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Experimental Radio Station--Call Sign G0VPH--listening to the world with a screwdriver in my hand

Amateur Radio My Story

Pre amble.....This page will be organic and grow naturally (hopefully).


It is now Nov. 2010

I have covered a small part of the early years with the page Introduction and Dedication posted on this Blogspot and I am hoping to continue the rest here....as long as my brain let's me

I still have the RAE course book Radio Amateurs' Examination Manual(1983) by G.L.Benbow G3HB , ninth edition which I used to pass the RAE examination in 1985 and a quick glance through it has made me think of those times.
This book I studied constantly, done the job because I achieved my pass certificate through the post and off I went to purchase the customary starter rig at the time, the FT290R . I still have this amazing little ssb/cw/fm transceiver and apart from a couple of repairs by me it works fine, it is receiving at the moment and I am aware of white noise on ssb.

Great Stuff!!

THE  YAESU FT290R MK1 WITH MUTEK AND TWEETY
I WAS SPOILT EARLY
It turned out that radio propagation on VHF (2metres) shortly after I was licensed was incredible and the FT290 and myself was put through our paces. In 1986 I managed to work a good few  counties in England on 2.5w ssb and a 8 element Yagi aerial. I also managed to work a good chunk of Western Europe. I do not believe I have heard 2 metres that good since.
I have put my old logbooks somewhere and at the moment due to the fact that I cannot find them I am lacking information regarding my early contact records and all the notes I put in the logbooks, such as my equipment and experiment notes.  I have never thrown a logbook away so they should be about somewhere.




I WASN'T INTERESTED IN MORSE CODE
G1 RGL was the call sign I was issued with when I was first licenced and it was a type B which allowed me to operate on VHF and above and that was more than enough to keep me busy for ten years. At the time I had no inspiration to do the Morse Code(CW) exam which would have gave me a type A licence and a different callsign and the privilege of working the HF frequency bands (shortwave) as well as VHF and above. I mainly stuck with a mode of operation called single side band (SSB) not just because that was where you would find the long distance contacts but because it always felt and it still does more like communication radio. VHF using the mode FM was and still is mainly used for local chat but on a good day fair distances could be worked.

I WASN'T INTERESTED IN DATA
I am trying to think what was about in 1885-86 that passed as data communications and apart from Radio Teletype (RTTY)  my mind is blank.  I shall have a think and perhaps browse a few books . I did use RTTY and the amazing machine I used to run it on was a Creed 444 and I am annoyed I have not still got it, a pure mechanical delight.  Morse code of course is a data transmission signal but with the human element manufacturing the shape of the data bits and the speed with which it is sent. Morse can be sent and received on a Morse reader  which takes out a lot of the human element "but is it cheating?"  I remember AMTOR (Amateur teleprinting over radio) a digital comms mode that was adapted from a navel system by a British radio ham . Sorry it's all bit vague but I was never fully interested in data transmission and to be honest I think I still feel the same. In my book data as we know it today is fine for communicating business stuff and banking, shopping etc. but it's not something I would want to do as a hobby. A simple data system called packet radio using a system called Baycom was something that I did use in the nineties and looking back on it, it was fun. I suppose Baycom is a bit like a forum/chatroom and it was a system that you did not need to be a absolute computer nut to use or understand. I still have the hardware/software somewhere and the 386 computer that I used to run Baycom on.

A PORTABLE SIDEBAND MAN
Looking back I have always been a side-band man and I have spent years chasing DX and chatting on ssb. Considering that I have a location that is restricted somewhat I never gave up and while the big stations with the good sites were picking up the spectacular contacts I was picking up the crumbs. If I couldn't do it from home, out and about mobile and portable was the place to be..
From the South Coast to John O'Croats out and about portable or otherwise known as stroke P ( /P) was the place to be. Tony G0-OVR who's callsign at the time was G1RER was always on board and most times he hogged the microphone and would ragchew all night long as I took a kip. I must have some pictures somewhere, I shall have a look.

DODGY PIZZA 
With the Heatherlite mobile microphone plugged into the FT290 and a 30 watt rf amplifier plus a good hill top site like Detling on the South Downs and hello to the rest of Britain and bonsuir to some parts of Europe.  I will take this opportunity to warn you of the dangers of eating a dodgy Pizza. We stopped for a Pizza in a takeaway on the outskirts of Croydon and purchased a couple of Pizzas,  I had the Hawaiian and it nearly killed me 30 minutes after I ate it. I come over really rough and I just wanted to die. What ever bug it was knocked me sideways and I had to pull over and lay in the back of the van. Tony made the best of a bad situation and ragchewed all night from a lay-bye down the A25 . I felt slightly better in the morning and we drove home. I have never been back to that Croydon takeaway since.


WORKING SSB
At the height of the 2 metre openings we were working stations 50-60 miles back into London using 250mw fm from a hand-held transceiver. We experimented by laying the hand-held horizontal on the grass at a place near Brighton and talking back to a net in S.E.London. That evening back working the mobile/portable station we worked all over the UK and we were working stations one after the other on ssb and  fm, they were queuing up. Not only was the conditions first class but there was a lot of Hams working 2m ssb in those days. There was a large influx of new Hams in the early 80's and a lot of them were "Sidebanders" from the old illegal cb sideband clubs etc. and I suppose that Tony and I were of the same category. I must try to find my old log books of that time as it will tell me what equipment we had with us and who we worked. Check your logbook, our calls G1RGL and G1RER.

Know need to find my 1986 logbook to find this contact,  this QSL card is pinned on my shack wall.

This club is still going strong, I make it now 64 years.

                                                                           *

I was mobile and he logged me at R5 S2.

At some point I acquired a 30watt linear which gave me a gain of 10.5db over the 2.5watts that the 290R could deliver.This gain in rf power was just enough to improve my signal and help me to achieve a more readable signal for the regulars that I worked and the vhf dx that I chased.

RADIO AURORA (aurora borealis the visual aspect)
In the 80's I remember working my first Aurora opening and it was strange. "It still is"  Even to this day all the questions have not been answered regarding how that this natural phenomena can reflect/scatter radio signals back the way they come or in some direction from it. To fully understand a aurora you have to look at the Sun ( not literally ) and the Sun spots and solar flares that make up a part of the life of the Sun. The eleven year "ish" solar cycle and the spots and the flares that go with it could result in the conditions that may produce a aurora on Earth.

Summary....... The energy that results from the Sun and it's solar flares makes it's way to Earth and influences Earth's magnetic field as well as it's atmospheric properties and this action could result in a aurora. A example of a aurora radio contact could be a station in London working a station due south in Eastbourne by pointing their beam aerial north and pinging their signal off the aurora so their signal goes back over their head and south to Eastbourne. Fascinating stuff

This subject is massive and could easily fill all the pages on the site, but I am not going to go down that road, that would have me on this Blog forever.  There is a lots of aurora information on the web or in books that is fascinating to read. A very good technical publication dated 1991 is Radio Auroras by Charlie Newton G2FKZ, this book is a few years old and there may be updates.
To experience a radio signal influenced by a aurora can be described as "spooky" the aurora effect on the signal has a Doppler property which helps to makes the voice you are listening to sound haunted and ghost like. I will have a look through my audio tapes of that period and see if I recorded it.



to be continued.........