Royal Wedding Special Callsign MR0BGR

I did get on the air with my special call sign MR0BGR, but not for as long as I would have liked - work got in the way and I was abroad for part of the period covered by my licence.

There seemed to be lots of 'MR' staions using SSB and CW on the popular bands so I went for PSK-31, mostly on 30m, but I did use the other bands and did some CW. Most of my contacts were within Europe. It looked like the solar cycle was picking up, but the SFI dropped away to the low 100s for most of the time that I was able to operate so conditions were not great.

I have posted the QSL cards on eQSL and will send paper ones, via the bureau, shortly. If you worked me and do not have an eQSL card, let me know as this is an oversight on my part. A few Short Wave Listeners (SWL) have sent QSL cards direct - I will reply when I get my cards printed.

Thanks for those who worked me or sent SWL reports - these are always welcome here.

Dave, M0BGR

MR0BGR

I have a new amateur radio call sign: MR0BGR! Sadly this is only valid for 11 days from 29 April-9 May 2011 to commemorate the Royal Wedding (The extra 'R' being for Royal).

I will be active as much as I can during this short period mostly on HF PSK-31 (Data) and CW (Morse). 30m is my favourite band. I will QSL via eQSL or paper, but I am not on LoW.

If you hear me, leave a comment here.

Dave

ps. Best wishes to William and Catherine, if they happen to be reading this.

We had a lovely weekend here in UK, as HF band conditions were reasonable (SFI=114, not great but OK). I decided to experiment with simple vertical dipoles. I have a 7m fibre-glass pole that I normally use for VHF but I used that and built three wire dipoles for 10m, 15m and 20m. These were centre fed with RG-58 coax attached with a simple home-made BNC connector unit.

The weight of the antenna and feeder bent the top of the pole slightly, as shown in the photo. This is not a bad thing as it separates the antenna from the pole, which does interact slightly with antennas. The top sections of the dipoles were nearly vertical. This is important as it achieves a low radiation angle. This is especially true for the 20m dipole, which would otherwise be inclined at a shallow angle, raising its radiation angle.

All dipoles were easy to tune using my MFJ-259 antenna tuner. I cut them slightly long then trimmed pieces off, 5cm at a time, until I got to resonance.

Would they work? I connected my Yaesu FT-817 and had a listen around on 15m. Lots of activity, especially from USA and this was just too tempting. I plugged in my key, called some contest stations and got replies! Not all stations I called could hear me, but I worked four American, one Russian and one Bulgarian in about 20 minutes on CW (Morse Code). I was on internal batteries so probably not running more than 3 Watts, so I think I can say the 15m antenna worked.

I changed over to the 10m dipole (six minutes) and again there were stations to be heard. But unfortunately the internal batteries in the FT-817 were about to give up the ghost so I did not work anything on this band.

This little 'garden portable' expedition shows that it is possible to work HF even with very simple antennas and low power. The vertical dipole has a very low radiation angle (17 degrees, according to my antenna modelling software) so puts your signals exactly where they need to be for working DX (long-distance contacts).

70 cm Activity Contest

I took part in the 70 cm Activity Contest last night (2nd Tuesday of each month, 20:00-22:30 clock time). Conditions were dismal and I only completed 5 contacts, which I think is my worst ever in this contest. I will try to work portable next month to get a better location.

Wouxun KG-699E Accessories

As promised, here is a post on the accessories for the Wouxun KG-699E. If you want to read the review of the radio itself, then check earlier postings (click 'Older Posts' at the bottom of this page). Don't forget, your comments or questions will be welcomed, so please add some thoughts of your own.

Like all hand-helds, I needed to buy accessories to get the best out of the radio. These almost doubled the purchase price, but the cost still fell well short of buying the equivalent from one of the established amateur radio manufacturers.

Battery – the supplied battery is Lithium Ion type and has an excellent life, but fails quickly when exhausted. The radio does not have an external power socket so a spare battery is essential.

