Paul's blog is of a very high standard, well written, with extensive technical information about his projects. In recent years, projects have been demonstrated and explained with well made videos as well.
Projects cover the spectrum from small portable CW rigs all the way to a high power AM transmitter using the efficient Class E mode.
There's a few things that stand out to my eye - Paul tackles complex projects with a logical modular approach, often building on tried and tested standard designs but without fear of trying more challenging designs.
Circuit boards are manually etched using the resist pen method.
Most striking of all are the cases which are custom fabricated from aluminium angle stock and sized to snugly fit the enclosed circuitry.
Thanks Paul for an entertaining and educational evening tour of the shack.
Incidentally, you can hear more from Paul at HRDX via SolderSmoke and a terrific interview on QSO Today episode 298.
Today he sent details of his latest loop made mostly with bits of Bunnings.
He writes: "The loop is approx. 900 mm diameter as it was a 3m coil of copper from Bunnings, when it was cheap.
I let it run on 40 m wspr yesterday and this morning and pretty much was only received along the east coast but not by Peter. Only the wire antenna which is 3 m above the loop reached USA Canada and all over other places.
WSPR is ok but the only real test is for two way communications; I could hear VK3XU at good level this morning and VK2ARZ a bit later. I need a small changeover switch between keyer and key.
The tuning capacitance is the double sided pcb, the actual value of capacitance depends on the thickness and type of the fibreglass, so it was a case of measuring a piece and cutting off small pieces until I can see the minimum swr on a Nano VNA. The PCB has a coat of lacquer and soldered to the loop, it probably is not too resilient outside.
The Coupling loop is a 1 m length of RG 11 75 ohm TV cable with only the braid and foil shield being used. It is longer than the customary 20 %, and perhaps that is why the Q is low.
Some heat shrink to cover the joints and definitely only temporary.
Next version will be a 6 m perimeter octagon as I have four 1.5 m lengths of copper. I read somewhere that the capacitor should be at the bottom with the feedpoint at the top for a better angle of radiation. This is possible if I re-solder the PCB capacitor".
Stephen is certainly covering Australia on 40m WSPR but oddly missing the bit of Melbourne where I am located.
We are travelling to MayHam at the end of the month and if it fits in the car we'll bring it along for the Home Brew display.
Speakers at the evening included ABC Friends’ President Michael Henry; past Chair of the ABC Advisory Council and Director of the Victorian College of the Arts, Professor Andrea Hull; Professor Ed Davis AM; Vice President of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, former ABC journalist, Karen Percy; and Former ABC journalist and ABC Alumni member Jim Middleton.
Tosca Lloyd showed a film produced by GetUp titled “Murdoch and Morrison vs the ABC” which drew together the broad community support for the ABC and illustrated the concerted campaign by Murdoch media and the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) to weaken or even privatise the ABC.
The panel discussed the impact of cuts to the ABC experienced so far including cuts to key programs and staff levels during the government’s time in office. More subtle attacks on the ABC including efficiency reviews and frequent criticism of program makers in Murdoch media were also discussed.
A video of the event is available.
It was a very professional, focussed and well-run event. It was my pleasure to work in a small way with Michael Henry and in particular key organiser Marcus May in the preparation of the event. My thanks to Jim Middleton for stepping up to speak and be on the panel.
In this week's episode: "What’s the tech behind BitCoin’s booming rivals like Ethereum? What are ‘smart contracts’? Why would you build an AI bot and give it dementia? Guests Access Informatics’ Peter Marks and Dementia Australia CEO Maree McCabe".
Hosts Adam Turner and Alex Kidman run a tight ship and it was fun for me to experience Zencastr for the recording which records each guest locally in high fidelity and then uploads their audio.
Today I became eligible for a COVID vaccine so I was keen to get it done. The web site indicated that my closes mass vaccination centre is the Melbourne Exhibition centre. The site said I could book an appointment or just turn up and there was a 15 minute wait. I decided to be a "walk-in".
Arriving at the address, I could see the building but no visible signs or people. There are some signs but they are on the ground.
It turned out that the entrance was on the side opposite the Museum.
The queue was short but slow moving. There was no sign to confirm what the queue actually was. A bloke in the queue before me joked that he was here for the beer festival (which was on the last time he was here). After a while staff came out and asked for people who had booked to come out and go straight in, even if their appointment was hours in the future.
At the door we were temperature checked and given masks.
Once inside, there are more queues. We were advised to have our Medicare card handy.
At the desk we were also asked for photo ID so people had to dig through their purses and wallets.
After the interview we were then directed to a mysterious system of rows of spaced chairs, then on to a single row of chairs and finally to a booth with a person to give the "jab".
The injection was completely painless for me. Next jab is due in 12 weeks, you can go as early as 4 weeks but 12 weeks is better.
