Japan Pile-Up - JT65 Style!

This morning, seeing 20m propagation becoming short, I switched over to 17m.  Now, I'm not massively well-equipped for this band, having but a vertical delta loop, albeit over superb, highly mineralised ground.

It's always a delight to hear from JA-Land.

An empty 17m JT screen didn't look promising, but I called CQ anyway.  I had an instant reply - from JA!  What's more, it was a very good signal, which often leaves me wondering why a band is empty at all.  My first contact (15m SSB) with VP8 came under identical circumstances. 

As soon as I'd finished with one Japanese station, I received another.  Then another.  And another.  A long run, lasting nearly an hour, of signals from the Land of the Rising Sun, when it was in fact around sunrise here in Wales.

Not a bad way to start the week - at all!

Licensee Crash About to Happen?

After a long period of thinking about it, OFCOM has announced it will start revoking licences that haven't been revalidated after 5 years.  They propose to begin with those that ought to have been revalidated in 2012.

This could spell trouble for the representative body, the RSGB.  Not because they will lose members, but because it will become more difficult to persuade authorities and the public that the hobby is worthwhile, if the estimated 47%, or "tens of thousands" of licensees - fail to revalidate - a process that amounts to little more than confirming address details, which can be done online.  Arguing on the basis that there are suddenly only 35,000 UK operators, say, rather than 70,000 could make lobbying a lot more challenging.

Revalidation is bureaucracy.  Necessary bureaucracy, perhaps.  But it does tend to mean people who haven't bothered thus far will probably not make the effort, however simple it actually is.  Revalidation of private pilots, for example, is well-known for its very low rate (about 50% - very similar to the 47% for hams) of revalidation after five years, partly down to a realisation that the hobby is too expensive, and partly because there is too much bureaucracy.  Whilst expense may not influence hams so much, paperwork might.

We'll just have to wait for a few years to see how the dust settles on this one.  In the meantime, I hope the RSGB and all operators in the UK take every opportunity to raise awareness about this important clamp-down.

 

RSGB - Surveying the Landscape (Again)

I seem never to be able to escape the RSGB, even though I am no longer a member.

The reason I was dragged back in this morning was finding an invitation to all UK operators - members of the RSGB or not - to input into the latest survey, which is open until the end of 2015.

One thing that struck me as very odd was the question relating to use of the free access tickets to Bletchley Park that RSGB membership affords.

The reason this is odd is that the answer to the questions surrounding the worth of this aspect of membership is already known, and should already have prompted action.  Out of about 19,300 RSGB members, a mere 450, or just over 2%, made use of the free access in the last published accounting year.  Perhaps there will be a small spike in visits for the 2014/15 year, but I suspect that will be solely down to the screening of "The Imitation Game" film, and very little else.

The attachment of the RSGB to the National Radio Centre project at Bletchley can only be explained by two possible factors: (1) contractual obligations and (2) a misplaced sense of patriotism that the society could ill afford at any point.   All this led to the then RSGB big-wigs buying a massively expensive tower that was never likely to gain planning permission at such an iconic and historic site, and left the society with a useless hunk of metal, paid for at members' expense, when it did indeed fail to be permitted.

The remaining question for the RSGB is: how much longer is it going to keep going at this Bletchley Park nonsense?  If only 2% of its own members visit the NRC, then I suspect the fraction of the general population doing so is infinitely smaller.  You might say that is obviously going to be the case, in which case, I thank you for your confirmation of my thinking. As such, the justification for the NRC - the promotion of amateur radio and attracting new members from amongst the general population - was always a red herring.

I think that, given the past enthusiasm to buy the big tower for Bletchley, and the manner in which the NRC is justified now,  it's reasonable to think that, at least in the early days, the NRC was seen as a place where a contest-class club station could be set up by a select few at others' expense.  It never turned out that way, leaving us with the remnants of a wacky idea that should never have made it out of the pub door.

Add to that the stonking devaluation of assets to pretty much nothing at all at the NRC with each accounting year that goes by, and you can only ever realistically conclude that the NRC should be terminated as the obviously bad idea that it was and remains. I've made this point before, and I make it again.

What really saddens me is that, despite the appointment of a Press Officer recently, it's still essentially impossible to find a story in the mainstream media where Joe Public can find out a bit - and maybe become more interested in - our great hobby.  Why is money not being directed effectively there, at a time when media outlets fall over themselves, looking for print-ready press releases?

As to the rest of the survey, well, you might find yourself ranting on about things you've been ranting on about for years.  Whether or not 2015 is the year anyone sits up and takes notice of the grassroots membership is, well, another big question for the RSGB...

2m Quad - Resuscitated!

A long while ago, I constructed a 5-element quad for 2m out of timber and wire.  It proved to be a great performer, allowing easy access of repeaters out to about 200 miles on just 2W.  It managed much the same on simplex, if there was good propagation.

Sadly, the weather eventually took its toll, having been thrown up into the air off its storage stand during a violent February storm where winds reached 109mph!  Eventually, after some repairs kept it going, the XYL drove into it and that was that!

With some good conditions with the coming of extended periods of high pressure over northern Europe and the UK recently, I was prompted to reuse the wire and rebuild the antenna.

And, after a year or so languishing as a pile of rotten wood, here it is!  The rebuilt, exact-same performer and low SWR curve as it always was.

Good for another few years.  Total timber cost: about £6.

You can find the plans in the "International Antenna Collection, Vol. 2."  Just build it to the stated dimensions and it works perfectly (actually, it has much better matching than indicated.)  A 1/4 wave 75Ohm matching section is necessary.

WSPR-Beating!

Ah, there's nothing like independent evidence for station performance.

In the midst of a minor geomagnetic storm and poor conditions across the bands, I'm almost alone across the EU in hearing and being heard in the US on 20m.

Not bad for a simple delta loop!

Radcom Plus One

Despite having ceased to be a member of the RSGB some months ago, I'm still being sent RadCom Plus 1, the digital supplemetal to the normal, printed RadCom society magazine.  That said, I'm still owed about £13 by the society, despite Graham Coomber himself promising he'd get it out to me.

To be fair, this is quite a good publication, perhaps outdoing RadCom itself. 

What I don't understand is the highly odd use of proprietary web-based browsing software that means you have to download a whopping 57MB file.  It seems the RSGB think everyone in the UK has unlimited, fast broadband, and that there are no simpler ways to present their magazine.  Many of us, though, have slow or data-limited connections.

At a guess, I'd say a PDF or similar file format would reduce the file size by several times.  But, hey!  Who am I to make suggestions to the RSGB?

New Amateur Radio Discussion Group Proposal.

This from Paul Schleck, the proponent of a new dicussion group.  It's rather niche and an extraordinarily formal process, but that's how it works. 

Those interested will advance their thoughts, I'm sure; many already have:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/uk.net.news.config/qUpWHHIDvWw[1-25]