Radio and rails...

Passed the Intermediate exam today - now wait for the 2E-whatever callsign... then I can wind the wick up if needed. Mind you, the autotuner can only cope with 30W digi anyway, and it's been fun seeing how far I can get with 10. Actually, the important thing to me is access to those microwave bands that the Foundation does not give, and also the ability to use homemade transmitters. Time to tidy the workshop!

The network radio rave continues and everyone will have, and will be perfectly entitled to their own views. Here’s mine. I got into amateur radio after decades of not doing so but the interest began when I could pick up strange music and news from far away. This was in my childhood. I worked in electronics for some time and understand RF and all that jazz. I went through various SWL phases including getting heavily into RTTY, at one time having a couple of Creed 7E machines, a tape reader, a tape punch, and a TU connected to either my B40 or B41 receivers. Those are long gone but the number of radios I have is increasing. People ask me why bother with any of it when I can simply use the phone? But it still tickles me that electrons emitted from a bit of wet string in our loft can be picked up in the Falkland Islands. This is the essence of amateur radio to me. Why bother? When asked why he wanted to climb Everest mallory famously and simply said “because it’s there”. Yet, I’ve seen photos of rock climbing vs climbing wall climbing used an an example…

The Perseids are with us, peaking on 12th August apparently. Anyway, I've never received any MSK144 before so I left the rig running two nights ago on 50.280 and actually received two properly decoded CQs from a DK station. Now, if I had a decent aerial, and more watts...

So I got an Icom ID-51 so I will have DMR, C4FM and D-Star. Well why not... it's currently on its initial charge for 2 more hours or so. I though that a good time to read the manual and sort out registration. So far, not so good. DMR was simple. I can't remember what I did for C4FM but it all works. D-Star? I followed the guidance and looked for the nearest repeater in the list. But the nearest one in that list is now C4FM. Ok, next nearest. That has a registration URL which takes me to an information page on which there is no sign of anywhere to go to register. Right. Next nearest - and no way I could contact it from here - has a broken registration URL. So I started at the top of the list. I gave up after 15 - most had no registration URL, the rest had broken links or had apparently gone over to DMR. I picked a few others at random, all follow the same tale. Off to Icom UK via Google - it has a link to a registration form but it does not actually work, i.e. you…

The bands were hyper last night, I've never experienced Es until now. 6m looked like 20m it was so crammed. I managed 3 FT8 QSOs in quick succession which is a lot for me and anyway 10W into a bit of wet string does not compare well when the waterfall is completely packed with strong signals. 10m was equally packed - I didn't try further down as sleep beckoned. I did try a couple of voice calls but ended swamped in a pile-up but hey, next time. Quite a bit of morse on 6m too... my learning is way too little at the moment but hopefully will pick up next month. There was even a bit of 4m FM about.