Monday, January 21, 2008

Coffs Harbout Radio Expo

Attended the Coffs Harbour radio expo on Sunday.

While a lot smaller than the Wyong field day I'm looking forward to in a few weeks, it was a fine event with lots to look at including some excellent home brew electronics and a diverse trash and treasure sale.

I've been looking for an RF signal generator and was very pleased to pick up a nicely built Electronics Australia design which includes a frequency counter for $25.

There were lots of books on sale and I purchased a slightly damaged copy of the RSGB Radio Communications Handbook at a good price. A great read.

The home brew display, which regrettably didn't have anyone with it to talk to when I was there, had a fascinating 80m double side band transceiver and a little portable whip with antenna tuner built in - rather like those suspicious "miricle antennas" you see advertised.

Lee Andrews was there selling rigs and seemed to be having a good time, it's a pity he doesn't get to Dural from time to time if only to keep his mood positive.

A great day, I'll be back next year with any luck. Photos.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you had fun mate!

Hope you took some pictures of the radio expo? I wouldn't mind hearing more about that DSB radio and antenna. Any compact antenna for 80 is likely a great dummy load, but always worth a look. How compact are we talking? Like HT sized, or man-pack, luggable, etc?

Good news about the signal generator too. I'm not familar with that EA kit? What range and output does it have?

Peter Marks said...

At the time I was at the show there didn't seem to be anyone near the home brew table to ask about the projects. The 80m DSB rig was by VK2EVB (the ozipole guy) who seems to be very active.

The EA kit covers 200kHz to 30Mhz and has a digital frequency display. Seems to do the job although the waveform looks like a rounded square wave on my cro, but it will do the job I'm after.