Matt M0PUH @m0puh@mastodon.radio

Had a quick go with a mini whip antenna (in my loft) any my new HF+ discovery.

I powered it with a cheap lab PSU and the noise floor raised enormously from ~ -85 dB to -60 dB with regularly spaced carriers.

Definitely amplifying a load of crud from in my house and presumably the PSU isn't helping!

#hamradio #amateurradio

I guess you that know masto has taken off when you get spammy follows!

I'm not sure if this was the result of some sort of rift, but https://groups.io/g/RSGB-Workshop looks like it might be an interesting group.

Also, unlike the RSGBTechnical group which (confusingly) isn't anything to do with the RSGB, this looks to have been setup by one of the RadCom authors.

#hamradio #amateurradio

Got my Airspy HF+ Discovery!

Had to pay some fairly hefty import tax but this looks pretty nice.

Shame all the most user friendly and feature rich software is Windows only. I’d love SDR# for Linux or Mac.

#sdr #hamradio

Renewed my ARRL subscription and added QEX as it looks fun. Looking forward to yet another radio mag to read 😃

#hamradio #amateurradio

Got a copy of the new English translation of Rothammel’s antenna book.

What a beast this is! It has more in it than I would have thought possible and nearly 1600 pages.

This looks like a decent Kicad tutorial: https://github.com/MalphasWats/hawk (seen via hackaday https://hackaday.com/2019/07/29/a-new-kicad-tutorial-hits-the-scene/ A New KiCAD Tutorial Hits the Scene)

#electronics #pcb

Had a fun morning at the Chippenham Radio Rally.

It was smaller than the others I've been to but it was my favourite so far in terms of stalls.

It was great to catch up with the GQRP/Bath Training guys who were there. But I wonder why my local club didn't have a stall.

#hamradio #amateurradio

This is an interesting read:

Exploring The Raspberry Pi 4 USB-C Issue In-Depth

https://hackaday.com/2019/07/16/exploring-the-raspberry-pi-4-usb-c-issue-in-depth/

WSJT-X 2.1.0 has been released:

https://sourceforge.net/p/wsjt/mailman/message/36718281/

The main addition is the FT4 mode, but quoting the release message:

Improvements have also been made in the following areas:

- FT8 waveform generation using GMSK, fully backward compatible
- user options for low-sidelobe waterfall and spectrum display
- UDP messaging for inter-program communication
- accessibility

... as well as many minor enhancements and bug fixes.

Release notes at: http://physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/k1jt/Release_Notes.txt

#hamradio

"The Antuino is an Antenna Analyzer and a compact RF lab for the homebrewers"

This look cool, I like the big control knob: http://www.hfsignals.com/index.php/antuino/

#antennas #hamradio #amateurradio

Here's the RSGB's statement on the 2m WRC process:

https://rsgb.org/main/blog/front-page-news/2019/07/01/144-mhz-and-the-wrc-process/

tl;dr: please don't sign any random badly worded petitions, we're on it.

I think (as others have said) continuing to pay the RSGB for membership is probably the best course of action for now.

#hamradio #amateurradio

CloudFlare will respond to DNS lookups on 2m FM. Awesome!

See birdsite: https://twitter.com/jgrahamc/status/1145383199297736704

The PiJuice zero looks nice. It's a UPS/battery management HAT for Pi Zero:

https://www.crowdsupply.com/pi-supply/pijuice-zero/updates/the-pijuice-zero-campaign-is-now-live

This might be a fun way to make a mobile GPS based clock or maybe an APRS module, if it's stackable with the boards @M0YNG has.

Pi Supply is a UK company, so I expect they'll be available direct eventually for us brits (https://uk.pi-supply.com/collections/pijuice has some larger HATs for full sized Pi boards), but the shipping cost seems fairly reasonable.

#raspberrypi

This "The RFzero™ board is an Arduino compatible GPS based Si5351A RF signal source" looks pretty cool: http://www.rfzero.net/

Cost is ~£60, so not bad.