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I was invited to Suffolk RED last evening for the opportunity to demonstrate the sort of equipment I take up hills for SOTA purposes. For those who don’t know, Suffolk RED (Radio and Electronics Development) is a monthly supra-club event, now into its fourth year, which has proved very popular in East Anglia. The premise…
I had a bit of spare time over the weekend, so gave away a few points in the French REF-CW contest. Equipment was my Elecraft K3 with just 40W out (to prevent QRM to neighbours) to my 30m dipole, tuned onto 40m. I’m not entirely sure how effective this was. Many stations seemed to struggle…
I operated with Rob M0VFC for the three RSGB 80m and 40m Affiliated Society Contests in January 2018 from Flossie, the Camb-Hams van, at our Worts Causeway site (JO02CE). CW (Sunday 7th January) This was a very fun event. We were using two Elecraft K3s, one with a KPA500, and the other with a Juma…
This post describes a project I’ve been working on during Christmas this year. It is a project that’s absolutely not for the inexperienced, so if you decide to take any of the ideas in this post – which you’re absolutely welcome to do – I won’t be able to assist. This is Part 1 of the post.…
In August 2017, I spent a few days doing some of the Summits on the Air summits in the Pyrenees. Monday 31st July Trône du Roi (F/PO-187): Attempt 1 After flying into Toulouse and getting a hire car (which took an unexpectedly long time), I drove to the Trône du Roi (King’s Throne) to operate,…
This post is about my entry from Chile in the CQWW CW Amateur Radio contest. If you’re not a radio amateur, and you’re just interested in following my travels in Chile, you probably want to skip this post in the series. Similarly, if you are a radio amateur and you’ve come here to find out…
As some of you might be aware, I’m going travelling in Chile for most of November and December. This isn’t a radio DXpedition as I can only take one 23kg suitcase to last 6 weeks and clothes and camping stuff have to take priority! That said, I do have a Chilean licence, and I am taking…
That’s it. At 01:30 UTC on 17th July, we finished our DXpedition to Svalbard. So, how did we do? The raw numbers On the face of it, this wasn’t our most successful DXpedition in terms of QSO count. During the six full days we were QRV, we only made 6305 contacts between the six of us.…
While we’re in Svalbard, we’re operating from the JW5E shack, the local radio club cabin. I’m also sleeping here, so I thought I’d give a quick introduction to what’ it’s like to stay at the station, which can be rented by other radio amateurs. For official information on the station, see jw5e.com Before going any further, I…
After our trip to Barentsberg a couple days previously, yesterday we went to Pyramiden, named after the Pyramid-shaped mountain above the town. Like Barentsberg, this is a Russian coal-mining settlement. Unlike Barentsberg, however, Pyramiden is a ghost town. Or almost a ghost town. The mine closed in 1997. Under the Svalbard Treaty, if a settlement…