Communication Fever: Introduction and Dedication

Page started 20th April 2010

I miss my old mate Tony (G0 OVR) who left this world seven years ago, but I am sure he's radio signals are still travelling at the speed of light across the universe somewhere.

This page is dedicated to him

Tony in Eygpt

I do not keep a diary I tried to but I kept forgetting to add any entries. I guess it was 1979 and Tony and I were doing up a country house located on a hill in North Surrey in Southern England. It was a big spread with huge grounds so we had trouble finding each other and this become a chore. In 1979 there was no mobile phones as such but naughty cb radio's were being imported from America etc. illegally. We was offered a couple of Cobra am handheld walkie talkies and apart from the massive telescopic antenna's they done the job. It wasn't long before we started to hear other people and I can still remember a "breaker" called Andy Capp who we got talking to and then the breakers come in from America and we was hooked. We purchased a couple of sideband cb's messed a round with antenna's including the famous DV27, and the Sigma 4 and the world was our oyster. We both set up radio stations at home and we took it all quiet serious keeping logbooks and experimenting with all sorts including building our own antenna's and learning about the electronics and converting the cb's so they had more power and extra channels. This was to set us up nicely for our discovery of Amateur Radio.

Tony had the bigger house and the bigger garden so he always had more stuff and antenna's than me and because he had a better location he had better radio contacts than me. Tony started collecting all things radio including old military kit (nick-name boat anchors because that sort of stuff is heavy) valved communication receivers like the Racal RA17 and the like, the list is endless. He had a wind up tower in his garden that went up 60ft and massive beam antenna's perched on top. He worked the world and received many contact confirmation QSL cards. In later years Tony become more of a interesting things collector than a radio operator and spent many hours searching Ebay and the like looking for the weird and wonderful and also he changed his radio habits and just talked locally on VHF to fellow Radio Hams.

The Shack 2010

G0 VPH

I sit in my shack and have the computer just out of shot of the above picture and I try to not let it dominate over the radio, of course writing this Blog it's doing just that. In the picture there is a Kenwood TS 50, a Heathit SB101 valved transceiver, a Yaesu FT290 mk1, a Icom 251E, a Sommerkamp FT301D, with power supplies,test meters and dummy loads. There is a Canadian Army signal generator that still works a treat 50 years after it was made and is easy to calibrate up against a known source.

My experience of Amateur Radio is very varied but I have always been plagued with one problem "antenna's" a small back yard is no good but Suzy C. will not move houses. I had to make do.

Starting the hobby with a B class licence I could only transmit VHF which is basically line of sight but atmospheric and Ionospheric enhancements can improve this frequency band and I have communicated to stations in the Canary Islands, Norway, Germany, Sweden, Finland and Croatia, Spain, Austria and of course much of the UK including the far flung Scottish Islands. In 1995 I learnt the noble art of sending and receiving Morse Code and took the test at the BBC in White City, North London. I passed and was awarded a certificate. This new skill allowed me to operate the shortwave bands (HF) by morse code, RTTY (Teletype), digital or voice. I mainly use voice these days but I did enjoy RTTY using a old teletype machine called a Creed 444, Great FUN!!

The short wave bands are a whole new ball game with world wide communication available on different frequencies within the bands at different points in time. Time can be time of day or time of year. With the sun being the main factor in long distance communication the study of radio propagation is a must. Solar flares and the ionosphere is a fascinating subject and radio communicating distances can be predicted from gathering data from them.

Different shortwave bands have also varying ground wave properties (how far will the signal travel without influence from the sun) this type of signal would be influenced by transmitter power and the topography of the land , and the radio frequency that is used. A lower radio frequency is better for ground wave.

On the whole I do not do to bad from my location and I have many contacts from around the world. Believe it or not there is various sports and contest events where ham radio has a sporting competitive edge. With a type of orienteering which involves direction finding (you have to be alert and quite fit to do this) There is also direction finding with out the" knackering your self running up the side of mountains" and contests on air where stations are trying to work as many contacts (speak to other hams around the world) as possible.

This sometimes results in very noisy frequency bands. Trophy's, certificates and being entered onto the roll of honour is the reward and of course self satisfaction. I do join in the radio contests but only really to let those that are keen to get a contest point for their logbook. The worked all Britain (WAB) contest is a on-going

involvement where you tick off map grid squares, counties, districts etc. from all over Britain and all monies raised goes to charities. My book number is 5929..

The pc has found it's way into Ham Radio in a big way and there is many data methods that is possible to do in conjunction with a radio. I have tried a few but only as fads and I suppose like most modern digital euipment it is quickly surpassed by something else, but the original idea is still there "RADIO"