RobL's world of wonder

Radio days!

I was over to visit kids and family last October and was able to engineer things in such a way as to be able to get along to the Holsworthy amateur radio rally which made a nice change and was fortuitous!!  I've been on the lookout for a 2m or VHF beam antenna for some time, was going to hazard building one but as is the way of these things its getting around to it!!  Well at the rally I actually intercepted someone with a rather nice 2x 7 element crossed ZL-special for 2 metres who was asking directions for the bring and buy stall, so a deal was done there and then and I am now the proud owner of a beast which offers 13dbd gain for both FM and SSB at VHF!!!  To give yet a further boost the lowly 2.5watts output of the FT290r is also now fed through a 30watt linear amplifier with pre-amp (ebay) for some VHF next summer, possibly sooner!!  As a postscript the new set up has so far managed approx 465km from north Jersey into Lincolnshire, and that was QRP switching the linear out in a recent lift!

Its been quite nice to try a little QRP SSB DX'ing with the 290r out portable too, when the conditions are right its amazing just how many other amateurs crawl out of the woodwork on 2m SSB so its always worth a shout when the  pressure is high, even during the winter when the sporadic E isn't about.

Had a bit of a mishap in early January though, it gets pretty windy up at Rozel sometimes and we got home one night with some shopping, I took a routine look up at the 10m antenna on the chimney and despite it being dark the initial thought was "wheres that gone???"  It had blown down across the roof slope but fortunately (?!?) the Hustler which is ground mounted had broken its fall and no damage occurred to the roof slates..., phew!!  The radials on the Hustler aren't looking too bright though but it doesn't seem to have affected the tune on the 5 bands and it still gets out ok on 20m and 80m, I tried!!

Meanwhile its been nice to try a little mobile HF work with the FT747 but on a recent stateside net I had 3 or 4 reports of distorted audio and 'sounds like RF interference'.  Well some further mods to the /M may be needed but I think we've isolated it.  The FT747 was known as the 'plastic fantastic' because of its metallized plastic casing which is all very well but doesn't serve to insulate the inner workings from RF the way the good old all metal radios (a la FT707) did.  May end up wrapping the thing in Bacofoil..., I kid you not!!

Well followers of the doings of the "Randomly Zany Dude" may remember I was lucky enough to get an aged FT101ZD mark 2 for the princely sum of £25 but was receive only!  Well a recent Saturday afternoon's tinkering courtesy of Phil GJ4CBQ has got the old campaigner up and running again, it'll still need some aligning and I've spent a few happy evenings with the switch cleaner, meth's and cotton buds but we seem to be getting there!  It'll be fun to have the old thing working, I love my FT707 to bits but fancied a 'big rig' to play with.  Was watching an FT102 on ebay recently (including AM/FM board, SSB and CW filters) and is the successor to the FT101ZD but ultimately it went for a stonking £475!!!!  Thats silly money I reckon for a 25 year old, especially as the 101 cost £25, some switch cleaner and 2 bottles of wine!!!

• Posted by Rob Luscombe on 03/02/2008.
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