Tag Archives: M0TAZ

Suffolk RED Field Day

Members of the SNBCG ventured out of Essex into Suffolk on the weekend of the 14-15 July 2018 to take part in a weekend of radio with Suffolk RED. The forecast was set fair with temperatures up to 30C, and with the offer to camp overnight on site.

George M1GEO, Chris G8OCV and Dave M0TAZ setup a VHF and HF station for some radio fun.

The VHF station comprised of a 9e LFA beam, LMR-400 coax and a DG8 masthead preamp. The Icom 7100 provided multimode support on 144 MHz, with the focus for the weekend on FT8. We managed to work  50 stations from 20 Maidenhead locators all over Europe, using a sold state 300w amplifier from Linear Amp UK.

Some highlights from the VHF log included.
DL3GAK at 662KM
F4CYH at 673 KM
OZ1BEF at 693 KM
OZ1BP at 698 KM
You can see a map of the stations worked below.

Power was provided by our 2kW Honda generator.

On Saturday we enjoyed an evening BBQ, and a chance to catch up with other members of the club.

Conditions on HF were not so good. Using an IC7610 and an Expert 1.3k-FA linear operating as M1GEO, only European contacts were made. We operated through the night.The 90 QSOs from the HF operation were loosely broken as follows:

  • SSB: 41 QSOs
  • CW: 35 QSOs
  • FT8: 14 QSOs

The packing down process took some time in the scorching heat. You can see the grass (or lack thereof) was also suffering.

Upminster Windmill GB2UW 2017

We arrived at Upminster Windmill at 9am on Saturday 13th May 2017 to begin setting up. The local council allowed onto the grounds and opened up the visitors centre for us.

Within 10 minutes we had the VHF antenna assembled and up. The HF doublet followed shortly after.

Dave M0TAZ quickly got setup inside the staff room at the visitors centre.

Easter Field Weekend

During the long Easter weekend members of the SNBCG came together for a radio weekend. Over the course of the four days, two HF stations were set up; one on 7 MHz and the other roaming between 1.8 and 28 MHz depending on propagation.

Dave M0TAZ decided he would try a 1/4 wave vertical on 7 MHz and use his recently purchased push-together fibreglass poles. These poles are often sold at radio rallies in packs of 5 (each pole 1.3 metres) to give an overall height of 6.5 meters. Using two packs of the poles, the required height of 10 metres was achieved.

Chris G8OCV had made some supporting guy rings, these provided anchor points for the guy lines at approximately 4 and 8 meters. The first attempt didn’t quite go to plan, it simply wasn’t possible to walk up the 10m pole, as we found out when we exceed the bend radius of one of the poles. Lesson learned it didn’t make any difference as the fracture was in the joining section that was simply moved to the first section. In the end, we used 9 poles, giving us a total height of 11 meters with a simple wire running down the side for the radiator.

Six 6 radials were cut, each around 10 meters in length, and the antenna was mounted at the base of a wire fence. The earthing system included the 6 radials and the wire fence, and this provided a reasonable match around 1.5:1 at 7.150 MHz. It would have been much easier to use a push-up fishing/roach style pole but experience has taught Dave that these can be tricky to keep up without guying and tapeing over the joints. As we wanted to run linear amplifiers this weekend, the prospect of the pole moving in the wind and/or falling down made, we made up our minds to use push together poles as the first choice. The antenna was fed with coax with a choke unun (or balun) at its base to stop the coax radiating, and this needed to be capable of high power.

The antenna provided reliable service all weekend, and with the addition of 400W yielded over 200 contacts in 40 DXCC countries. An enjoyable part of the weekend was working DX stations later in the evenings, including the USA, Chile, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Israel, UAE, Armenia and Asiatic Russia all on the 40 metre vertical.

DXCC Breakdown on 40 metre vertical

George M1GEO, Fred G3SVK and others operated the other station. George chased some good DX and Fred worked several hundred stations as “GB0SNB” in CW.

Below we see the DXCC breakdown of the second station using the mast doublet on 160 and 80 metres, and the beam (pictured above) on the higher bands. Some of the DX on the doublet and beam included several QSOs into Japan, Fiji, Trinidad, Guinea-Bissau, Cayman Islands and Argentina.

DXCC Breakdown on 160m doublet and HF beam

We also had time for a BBQ and some excellent curries provided by Fred G3SVK. It was nice to see Camb Hams members Geoff G0DDX and Linda G0TPX, and LEFARS members Derek M0XDC, Dave M0MBD and Dave M0VID. RSGB regional man Peter G0DZB also joined us for the afternoon, making the most of the good weather for a ride on his motorbike, and Bill G0IQK popped in on the Sunday afternoon.

Dave M0YOL worked some data modes using his portable setup. All in all, a good weekend was had by all.

Web SDR Installed

Over the weekend of 31 March to 2 April 2017, a small group of us installed a KiwiSDR into the equipment rack at GB0SNB, alongside GB7KH repeater. The KiwiSDR (pictured below) is a cape for a BeagleBone single board computer, similar to the Raspberry Pi. It was kindly provided by David G7UVW, who also helped with the install. A direct link to the WebSDR at GB0SNB is found here: http://sdr.gb0snb.com/.

A new run of high quality CTF165 connects the receiver hardware inside the Shack to the WellBrook Loop antenna mounted on the mast.

