finally, with time on my hands, I have got digital modes up and running. Ham Radio Deluxe was probably not the ideal way to start but it does have everything I need. Using a small inexpensive unit, manufactured by M0AQC, the interface between laptop and radio was achieved. Fortunately I had the PCMCIA serial interface card which interfaced without difficulty
