Amateur radio ⁽²⁴⁹⁾

Slightly random... I have a Cisco SPA504G VoIP phone which I acquired ages ago and connected to Hamshack Hotline back when the UK still got 5 digit numbers. The phone isn a 4-line one and subsequently I got a Hams over IP number for line 2, then an extended freedom network number on line 3. After that the phone sat for ages with only the three lines in green, waiting for a fourth. I did consider buying a VoIP service to transfer our POTS number to once we upgraded to FTTP and lost the copper line. But then, all we used the landline phone for was ignoring junk calls, only ever making calls using my mobile phone which has free minutes and SMS, or using WhatsApp. So the landline went. And still that fourth line was dark, just sitting there. Along came CNet. I have had an interest in all things telephony and telegraphy from an early age. I always wanted a small mechanical PABX - I still don't have one but I do have an eye out for a couple of old dial phones from my childhood. And that's where the interest in CNet came from. Having investigated further…

I built a thing! This is a GPSDO using a PCB and kit of parts supplied by G8CUL and a OXCO from G1OGY. It uses a Jupiter GPS module which provides the PPS signal and a 10kHz output and the completed module provides 2x 10MHz and 1x 1MHz outputs. Although there are a number of such designs this one is nice in that it also has a display and shows the current date and time as UTC. This was, I think my third SMD construction and certainly the Mose SMD devices including multi-legged chips. No issues in construction especially given the quality of the PCB that G8CUL had made. The backup battery is a CR2 3.3V type and helps with warm starting. As the regulator gets hot I managed to fit a heatsink between it and the rear of the case and hopefully this will sort out heat transfer, otherwise I may need to bolt another heatsink on the rear. Construction in a die cast box would have been better maybe but the blue/white box fits in with others in the shack, plus I had it already! The bezel is cut down from a 3D printed one from Printables.com designed…

I had a number of Molex pins to wire up recently. To make things easier I decided to use some 4-core signal cable I had but found that the insulation is so poor at resisting heat that soldering the Molex pins was a non-starter as it always ended up with bare wires. Of course, Molex pins are designed to be crimped... so off to eBay. The latest addition to my toolbox arrived in a couple of days and made the job a lot easier.

When I first got my foundation licence I was lucky in that a friend sold me a used FT450D at a seriously good price. Since then it has been in regular use. But now I also have the TS2000X I am somewhat torn. Currently the TS2000X is plugged into three antennas, the loft wire + tuner, and the loft 2m and 70cm big wheels. I had been using an FT817 for 2m and 70cm but that is now sat on the floor all disconnected. Poor thing. But what to do with the FT450D... I do like the radio, it's very easy to use, nice display etc. and quite compact. Ok, not compact like the '817 but it's a 100W rig. But the TS2000X does everything I need in just one set, so do I sell the '450D? Decisions... I mean, I don't need both, I won't use both together... or will I? Well, yes actually, I can run the '450D on HF and the '2000X on VHF, especially once I finally set up my external wire (the long one not the current short one). And the '450D is connected to the Linux box with the '2000X connected to Windows. So…

I am surprised that I actually managed to do something useful today. For a while now I have been meaning to put a Cross Country Wireless HF/VHF/UHF antenna splitter to use and today was the day. It is now sat upside down on the top shelf above the radios, fed from the discone in the loft and feeding two little LoRa modules, one for TinyGS and one receiving radiosondes. The TinyGS receiver had been running for some time sat in the loft and was previously the only thing connected to the discone. The radiosonde receiver had a 70cm ground plane in the shack and never received anything. Since reorganising the feed it has burst into life, rather surprisingly finding a balloon quite close to this QTH which was apparently launched from somewhere to the west of the Lake District but the data does not show the launch site. Looking at the altitude figure in the data I suspect it is already sat on the ground. Pity I cannot go out right now to see if I can find it. Now, the cabling is RG58 and so not particularly good at UHF. The next step is to put a pre-amp next…