Radio and rails...

M0RVB

QRZ's 12 days

I had a go at QRZ.com's 12 Days of QRZ challenge which began in December. QED, all you needed to do was make one acknowledged QSO per day for 12 days. I concentrated just on FT8. But there are endorsements for 12 QSOs over 12 days per each band in the challenge: 160, 80, 60, 40, 30, 20, 17, 15, 10, 6 and 2m. I managed all bands between 80 and 15, can't transmit on 160, 6 was always closed when I tried, and 2m would only yield one or two close contacts anyway. So I ignored those. I had had little success with 10m but later decided to have a go. Overall 10m seemed to come alive most days and all went well until the last couple of days where there were plenty of QSOs but very few acknowledgements in the QRZ logbook, some of which were only as a result of importing form LOTW. A table of this for no particular reason: So I had to work those last two days. I had a go at FT4 as well and one each of the 'Stars' for the 2nd and 3rd February were from FT4 QSOs. There, a little…

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M0RVB

FT818

I now have an FT818 as well as the FT817 so I have been rearranging stuff yet again. The FT817 was destined to be used portable but will now be a shack fixture - it has 2m and 70cm which is lacking since I sold the two transverters. The FT818 will be paired with the LDG Z817 autotunes and I will put together some wire and stuff to go portable. Both rigs came with the internal battery packs and together there is now a car charger, two mains chargers (one converted to power pole connectors) and a couple of leads that are of no use now with the power pole adapters being fitted to both rigs. There are lots of ideas floating about on using better battery packs or external batteries which I will have a think about. Given my 'portable' use initially is more likely to be in holiday accommodation there will be mains available. So, having decided the FT817 is to become a fitment I have connected its Signalink to the Linux box along with the one already attached to the FT450D. Wsjt-x has this though out nicely through the ability to have multiple configurations. I'd never want…

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M0RVB

Non-functional leads

I had a patch lead, about 1m long, PL259 to BNC from the tuner to the patch panel. It's been fine since I made the thing weeks ago. Today, halfway through an FT8 exchange it decided it no longer wanted to be at all functional. I wondered why the ALC on the FT450D had suddenly gone to max then I noticed the flashing antenna symbol! Fortunately the rig reduces power if the SWR goes mad. Typical.

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M0RVB

Zigbee

I have finally removed the remaining X10 controllers having replaced the outside light controllers two days ago and the main room lighting dimmers today. Time will tell if any of these suffer from interference being 2.4GHz Zigbee but so far, so good. All of the X10 stuff is destined to go on eBay but it doesn't seem to sell well - I guess I waited far too long to update everything here. It's not a major setup, one Zigbee controller / hub or whatever it's called - USB and currently stuck in the front port of the server, two dimmers, two bulbs, and three relays. The setup is Mosquitto and Zigbee2mqtt on the server and Homebridge on a Pi. The server is due to be replaced by another Pi shortly to save space and watts. So now Siri rules our lighting - well some of it! Be nice to Siri...

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M0RVB

No SAQ Christmas 2022

Shame. The planned SAQ broadcast on the 24th is cancelled - see https://alexander.n.se/en/covid-19-stops-saq-on-christmas-eve-morning/ Oh well, no rush to sort out my VLF antenna then.

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