After the jab you sit for 15 minutes before leaving. All staff I interacted with were efficient and professional.
Lessons for consumers:
A flight I booked last year with Qantas was cancelled by them due to pandemic lock-down and so I have a credit. Now that things are open again I wish to use that credit. It's not easy... The web site told me I had to ring them.
I've rung a few times in recent months and been informed that the wait time was over two hours so I gave up. Today I decided to stick it out as it didn't give any information about the wait time. I interpreted this lack of estimate as a sign that it was going to be quick.
After more than two hours I started trying to contact them via Twitter as this seems to have worked for some other people in my situation.
Facebook looked like it might be a more efficient way to contact them as they say this:
I tweeted a thread of comments but didn't get a response.
This is what you have to listen to:
Finally, after more than four hours I got to Eric. A very nice operator who was able to fix me up.
I value my time and this punched a big hole in my day. My guess is that many people are not able to invest this much time in redeeming their flight credit so Qantas gets to keep it. This reeks of being a "dark pattern".
Great to get back to a studio for these shows at last.. Although I look like I'm coming from a black void compared to my co-guest Meg Coffee.
On the TV bit we talk about Apple's announcement of support for Podcast subscriptions.
The podcast version is out (and it's free!) The radio version is available here. I had a question from someone asking why my video quality was better than the others. This episode was the first time I've appeared from the ABC Melbourne radio studio where they have a Sony AX53 camera in HD mode.
Here's the view from my perspective.
The discussion ranged over a variety of topics including my skepticism about the consumer benefits of 5G, the controversy about the early specifications of 6G (don't panic, it's not due until 2030). We also talked about how much we all value a fast and reliable NBN after our shared experience over the past year.
You can hear the program here.
The Hermes-Lite 2 continues to impress. I've now been turned on to the wonders of the cross platform SparkSDR software which open up multiple receivers, running different modes, and (if you have WSJT-X installed in the normal place), it decodes. Here is my setup under Ubuntu with receivers for WSPR, FT8 and JT9.
My thanks to Robin, G7VKQ, for bringing this to my attention!
We have travelled up and down NSW many times and made the big trip across Australia to Perth.
Despite a few mechanical problems it has never let me down.
Now though, each time I register it expensive repairs are needed. The time has come.
Highlights for me have been listening to ham radio in remote, and quiet, locations and just sleeping in the van - particularly when it's raining.
Farewell Morrison.
I'm not a plane geek but Kevin, VK2KB, talked me in to a trip to Canberra to watch a spectacular flypast by the RAAF to celebrate 100 years. Here's what I saw:
Apologies for some wobbly framing. I think I got better as it went along.
Bill Roper, VK3BR, efficiently processed my membership and sent a nice welcome letter, an impressive certificate and a recent copy of "Old Timers' News" which is a very professionally produced magazine.
Today's meeting was a catered lunch at the Bentleigh Club followed by an excellent talk about Summits on the Air (SOTA) presented by Peter, VK3PF.
I was surprised by the number of attendees that I already knew from the past and we had a wonderful chat over a hearty lunch. Chatting with Dave, VK3ASE, about being "old timers" he commented that inside he feels about 17 years old.
Also in attendance was prolific home brew author Drew, VK3XU, who I had the pleasure of visiting recently. He called me out on the picture of his home repaired glasses - I explained that it's one of my favourite photos from that day.
Great to catch up with Peter, VK3YPG and John, VK3EGG. Thanks to the organisers and all involved.
A Hermes-Lite 2 SDR transceiver arrived a few days ago. For about $300 it's an amazing piece of equipment. A 0-38MHz direct sampling SDR that can transmit up to 5W.
Sliding the boards in to the box is quite simple except that I ran in to trouble fitting the supplied heatsink below the output transistors on the board. It took a bit of filing and grinding to get it to fit in the space below the board.
The radio connects via ethernet and that's how I initially used it with Windows. The SDR software I like the best is SDR Console. By magic it finds the radio on the network - very clever and handy if you need to operate with the radio somewhere else in the house. Direct connection ethernet to ethernet also works with SDR Console under Windows too.
My main computer is a Mac and I don't have ethernet to my office so I was pleased to find that if I simply plugged an ethernet cable from the radio to the Mac it was given an IP address of 169.254.19.221. There's not much decent SDR software for macOS but I found that SparkSDR worked quite well and found the radio without any configuration.
I should add that this is running just fine under Intel emulation on an M1 processor.
Hermes-Lite looks good so far and I'm happy that it was easy to get going on Windows, Linux and even macOS.
This has to be the simplest Arduino project. I have been improving my password security by letting some software choose random strings that meet the criteria. The problem is that I can't remember them and often they are even hard to type accurately with the text in front of me.
The project is a little USB device that you plug in and on boot it types the password. I ordered an Arduino Pro Micro.
