Radio and rails...

Since my last post about the SG-Labs 23cm transverter I realised I have several handhelds all of which have low power settings. Time to try some FM and get a better frequency readout. 144MHz did indeed produce 1296MHz (and some small change) on the frequency counter. Time to get adventurous - GB3WC in Wakefield is about 15 miles away and pretty much line of sight and so would make a good test. With the transverter in repeater mode with a -6MHz shift (jumpers 1 and 3 on) and the FT2D programmed for 145.375MHz simplex (WC transmits on 1297.375MHz) - the transverter does the shifting - and the necessary 82.5Hz tone I can open GB3WC and receive it at S9+ on my 8 element 23cm Yagi. In the true spirit of let’s get this new shiny box working this test entailed the use of a microphone stand, some wire and some clamps. But it works. Only a quick test today as the battery was nearly out on the Yaesu and it's kind of hard to talk into it where it is. Somewhere I have a headset for it which will make life easier until I figure out how to site it…

I’ve always been interested in microwaves and 23cm is one band up from where I currently have kit (well, ok, apart from the QO100 setup) so I got an SG Labs 23cm transverter from eBay. I thought I may as well have a play before The Powers That Be trash the band as seems threatened. Nice little box. Of course, it gives me a problem now and having just spent an hour cobbling stuff together I am a way away from being able to actually use it. But I wanted to make sure it worked, not that I suspected otherwise but it’s a new (to me) shiny box and I want to play with it. So, how to feed it… I grabbed the TR-9130 that had been relegated to the workshop since I got a 144MHz transverter and let it acclimatise overnight. Apparently this puts out 5W on its minimum setting which is borderline for the SG Labs kit. Fumble around for my attenuators - but those are F-types. And of course I had no patch leads to hand… but I did have some useful crimp PL259s to quickly make a lead up. Running the VHF set through a SWR/power…

I gave the pibox a present today in the form of a 3.2" Nextion display. It came with a bezel which I wanted because I could guarantee not to make a neat hole in the panel. Oddly, the bezel was black in the advert but came unfinished... The screen runs off a USB port on the Pi via a CP2102 USB to TTL dongle, and the wires that came with the Nextion just reach the dongle which in on the far side of the box. It was surprisingly easy to set up, albeit I had to wrestle the Windows PC to set up the Nextion editor as I did not have a spare SD card to download the HMI file directly to the Nextion. Of course, this exercise was very much a 'got a new thing, must get it working immediately' type job and I will take time now to read up on it all and maybe find different displays, but it has at least turned a boring blue box into a blue box that appears to have a purpose!

It’s been an impressive two days on 2m FT8. Yesterday (3/march) pskreporter showed that I had been received in GI, EI, GD and GW as well as right down into Devon, and today similarly so with the exception of Ireland and the addition of GM. Not bad for my cobbled together dipole in the loft. Of course it’s likely that all the reports are from stations with humungous antennas but hey, a report is a report. And yes, tidying the loft is on my to-do list!

(updated) As I am learning morse, well, in theory anyway, I wanted a decent morse key. I think a straight key will be best but I want something decent and not naff looking or ex-military. I like the look of the Bencher (probably because it’s shiny!) but I have no idea of the feel of any of these keys and looking around for comments shows that everyone likes their own - to be expected of course. Back in December 2020 I had actually ordered one that gets good reviews but it never came. After three emails to three separate contacts and never getting a reply I turned to PayPal and got a full refund within two days. Two months was long enough to wait for the key to fail to arrive. I suspect the order was messed up by our rather stupid exit from the EU and the resultant complexities… but to not receive any reply, well, that’s just not good customer service. So... I got this instead, it's so shiny!