Amateur Radio

David Brewerton, licence holder of callsign M0EZP is one of six million people worldwide enjoy Amateur Radio.

Most Amateur Radio operators (Hams) are involved in Global communication; a great way to develops better understanding of geography, languages and cultures.

Licences are granted after the operator has passed the appropriate examinations to ensure they have the skills to transmit relatively high power signals on frequency bands across the spectrum, with minimal risk of interference to others.

Many Hams enjoy the achievement of using equipment they have designed or built themselves - aerials, transmitters, receivers and test equipment.

Amateur Radio is often used to provide emergency communications, eg. Haiti, the Indian Ocean Tsunami etc. Click here for information from the Radio Society of Great Britain.


Featured Photo:-
Winter Wonderland

Featured photo - click to see full size

Taken at New Year, the countryside looks lovely covered in snow! So cold though that I have had to create the 'Winter Shack'.

Winter Shack
click to zoom - Winter Shack

Yes it looks like a pile of scrap radio bits, and frankly it is but I don't have to freeze over winter in the main shack anymore!



Met Office Atlantic Synoptic
Solar~~~~Flux~~Geo Mag
N3KL: Solar Xrays : Degree of absorbsion QUIET=DX  C-FLARE+=Only Locals+ knock-on effect on Geo-mag    N3KL: GeoMag field :Degree of HF noise QUIET=s2 -UNSETTLED-ACTIVE- STORM=s4+ Severe=s9

Atlantic HF Propagation Map

Atlantic propagation chart

FURTHER INFORMATION ON NEWS ITEMS
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HADARS Mast Tests

Halifax ARS activities

The gala mast - click to zoom

Jabra A210Jabra J210 bluetooth adapter connected to transceiver mic & headphone sockets

Original Stealth station
Stealth station all in a pull out drawer

QSL Card for M0EZP

News: Summer 2010

I have uprated my homebrew Sutton DSB HF transceiver transceiver to raise the output from 5w to 15-20w by providing a higher voltage supply to the linear applifier. The IRF510 MOSFETs are now happily running from a 24v supply.

I was hoping to build the Minster SSB transceiver from Walford Electronics but sadly Tim Walford concluded that it's design would make it too expensive to sell so the soldering iron is hot and waiting for the next major design that Tim cooks up!

Halifax and District ARS ran an exhibition station at 2010 Halifax Charity Gala on 12th June 2010 and Brighouse Charity Gala on 26th June 2010. On 17th April club members met at Manor House Farm, Lower Wyke as a practice run which was good fun!

I have a neck condition and so rely on a bluetooth headset for most of my phone calls. I came across this article by K7SFN where a bluetooth headset was connected wirelessly to his transceiver so he could move around and rely on the transceiver's VOX control to switch transmit/receive. He used a Jabra A210 device which was developed as an adapter to provide bluetooth flexibility to non-bluetooth mobile phones.

K7SFN's article puts it very well and mine was a very straight forward project. The device has a 2.5mm stereo socket for mic in on the tip and phones out on the ring with sleeve to ground. As 2.5mm is a faff to solder, I used a 2.5mm-3.5mm adapter and then a 3.5mm to RCA Phone lead to give me two leads. I put a Yaesu mic connector on one lead and a ¼ inch jack plug on the other lead and amazingly it worked well first time as I tried to contact a station in Cyprus, another in Iceland and a nice audio report from a special event station in Portugal! That's fine using my FT-990 but my micro-shack has a FT-747 with no VOX so the next step was to build a VOX circuit!

Before Christmas, the Micro-shack in my Dining Room was first revamped with a T/R switch to switch PTT on the Mirage B108 linear amp and the Icom IC-2E at the same time. It also steps power down to 9v from 13.8v for the Icom. This was then revamped again to be a complete HF/VHF station - the 'Winter Shack' which comprises the 2m equipment, FT-747DX HF transceiver, homebrew 6m transverter and linear amp, homebrew Z-match ATU and Datong RF-Clipper!