Antenna – The supplied rubber duck is only 1/20th wavelength long, so not very efficient as it's like trying to work 20m with 1 metre of wire!. I bought a longer antenna – the Garex Flexiwhip (http://www.garex.co.uk/), which is a centre loaded antenna about 500mm (so about 1/8 wavelength) long and fitted with the correct connector for the Wouxun radio. This is not as convenient as the supplied rubber duck for portable operation (see photos in the main review below), but in signal tests, with a local station, it gave about 6dB (one S point) improvement in signal strength.

External Mic & Speaker – As I often work portable and occasionally do Raynet activities I bought this accessory. Like the radio, it is robust and well made. Uniquely, I believe, Wouxun have made this product with a cable long enough to use the radio easily when it is clipped to my belt. The microphone unit has a clip and a socket for an external earpiece or headphones.

Software and Cable – The radio is a bit fiddly to programme, even though 4m does not have repeaters, so I invested in the programming cable and software. Having criticized the radio’s handbook, the software does not have any instructions at all, so it was a case of run the ‘set-up’ programme and hope for the best. Fortunately it installed without difficulty, but even then there are no help files so it was a case of plugging the radio into the USB port and figuring it out for myself. This was not too difficult and I soon had the channels I needed programmed.

I was pleased with all the accessories. Documentation was an issue with the software, but I worked around this. The Garex antenna is well worth the money and the handheld microphone/speaker's long lead makes it easy to use. The spare battery is essential.

Enjoy your Wouxun!

Dave

DAB Radio

Just to make a change from Amateur Radio topics, this post is about domestic digital, DAB Radio.

Those of you listening to the BBC, in UK, can hardly have missed the adverts encouraging us all to rush out and buy a DAB radio for Christmas. There is of course a hidden agenda - the Government is just itching to grab back the FM broadcast band so it can sell it off. The have set a threshold of 50% of all households owning a DAB radio so they can name a date when FM transmissions can cease - even this very low criterion has not been met yet. These are my thoughts:

• The UK Government have chosen the wrong system for DAB. They should have chosen the newer DAB Plus, which is used elsewhere in Europe. DAB and DAB Plus are not compatible so if they try to adopt DAB Plus, then all existing radios will be useless.
• In my experience, DAB offers no better quality than FM, provided the signal strength is good.
• DAB radios eat batteries so realistically have to be run from a mains power supply (My Sony XDR-S55 DAB radio is particularly bad, it runs off AA batteries and draws 200mA, which means about a 6-hour battery life. To make matters worse, this radio has an FM band but it continues to draw 200 mA even when switched to FM).
• Most of the country, by area, either cannot receive any DAB signal or can only get a few stations. So it is not clear to me how DAB can be viable for car radios or those who live in remote areas. I did not find much evidence of a plan to improve this coverage rapidly.
• Your DAB radio will not work abroad, apart from in a very few countries that use the UK system.

I do not want to be totally negative about DAB - there are some positives. If you live in a good signal area then you will get a lot more stations. Whether they are worth listening to is a matter for you! Some radios also give a text display, giving limited information about the programme you are listening to.

So should you ask Santa for a DAB radio in your stocking? If you are sure you live in a good signal area, you want the extra stations and you don't mind running the radio from the mains, then go ahead. BUT - do make sure your retailer will give you a refund if your radio does not receive the stations you expect - the coverage maps can sometimes be optimistic. You also need to be prepared for DAB to be phased out in favour of DAB Plus. This is not likely, in the short term, but you will almost certainly need to invest in a new radio if this happens.

I do not have any experience of DAB car radios, but I would be quite sceptical about their performance if you ever travel far from the large urban centres. Please post a reply if you use DAB in your car.

2m Club Championship December

For those not famililar with this two metre RSGB contest, it is run on the first Tuesday of each month. Points are per km for each QSO and multipliers are grid squares. Patricipants can add their scores to their club's total. The totals run from January to December for both individuals and clubs.

I have been working overseas a lot this year, but did get on for the December 2010 session. Conditions were quite flat, but as there were lots of stations participating I managed a reasonable claimed score of 11,000 +. I was pleased to work a station, M0GMG/A in IO83 - some 230 km away, which is not bad for 25 Watts and a 5-element beam in my loft.

Dave