This device, like the Leonardo, can emulate a USB HID device, including a keyboard. My program is extremely simple:
When you need the password, just plug it in. This works smoothly on Linux and Chromebooks, macOS tried to identify the keyboard type the first few times and Windows worked but carried on about setting up the device for a while.
Ideally, this board would be mounted in a USB key drive case.
The noise floor at home is S9. Happily it's a broadband noise rather than the terrible switch mode power supply hash I had at one point. Inspired by Dallas, VK3EB, today I headed for the local park and threw a wire into one of the three largest trees there.
Like Dallas, I used a hand caster for the roll of wire and added a few sinkers to the end.
SNR is between 4dB and 11dB better in the park compared to home. Also one station, VK1DPB, was received at the park at -23 and not heard at home.
This is an encouraging start and I'm sure reception can be further improved in the park.
Along the way, it was great to see VK3EB, VK2BLQ, VK2ASU, VK2KB, VK2NWB, VK2KYP plus Debbie, John (2), Peter, Sue, Hansen, Merv, Charlie, Bronwyn, Rosie, Tony, and Paul, (the latter who oddly don't have amateur radio callsigns).
The van has now done 411,000km and it is showing its age. (The moon is closer than this! - 384,000km). Rust is spreading and apart from using oil and coolant the gearbox is wearing out. I plan to get the coolant leak fixed and sell the van cheaply or even for scrap soon. I've enjoyed the van over the past few years - it's taken me right across the country. I feel a little sad and nostalgic, but it's time to move on.
Now that the brief pandemic lockdown in Melbourne has ended, I've hit the road in the van again and first stop was Shepparton to see Dallas, VK3EB and check out how he puts up antennas in the bush to get wonderful low noise reception.
Great to see you Dallas and thanks also for the tour of your home brew end fed tuner.
As the radios I'll be using this have built-in SWR measurement I chose not to build the LED SWR indicator that's included.
The kit went together easily and the case is really excellent.
The manual, with circuit diagram, is available here.
I tested it by throwing some wire out over the clothes line and running a counterpoise on the ground. The two controls interact a lot and you must adjust one and then the other and then the first.... but in the end it gets there and I'm happy with the result.
One minor note is that my kit came with version 2 of the SWR indicator but the link to the construction notes re-directs to version 3 which is a different circuit. This was enough discouragement for me to skip it.
Update
After a gentle prod from veteran home brewer, John, VK2ASU, I went back and completed the built-in SWR indicator.
Tuning for a dimming or extinguishing of the LED does work but the meter on the radio is much easier to work with. The LED SWR indicator is worth having for simple QRP gear so I'm glad I've now put it in. It can be switched out of circuit of course.
When I worked in Hong Kong for CNN we knew that the satellite downlink for distribution of the TV signal in China went through a party controlled facility and that if the image of the Tiananmen Square "tank man" was used in any way, the signal would go dead for a time.
International newspapers would sometimes arrive a little late with stories blacked out.
Shortwave stations with content the party didn't approve of would be masked by high power jamming signals. It was sometimes possible to receive the original signal by moving the antenna or off-tuning to some extent.
In those days readers, listeners and viewers at least knew something was being hidden from them.
As the Internet spread around the world it was thought that it would bring unfettered access to all of the worlds knowledge and opinion. It turns out that rather than decentralising network access, the modern internet has done the reverse and centralised monitoring and controlling of all of our communications.
A software developer who had migrated from China told me of the amazing experience of working for a US company that had the US version of the internet available in the office. This person was astonished to read Wikipedia articles that presented a far different view of modern Chinese history than had been available to them.
In recent years, many countries, including Australia have shut down shortwave broadcasting as the audience is small and hard to measure. Radio Australia used to have good coverage of our region including China.
I recently visited the decommissioned Radio Australia transmission site in Shepparton. It was an impressive facility.
Low earth orbit (LEO) satellite internet has the potential to provide internet services all over the world but I expect it will be regulated by each country and the penalty for not complying will be that customer billing will be blocked or perhaps the uplink signals will be jammed in some way.
Digital communication over shortwave radio has improved massively in recent years. The combination of a low power shortwave transmitter and a personal computer can be detected around the globe. WSPR is just one example.
I propose a shortwave service that transmits respected world news and information programs using a variety of digital modulation systems. It should have periods of "old school" radio teletype, PSK, and more advanced modes such as MFSK that have been shown to get through despite weak signals and even deliberate jamming.
Software to decode the audio signals, such as fldigi is widely available for personal computers and phones and this would need to be explained and promoted around the world so that the audience could find out about it despite undoubted censorship.
The audience for this stream of uncensored text news would be very small but the content would be highly valued by those who found it. Stories could be shared through secure messaging within the country. Single use domains could be used as a way for readers to acknowledge reception.
