Radio and rails...

It really is taking me far too long to get this sorted out. But, finally some progress has been made... at least I now have a decent case and the screen mounted. So far, there is very little else in the case other than the Lime and Pluto, the screen, the Pi and a 12V to 5V converter. But at least there's plenty of space to add all the other necessary bits and pieces. The screen was the most awkward thing to mount as it is designed to fit easily into a plastic surround with the Pi directly behind. For that, the 4 mounting screws fit directly to the case. But here I want it in the front panel. My rather less than elegant solution was to get some 1/4" square aluminium bar, make holes for 4 M3 nuts and bolts and tighten these to become studs - these are in the horizontal pieces as shown in the pic. These were then epoxy glued to the front panel. Two more bars then take the screen, with spacers so the screen isn't pulled back too much when tightening. Anyway, elegant or not you can't see it from the front! Still to…

The EMF talk on yesterday's BATC CAT21 event was extremely useful, as indeed have other talks at previous events. It has all slowly become a lot more clear, in particular the current (and hopefully future) standard setups. What was not clear to me, and probably should have been (!), is that 'ground' is actually the level where someone may be rather than the actual dirt. So the first floor in a house for example. At least that's how I understand it. Having grabbed the latest (v0.1.2a) RSGB spreadsheet I have done the calculations for my kit from 4m upwards and all is well. The two transverters feeding the big wheel and dipole in the loft both pass as compliant due to their low power, and the colinear on the FTM100DE at 50W is just high enough to be fine. What I have done by way of recording is to save each completed spreadsheet to PDF, cut off everything except the first page, and then paste it into a document along with information explaining where the antennas are etc. The only more complicated one is my QO100 dish as that is basically at head height behind the garage. As I can…

The Mark 2 bit of wet string seems to be going ok with 5W. Well, mostly. Concentrating on FT8, which is my usual mode of operation I can reach the east coast of the US with decent-ish reports, and all across Europe, all depending on conditions of course. However, it won't tune too well on 30m - two LED flashes on the YT-1200 - but I've made several contacts just fine. It does seem deaf higher up than 15. And no spots yet on 80. Plenty on 60 though, a band I could not get on to at all with the Mark 1 wet string affair. It picks up major noise below 30m but FT8 is still doing it's thing.

Today I had hoped to achieve two things: replace my ailing Linux PC with a far better spec'd eBay special; and add a disk to a Hikvision NVR and get it configured ready to swap the security cameras over. The disk from the eBay PC was going to go into the NVR as a test (it's only 500GB, far too small), and the two disks currently in the Linux PC were to be swapped over to the 'new' PC. QED. Ok... so the PC is a Dell. I always liked Dell PCs because they are just so easy to work on. No screws, everything clips in place. Even the hard disks sit in plastic trays and do not need screwing in. The PC has one of these already and I know I have a couple of others from a previous Dell system. So, all should just fit... right? The other disk caddies are, of course different! Ok, back to eBay and one ordered. But I can still sort the NVR. All I need is a SATA data cable, and I have plenty, and a SATA power cable. I have two of those in the spares box with different motherboard connectors.

Following on from me always saying it's about time I got some wire outside I have, temporarily put a 9:1 unun and random wire in the loft and connected it instead of the 20/6 fan dipole. So far, I can see my FT8 signals being received across Europe with one contact on 20m and one on 40, but it's getting on towards the evening now so I need to see what it is like tomorrow. Very un-scientific of course. Noise is high, but not much higher than the fan dipole. This one will tune down to 60m and 80m but I am yet to be convinced it is actually receiving. The fan dipole pegged out at 40m and that was a struggle - little wonder with so little wire. The YT-1200 will tune the random wire to 160m but it sets the house alarm off! The wire to the bell box runs through the loft and presumably whatever protection circuit there is in the alarm panel assumes someone has cut the wire.