Radio and rails...

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.

The time that a Brazilian station calling CQ on 21MHz hears you at -19 from 10W into a bit of wet string but never completes because the band is shutting down. That.

Ok with a spare bit of decent coax into the loft as I said it seemed a shame to waste it so I stuck an Anyyone AT588 70MHz set on one end and made a 4m dipole for the other. So it adds 4m to my arsenal. Bit quiet here though! This is FM of course but it did pick up what sounded like SSB at 70.220 so I fired the SDR up (desktop aerial) and sure enough heard a chap up Sutton Bank (31 miles line of sight) in the 70MHz cumulative event today.