M0JCQ's Ham Blog ← Adventures in Ham Radio ← Page 3

CW Contesting… with no CW Skills 11

Jan

11

2017

Each year my local club (Chesham & District Amateur Radio Society) takes part in the RSGB AFS contest series. We like this series because it’s great for getting members involved in a wide range of bands and is quite a technical test to take part in each one. There’s contests for 160m, 80m, 40m, 6m, ...

Top 10 Amateur Radio Uses for the Raspberry Pi 19

Oct

12

2016

The Raspberry Pi has proved to be a phenomenal hit with hobbyists around the world. Originally conceived to get children into computer programming, it was quickly adopted by hobbyists due to its cheap price and GPIO output pins. Indeed, initial demand was unprecedented and supplies were limited for some time after launch and this still ...

Rebooting Amateur Radio 3

Oct

7

2016

Amateur Radio? A hobby for old men? Maybe, but it can be inclusive! Ryan M0RYS/N0RYS gave a very interesting talk at the Electromagnetic Field festival entitled “Rebooting a Hobby – How Modern Digital Comms are Reviving Amateur Radio”. The festival is interesting and pretty unique: Electromagnetic Field is a non-profit UK camping festival for those ...

How to Undertake a SOTA Activation – Step by Step Guide 1

Sep

17

2016

Recently I’ve been shooting a number of videos for YouTube outlining the kit I use for SOTA and now I’ve done one showing how I go about activating a SOTA summit. It’s a step by step guide to carrying out a SOTA activation in the great outdoors. It covers the set-up, spotting, operating procedure ...

QRPp Experiments on the 60m Band Using the Elecraft KX3

Sep

15

2016

On Sunday I went out portable with my Elecraft KX3 to see if I could make some inter-G contacts on the 60m band. 40m wasn’t supporting NVIS and the Worked All Europe (WAE) contest was dominating 20m, so my QRP station was struggling to be heard with only Cyprus and Asiatic Russia worked on 10w, ...

My Kit for SOTA & Portable Amateur Radio 4

Sep

14

2016

I’ve thought about doing a YouTube film (you can Subscribe to my channel here) of the kit I use for my SOTA and Portable amateur radio operations for some time now. Yesterday I finally got around to it and made the most of calm and sunny conditions (quite rare here in England!). The selected equipment ...

Receiving Long Path Asian DX on the Elecraft KX3 1

Sep

12

2016

While out portable yesterday I tuned around 20m, keen to see if I could hear any DX during the Worked All Europe (WAE) SSB contest. What I experienced, is I can only assume, Long Path (LP) Asian DX. Essentially the Short Path (SP) would have been within a path of darkness from East to West. ...

Amateur Radio Contests – Why the Love/Hate Relationship? 4

Sep

1

2016

Regardless of opinion Contesting seems to be one of the real growth areas in Amateur Radio. Contests across the HF and (at least here in the UK) VHF spectrum are more popular than ever. What is interesting for me is the polarising nature of contesting, it seems you either love it or you hate it. ...

Batteries for Portable Amateur Radio Use 46

Aug

30

2016

One very common question I get about portable Amateur Radio operation is what do I use as a battery? I have answered this question individually more times than I can mention so I thought I’d write it up as a post to help others. I’ve used everything from car batteries, Sealed Lead Acid Batteries (SLAB), ...

Portable Logging for iPad & iPhone 3

Aug

21

2016

I’ve had a lot of questions about the portable logging App I use when out on the hills. Most of the time people can see in photos and videos that I’m using an Apple iPad or iPhone but they can’t make out the App. Since 2014 I’ve been using RumLog2Go (developed by Thomas Lindner DL2RUM) on both my ...