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!

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!

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!

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?

Normal service will resume shortly. Or when there is some useful propagation…..

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having had a pretty poor Es season compared to last year I have switched back to HF. This hasn’t really worked either…..There must be some radio gremlins floating about as I’ve hardly even heard a European station for weeks let alone someone from further afield. All I’m getting is a load of old noise.

Good for the XYL as its made me fit the new Freesat cabling ( I don’t do Sky) for our PVR. Tidy up the garden and other uninteresting home type tasks. I even managed to get out and do a 10 mile time trial on my bike last Tuesday. Another first.

Its amazing what else you end up doing when the bands are dead…

Whilst having a casual google I found a solution. Using a post-it note…..I nearly fell off my chair laughing, firstly as to why these devices don’t always work as well as they are designed and secondly how a folded over post-it note was the ‘Eureka moment’ for solving the problem. still it works fine now.

Following the design that is on G4ILO’s website for a QFH antenna, I trotted off to focus and bough a few lengths of waste pipe, 22mm and 40mm NB sections.

My daughter, at 3 1/2, was my assistant and chief marker of the pipes that needed to be cut. She also helped pick the best looking pieces of pipe work, although she was a little disappointed that nothing was pink! I’ll have to address this if I’m going to count on her services in the future.

The design looks quite complicated but actually isn’t that hard to follow once you get your head round the various connections. I used some left over co-ax for mine and after an hour or so of cutting, drilling and stripping (the coax) a rather wonky looking QFH antenna was borne.

Once all connected up and the software running I had high hopes of receiving something. Wxtoimg was kind enough to tell me that the signal was in the range of ‘it stinks’ to ‘ signal? what signal?’. Even with careful calibration of the sound levels, swapping between the wonky QFH and normal 2m vertical gave no change. The error was summarised by ‘Narrow IF bandwidth – please upgrade software’ or similar. Upgrade in this sense meant shelling out nearly 50 Euro’s, a little more than I was prepared to do for a look see.

I tried other software and the result, or lack of result was the same. The conclusion for this weekends fun with radio projects is, the IC-7000 isn’t particulary good for Wx satellite reception, probably due to the bandwith and my cheapo antenna. My daughter isn’t that interested in radio (unless its pink) and that if I’m going to find out if the antenna is any good then I’m going to have to shell out, either for the software or a dedicated / better receiver.

Still I enjoyed the build and all the parts cost me £6.

I think I’ll stick to cycling, but then again I ought to curb my super descending down cold fell as knowing my current sporting luck I’ll come off. I nearly hit a sheep at 45mph on tuesday evening…Is someone suggesting that I ought to stick to video games or something else.