James Stevens ← M0JCQ's Ham Blog

2021 Radio Wrap Up 2

Dec

26

2021

Well, it seems this is only second blog post of 2021! Better late than never. I’d like to think there’s been extenuating circumstances, and there has, but I’m still surprised! It’s been quite a year here, in fact it started just before Christmas last year, when I caught COVID for the second time. I think ...

2m VHF Pileup During a UKAC Contest

Dec

4

2021

Back in June 2021, I took part in a weekday RSGB UK Activity Contest (UKAC for short) on the 2m band. During the contest I recorded the pileup action and I’ve finally gotten around to editing and uploading the video! I worked 100 stations in just over 1.5 hours on 2m SSB, so hopefully this ...

Top 10 FT8 Operating Tips 12

Dec

23

2020

I’ve been slow off the mark with this blog post, but years ago I posted my Top 10 PSK31 Tips for Beginners guide and it was really popular at the time. I’ve held off writing this post, so that it could be a (hopefully) genuinely useful post, as opposed to just jumping on a hot ...

SOTA Mountain Goat Achieved! 14

Nov

29

2020

After six years of trying to climb everything within my reach, I’ve finally done it. I achieved SOTA Mountain Goat status. In September we visited the Lake District for a holiday (before lockdown 2) and as usual did a lot of walking up to the various peaks in this region. I had four days to ...

DXCC Finally Achieved (after 7 years!) 1

Oct

22

2020

After 7 years of being licensed, I’ve finally come of age and worked 100 countries (and had them confirmed on Log Book of the World!). I knew I was close, having worked a string of all time new ones (St Lucia, South Korea, New Zealand, South Africa, Kenya) due to a recent station upgrade. ...

Upgrading my HF Base Station 6

Oct

12

2020

Recently I’ve been slowly but surely upgrading my HF base station at home. After deciding an ICOM 7300 was more than enough for my operating needs and that any new shiny radio would NOT help me work any more stations, I turned my attention to the other things I could improve. The first thing was ...

Watch my RSGB Presentation: Portable Adventures with SOTA 1

Sep

11

2020

On Monday the 7th September I did a live YouTube stream for the RSGB ‘Tonight at 8’ series. It gives an overview of getting out on the hills and taking part in SOTA, tips and tricks and lots of photos from activations around the world. It was received well and you can rewatch it for ...

Building a Cobweb Antenna and Testing it with NanoVNA [with video] 13

Jul

23

2020

Recently I decided to take down my Western HF-10 multi band dipole, actually scrap that, a fox did the work for me and chewed through the kevlar guy ropes supporting it. They saved me a job really – just in a slightly less elegant way! I’d contemplated a Cobweb antenna for some time, they have ...

SOTA Activation of Snowdon in the Snow (Highest Mountain in Wales) 1

Nov

30

2019

During November me and two friends met up and travelled up to Snowdonia for a weekend of hill walking. The forecast had been for heavy rain throughout (pretty common for Snowdonia!), but come Saturday morning we were awoken to a glorious blanket of snow. As we ate our full Welsh breakfast in the cafe, we ...

2m SOTA Pile Up Video on Red Screes

Oct

11

2019

While on holiday in the Lake District, I visited the SOTA summit of Red Screes (G/LD-017) for a 2m SSB contest. While there I also activated it for SOTA using 2m FM, here’s the resulting pile-up using 25 watts and a vertical Moxon: