Radio and rails...

Well it was only an experiment... I managed to get to a park today to try a POTA activation. First off, parking. I was warned that the car park I was aiming at was a no-go so stayed in another, smaller car park, still in the park though. Surrounded by trees I was not expecting much of my 2.5W but I did managed to have 5 QSOs accepted by the POTA.app. Not sure how many will actually count yet. Although a minimum of 10 QSOs are needed for an activation it was only an experiment due to our current location being only 20 miles from the park in question an having some spare time today. Lessons learned include: I shall return, wiser! There is one other downside of our trip though. I had also planned a bit of /A from the hotel room but no matter what I try the bands are all completely dead. I reckon there is too much steel and the glass is metallised. On the positive side of things the LiFePO4 battery I bought works really well and managed the full hour plus as well as experiments in the hotel room with very little drop. It…

Success. After my failed first attempt I untangled all the leads, ditched the USB hub and tried a 1:1 unun. With the FT818 set to 2.5W I managed a QSO with a DK at about -13. The wifi was struggling for the Mac to load pskreporter so had to try that once back in the house, but it shows it is getting out ok. Not too bad for 2.5W into a Diamond HF40CL on the car roof parked next to the house. Hopefully this bodes well for an excursion and possible attempt at activating a POTA. No ferrites on the antenna lead plus one on each USB lead. I did not take those off to experiment as they are not in the way anyway.

Well that's a fail. I tried a dry run today for when I hopefully go portable. Whip on the car on a magmount, tuned nicely for 7.074MHz for FT8, but the rig manages about a second of tx and then straight back to rx. I've had similar before with RF getting into the USB leads. The setup is pretty standard, FT818, Signalink, Z817 tuner, lead from rig to Signalink, lead from rig to tuner, lead from Signalink to USB hub for audio, lead from tuner to USB hub for CAT. First off, the tuner refused to tune. One ferrite cured that and it was happy with a match (of course I forgot to try a 1:1 unun here). But lots of ferrites later and still no go on tx. The trouble is likely to be the long USB lead to USB dongle for CAT control, or the USB hub. Actually I can do without the hub as the MacBook has two USB ports and I only need two for this. In fact, for FT8, which is my aim here, I can do without the tuner too. But now the sun has moved round onto the car and it's too hot…

Getting ready for a trip in early July, hopefully /A from a hotel and also /P from the car. I might even manage one POTA. I am just assembling the final items such as this LiFePO4 battery, the smart charger for which has no lights or any indication of when it has finished charging which I found a bit odd. Anyway, it is on charge ready to see if everything plays properly together while still parked on the drive!

Another new toy, only small this time. This is a 433MHz LoRa transceiver with TinyGS firmware loaded. More about that below. The device has radios built in - WiFi and BLE built in via an ESP32 chip and LoRa via an SX127x transceiver. It comes pre-loaded with software which I did not investigate as I planned to flash it anyway. It can be powered from a supplied connector or via a micro-USB and has an SMA socket on board. There is a wealth of info on the web about these devices and some include GPS capabilities. I got this because I came across the TinyGS project. Quoting directly from their website: TinyGS is an open network of Ground Stations distributed around the world to receive and operate LoRa satellites, weather probes and other flying objects, using cheap and versatile modules. This project is based on ESP32 boards and currently it is compatible with sx126x and sx127x LoRa módules but we plan to support more radio módules in the future. The TinyGS firmware basically does everything. Installation is straightforward provided you have a supported board. The first board I got was a Heltec and sold as V2 but was a V3…