smøl and speedy
Amateur Radio is probably my most important non sporting hobby. It has shaped my interests, my career, the things I do in the hackerspace and the way I spend almost all of my non-professional time. I currently operate as MM0RFN, ex 2M0HIB & MM3ZRZ.
These are the collected results and thoughts from my years of experimentation and play in this area.
GB7HIB GB7HIB is my permanent packet radio node, living at my house in the woods atop a hill near Aberdeen! Ofcom’s details for this station are held on ukrepeater It is accessible on 432.6250MHz, and is currently operating on legacy 1200bd. I am very excited to play with new, higher speed modes - The station was commissioned at and tested at 9600bd, and I am excited to play with new speeds as time, equipment and my userbase, allows! …
tj and I figured that to fit the 3 Moray coast hills we were interested in climbing, now that the restrictions are eased, an early start would be required! The longest walk should go first and the activation times on each hill would be limited. Predictably, we left at 1030, got a bit lost and I got too excited on the radio, so none of the self made rules were followed! …
Previously, I wrote about building a battery for my portable radio operations. This project has been a long and agonising one. Batteries are really difficult, and I spent a good chunk of June, July and August thinking about them. The Winning Design As I discussed in that last blog post, the architecture I settled upon was: I’ve learned quite a lot, made a large number of wrong assumptions and joined a lot of dots in my head as this has gone on. …
Here’re my first sota trip reports. I made some mistakes and have lots to learn still, but they were great days out and I’m dead keen to do more. Most importantly, I’ve got better at radio in general - I’m much more comfortable on a microphone, I understand the flow and format of an HF contact far better. It’s very different from the datamodes I’ve been doing for years! One thing that I’ve noticed, and it probably deserves mentioning, is that the SOTA web infrastructure is some of the best I’ve seen in ham radio. …
This post is part of [tj]’s blog more in June challenge. You should join us and take part - just make 4 posts in June! I have an amount of portable, HF radio equipment that I don’t use enough. One reason is just how awkward and cumbersome it can be to move everything around. I would like to have a small bag/box I can attach to a backpack or my bike before I go out. …