Posted 01 Sep 2010 — by Alex
Category Radio
My knowledge of APRS is pretty slim. My handheld gets seldom used. In fact I nearly fell off my chair when I got a reply through the repeater this evening and I was scuppered by a knock at the door. But thats another story.
I’ve been trying to get APRSBB to work on my Storm and just couldn’t get it going. Always getting a Manager Start Failed errror. I’d tried to turn on the APN and not realising there needed to be something in the settings done as well I didn’t quite manage it. Tonight however after the developer (Chris) had done some tweaking and I read the error report I managed to confirm that it was the APN issue. So following a bit of googling (Sorry for the poor English) I found a link to add orangeinternet into the first APN line on the settings. Voila its working. As demonstrated by aprs.fi
Very glad its all working. Now then the only thing remaining is the QSO!
Posted 31 Aug 2010 — by Alex
Category Radio
Some activity finally rolling in.
Theres hope for a few QSO’s to South America but only if I stay up very late. Not much chance of that at the moment though. A few more weeks should do the trick nicely!
Posted 31 Aug 2010 — by Alex
Category Radio
Its been a funny weekend. Not in the sense that all of a sudden I couldn’t stop laughing. More along the lines of a heap of jobs got done. Not just because I had plenty of time on my hands, which I did actually becasue Mrs g7kse and the kids were away from Saturday. Somehow it actually just happened.
The 6-BTV got a kind of guy. Short of trailing the normal (read sensible) guying cables so that there is a domestic imbalance (DI). Which I wish to avoid. I tied the lower section of the antenna to the decking using a piece of garden timber 100mm x 10mm ( I don’t do old money – sorry. Not an SI unit and I have no idea what 33/64ths is). With a 25mm hole cored out. Just enough slack to allow movement but enough to restrain it.
Second job was laying carpet tiles in the garage and setting out the workbench. A much more cosy prospect for working in. Winter training and fixing my bikes. Which being cheap / old need a fair bit of love.
Finally reloctaing the wire receiving antenna. Tried but failed on account of the poor location for the opening into the loft. I just couldn’t reach it with the ladder and even with fixh wires etc couldn’t get the end into the house. Plus it caused a nasty DI when it was easily spotted!
2 wins and one failure. Not a bad score for 1 1/2 days. 1 day on a canoe on Wast Water whilst some friends swam the length (3 miles) yesterday but thats a different post!
Posted 16 Aug 2010 — by Alex
Category Radio
There is a good reason as to why this blog has been a bit quiet over the last few weeks. Not a small matter and one which needed me to turn off the rig and other bits and pieces and concentrate on family matters. This has meant that I have not started on any of the things I wanted to do and in a lot of cases not even written down a to do list so I don’t even remember what I was going to do let alone plan the work. My fitness has also gone through the floor having not been out on the bike at all for a couple of weeks and only then for a few short sessions. So here goes take 1 of the list.
1. relocate the wire receiving anetnna into the loft to try and sort out the high noise levels I’m getting now across all the bands.
2. Box up (in a nice box) the various projects that are currently sat as boards and wires.
3. Design the mini shack of mine to sit under the computer monitor. might end up with bricks and a piece of wood at this rate! I’ve been promising myself this for a few years now.
4. Draw up the qfh antenna I built and also the various boxes as as builts so that others can use them. I reckon that I’ll use google sketch up for this but haven’t done any designing, let alone 3D work for years. I think the learning curve is going to be a steep one.
5. Guy the hustler 6-BTV so it can be a permanent installation. It’s already got a slight curve to it from being left out during a windy day and I’m a bit concerned that it’ll succumb to fatigue at some point.
6. Build a decent workbench in the garage that can be used for projects. If anyone knows how to make drawers then I could do with the instruction otherwise it’ll be a modified kitchen cabinet. Now theres an idea. Wonder if Mrs g7kse will notice one missing?
Posted 10 Aug 2010 — by Alex
Category Me
I’ve been out of the loop for a few weeks due to some family things. I hope to be back on the air and on the blog shortly.
Normal service will resume shortly. Or when there is some useful propagation…..
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