Amateur Radio
Blame Rob
I was first licence in 1982, after studying at South East Derbyshire College of Further Educations, in Heanor Derbyshire, attending a weekly evening class and being instructed by such local notaries as Bill G8RZM (I know EXACTLY where you are)....Luckily as it happened I managed to be one of the first to take the new RAE, in a multiple choice format, it was still 2 papers 1.5hrs each though.
I remember a few of my rigs at the time, a Belcom Liner 2 for 2m SSB, can't quite remember what I had for FM, later on I bought a Yaesu FT-290 obviously Mk1, and used a Shakespeare white stick collinear outdoors at about 10ft and a horizontal coax dipole indoors.
I moved from then Selston to Eastwood for a short while, and during that time bought an Icom IC-251E, 17el Tonna and a small rotator and pole, which I installed in my father in-laws garage, moving swiftly to Brinsley I erected the pole et al onto the chimney while the council conveniently had scaffolding up to repair the roof...
I suppose I should have checked the condition of the chimney as some time later in very heavy winds, it all came down on the back garden, chimney and everything ...ouch.
After that (and with new aerials) I mounted the pole to the wall and operated much lower down... It was during the late 80's that the packet revolution happened and I got caught up in it, even setting up GB7MUM at my works QTH as a packet repeater & BBS. Tiring of packet as most people did, and a divorce I packed up radio for good....
Until now! Blame that Rob fellow G4ROB, I became interested again last year just before my birthday (May in case your wondering) and am especially interested in computers & Radio combined, and my first purchase was a Yaesu FT-767 fully loaded from Ebay.... collecting a couple of collinear aerials from Anchor Supplies, eventually persuading the XYL to allow me to put an external aerial on the chimney (NO not a beam) and as she worked from home such a lot, I built her an office in the spare bedroom, and added my shack in there as well...
Just before christmas I sold the Yaesu FT-767 and purchased a Icom IC-706 MKIIG as although the 767 had a CAT port, it didn't work with Ham Radio Deluxe, but was ok with Easypal (and previously Hampal). The 706 was a bargain, boxed and almost new with PSU etc
Recently due to my step daughters emigration to VK land, we acquired yet another spare bedroom, so moved upstairs from the extension to the Ozzies bedroom (fumigating and decorating obviously) and also moved the office lock stock and barrel downstairs into the extension.
Still using the IC-706 and active on Easypal, I found that I needed a dedicated HF rig, as I couldn't listen and take part in the local rag chews and monitor HF, so looked around for something. Luckily I saw an advert on Ebay for an Icom IC-756 from W&S, slight problem with the screen (haven't they all) but dead cheap, so that is now residing on my desk... and the screen problem has cleared up too!!! bonus.
Any way, I've listed the shack equipment below, subject to change of course, the IT stuff being important as my wife works from home, and needs the facilities such as Exchange email, remote desktop etc
Ah well all change yet again, after Xmas 2009 I swapped my Icom IC756 Pro II, speaker & mic for a Flex-Radio Flex-3000 SDR rig, so now my two hobbies are totally intertwined.
Currently the shack contains;
- Icom IC-796 Mk IIG, all mode shack in a box
- Flex-3000, HF+6
- Yaesu FT-60E dual band hand held
- MFJ 1279 Deluxe Sound card radio interface
- G3LIV data interface
- Welz SP-300 power meter
- Watson W-25sm 25a psu
- Comet GP15 3 band collinear mounted at 30+ ft
- 12Mtr Pump up mast behind the shed, small 3ltr air compressor
- 5 el 2m / 7 el 70cms dual band yagi on the mast
- G5RV 1/2 length at 20ft
- Comet CA-50 HB9CV on the mast currently at 5Mtrs agl!
- Yaesu FT7800, dual band mobile fitted in my car for mobile operations
- IT Equipment;
- Server
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2, Exchange 2003, SQL Server 2005
- Smartdisk SohoNAS Linux server
- Workstations:
- Acer Aspire dual core workstation
- G6HOQ Quad core Flex-Radio PC
- Acer Aspire dual core workstation - Rita's
- Dell dual core Laptop
- Software;
- Flex PowerSDR 1.19.4 PB-Pal software
- Ham Radio Deluxe for control of my 706 & 756
- Digital Master 780 for RTTY, BPSK31, CW etc
- Easypal & Hampal for digital SSTV
- Echolink voip software
- AGWsoft Packet engine with UIView packet terminal software.