This is the first stage in the installation, and the next step is to reduce the electrical noise present at the receiver; unfortunately, this may not be quite so easy in a bunker the size of this!

The receiver is available for public use, and may be found on SDR.hu. A direct link to the WebSDR at GB0SNB is found here: http://sdr.gb0snb.com/.

RSGB IOTA contest

Members of the SNB Contest Group came together to play some radio in the RSGB IOTA Contest. Some stations make the trek to far flung Islands in exotic parts of the world, we opted for the contest site close to Kelvedon Hatch in Essex.

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The SNB contest site has the added bonus of a 50m onsite mast, making an ideal platform to hang dipoles. George M1GEO and myself decided to operate or respective calls from the two radio setup, using 3.5, 14, 21 and 28 MHz. George also added his 50/70 MHz beam on the mast, and this provided some interesting contacts using MS and JT65.

With the able assistance of Dave G7UVW, Chris G8OCV, Peter G0IAP we soon had the antenna ready.

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Two pump up masts provided the following setup.

Clark 12m: Tri-band Beam A-3S covering 14, 21 and 28 MHz, with a 50/70 MHz beam.

Clark 10m : 15m 4e homebrew monobander.

Bunker: 3.5 MHz dipole at 30m centre

At various times we added some RF power from either the solid state Expert 1.3KFA or the HAL1200_Atlantic amplifier. We had some interaction between the close sited antennas, and at times this dictated the operating modes/times.

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Fred G3SVK provided joined us as our CW operator, Fred can often be found in the lower pasts of the bands chasing big DX.

No sign of the great man this weekend, but, we live in hope.

70 MHz Trophy Contest and CW QRP HF

George M1GEO and Dave M0TAZ took part in the RSGB 70 MHz trophy contest this weekend at the Kelvedon hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker contest site. The weather was ideal for alfresco operating, using the Icom IC-7100 and homebrew 6e beam at 10m on the Racal PU12 mast. Using 50W and a 85Ah leisure battery we operated from 11am till 4 am.

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Here you can see the PU12 and home-brew 6e 70 MHz beam. Operating from the base of the mast provided quick access to turn the beam. We managed to work 59 QSO with best DX into Scotland at 518 KM. The QSO map is shown here.

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Meanwhile Rob M0VFC was operating QRP HF on 3.5, 7 and 14 MHz using a range of dipoles. Unfortunately the HF bands have been a challenge at the best of times during the day, and QRP provided to be interesting. After a few hrs operating Rob had completed 30 QSO, and under the conditions that counts as a sterling effort! Here you can see Rob operating from the boot of his car. No appearance from the great man.

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Altogether another great weekend of alfresco operating in the sunshine.

50/70/144/432MHz Christmas Cumulatives

The RSGB 50/70/144/432MHz Christmas Cumulatives Contest series run from the 26th to the 29th of December each year and are intended as a bit of fun in the contester’s calendar.  The contest exchange is the usual RS(T), Serial Number and 6 character locator (e.g. JO01DQ).  These contests are really easy to become involved in, and often provide a good excuse to escape the house after Christmas.

This year, Dave M0TAZ, Dave M0YOL and George M1GEO decided to operate alfresco from the Bunker for the final two days (George having put in token entries on the 26th and 27th for 144 MHz from Home).  We operated on 50 MHz, 70 MHz and 144 MHz for the full 2 hours on a picnic table, in large overcoats on cold winter afternoons, packing up in the dark!

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144 MHz was to be our main band. For that we used an Icom IC7100 transceiver, DG-8 masthead-preamplifier (GM3SEK design/M1GEO construction), and 9-element tonna (10m AGL), powered from a large 60 Ah sealed lead acid battery.

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50 MHz and 70 MHz were run as a sub station. Again, using an Icom IC7100 transceiver and an InnovAntennas 6-element dual band (50/70MHz) yagi (7m AGL), with an 85 Ah leisure battery. The battery also provided mains power via a small inverter, which charged the logging laptops.

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The table below shows the number of QSOs made per band on each day, as well as the best DX station callsign, locator and distance. In order of fairness, we switched callsigns on the second day, all points awarded to the SNBCG.

Band  Info 28 Dec 2015 (M0TAZ/p) 29 Dec 2015 (M1GEO/p)
144 MHz # QSOs 30 40
DX MI0SMK
(IO64XL 525km)
GD8EXI
(IO74PC 430km)
70 MHz # QSOs 7 10
DX G4ASR
(IO81MX 226km)
G4YHF
(IO92XW 141km)
50 MHz # QSOs 8 13
DX GW5NF
(IO81KQ 236km)
GD8EXI
(IO74PC 430km)

The map below (click to zoom) shows the worked locators for the Contest. Almost all of the DX was worked on 144 MHz. Produced by OpenContest’s EDI Visualiser.

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A very enjoyable activation.  Even if it was a little cold! Lots more photographs here.

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Casual Operating in the Shack

This weekend a few of us decided to head down in to the Shack at GB0SNB to do some operating.  The HF bands were full of stations in the Worked All Germany and BARTG RTTY contest, as well as JOTA activation stations.

In between working a few on HF, we managed to pull around 20 contacts on 2 metres, and had a nice pileup on 145.400 MHz.

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Above Chis G8OCV and Dave M0TAZ operate on HF.

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Here we see Dave M0TAZ operating on 145 MHz FM.