Coverage prediction software is nifty and handy, the internet and powerful computers have made the availability of predicting coverage footprints for transmitters and the visible horizon from any location on the globe really easy. A number of simple software packages that let you predict these items are Hey Whats That http://www.heywhatsthat.com/ and Radio Mobile Online http://www.cplus.org/rmw/rmonline.html. I’ve written…
Work took me back to western Victoria yesterday, with an early morning meeting in Warrnambool which meant a very early morning trip form Melbourne. Having finished all my tasks by mid-day, I took the opportunity to undertake some RF survey works taking the coast road back to Melbourne, looking at some site options for some…
The inspiration to purchase a RaspberryPi originally came from reading an article about turning it into a simple HF WSPR beacon. The device will output around 10 milliwatts directly from the GPIO4 pin and once connected to antenna will transmit away!. The first step was to build a simple band pass filter, i choose 30m/10Mhz…
I’ve had my RaspberryPi for a while now, but lacked the time or ability to have a proper play with it. That changed the other night when a cheap HDMI-VGA adaptor arrived in the mail to allow me to connect the Pi to an old LCD monitor i have. (i got strange looks using the…
A lot of my Sota chasing is from the car! It’s where most of my radio activity is based.. But that creates it’s own issues. How do you write down all the summit details and chaser info while doing 110km/hr on the freeway! I’ve missed a lot of chaser points through missing the logging bit.…
I’ve spent a couple of days recently in Ararat with work, a town in Western Victoria. We had been deploying a piece of telco equipment. By coincidence, Peter vk3zpf another active sota participant was assisting me with this work, though I’m sure he will claim I was being a manager and watching with a clipboard!!…
In the PO Box the other day was a new toy. (this one is my birthday present to myself) 😀 I had been using a you kits FG-01 for a and while and that device worked well, BUT… it lacked some functions and stopped at 60Mhz. I had read and seen a lot about the little…
As part of my efforts to make the FT817 work as well as it can on sota summits (yes, i tinker too much). I was looking at options for filters for the radio. While i have been spending money on this exercise of “pimping my radio”, i have been acquiring items cheap, second hand or…
Back when I started Sota, i was looking for a quick and easy antenna for portable use, along the way other items have been built and obtained that have made this project not as critical. The project is a simple 9:1 Unun that creates a match for a random bit of wire, it still needs…
In the world of VHF/UHF contesting, an accurate grid reference location is important for distance based scoring. In the old days, 4 digits was more than enough, Melbourne metro is typically QF22, Sydney Metro is typically QF56. 6 digit locations are now the norm for contesting, my place falls under QF22NC. I was looking for…