Community without committee [016]
Greetings from the shack...
HERE
I’m back at my home QTH. Shovelling gravel, building paths and occasionally looking up at my antennas wondering how I can do things differently. Like we all do once in a while. OK, all the time.
I’m also attempting to digest all I have seen over the last five days. And what better place to unpack it all than here. So I will do just that. And then I’ll unpack the car.
THERE
For most of last week, like some of you, I was in Eastnor at Electromagnetic Field.
If this is not something that has ever been on your radar then you might want to take note. I think this is not only the best festival out there. It’s the best festival with an entire village dedicated to Amateur Radio endeavours. The only issue is that it only happens every two years. The next one you can go to will be 2024. And I do hope you do. All going to plan I’ll be there. Probably camping with the EMFhams.
Although @EMFHams are well and truly flying the flag for radio operators at EMF camp, I found licensed hams all over the place. Inside and outside the village. Across the whole festival. Keep an eye open as you walk around and you will spot no end of tents sporting some kind of antenna.
I had the FT3D pinging APRS all the way to the festival and hit a few repeaters on the way. I only remember managing to note down a QSO with M7HIJ via GB3EM at 08:53
on the 2nd June.
Once at the camp I set up the tent in the family area. It was my lad’s first time at EMF and the family area would at least allow some sleep.
I stuck up a 10m pole and put an inflatable 2/70 on top. Of course I forgot to pack a PL259 to BNC and had to build a frankenection.
I had intended to stick a random wire up the pole but there was so much local activity on 2/70 and so much festival to see, I didn’t feel the need to bother.
In regards to the frequencies in use at the camp…
FM simplex chat was on 433.425 NFM and 145.425 NFM. The FM repeater GB3MF was a temporary 70cms analogue repeater that only runs for the Festival and looked after by M0TRY. This is it in all its glory.
The DMR repeater GB7NQ (Northern Quarter) was a 70cms repeater and run by Mal M0VNA from Maker Space in Newcastle.
Of course there was 2m FM APRS via a 2m digipeater which supported messaging and igating to/from APRS-IS set up by M0PLL.
There was also 70cm LoRA APRS: MB7ULG also run by M0VNA. I spotted quite a few LoRA devices in the wild but still haven’t got my own.
Although I never got to see it, I do believe there was a QO100 satellite uplink transmitter station in one tent.
Then for the uber nerds with pagers MB7PMF had a 70cm POCSAG pager transmitter attached to DAPNET. (Also run by Newcastle Maker Space).
And just in case you are looking for more options to communicate there were also phones. The standard EventPhone DECT/SIP set up and also CuTEL.
Should you have remembered to bring a fax machine to plug in, that all happened via Extn. 8999. Money transfers were slow but they got there in the end. ;-)
Despite being in a valley much of the chatter leaked outside and I found it easy to make simplex contacts a good 50+ miles away. Click below or here to hear an extract and an accidental advert.
I could have roamed around for a week and still not seen all the setups and installations. Things like this plane spotter that would automatically rotate towards a plane in the sky.
I really need to up my antenna game if I’m going to compete with this cobweb.
I quite liked G6VZM’s simple little Quadband-on-a-gazebo set up.
GEAR
At EMFcamp there is a ‘Bring & Donate’ stall where you can rummage through all kinds or tech filled boxes in search of something that might help you complete a project or fill a space in your shack, shed or workshop. I picked up a couple of 12v PC fans, some magazines, a roll of wire and an empty spool. I’ll measure the wire and then decide what kind of portable antenna it might become.
ONAIR
Outside of all the repeater stuff at EMFcamp I had a lovely QSO on 145.425 with Havoc 2E0EMO, Paul M0TZO and June M0XYB who was visiting the UK from the US. Back home I’ve been mostly between the local repeater (GB3OV) and the 4M net.
ELSEWHERE
I find myself making little notes when on a net or listening to a long over and so have edited my daily logbook to include some note taking space. Download a PDF here if you want one to print out.
As I was looking at my antennas earlier, I got to thinking about putting up a Skyloop.
I met a few folk from the Online Amateur Radio Community this week.
We (C.R.O.W.S) have our own little community growing on Discord. Should you want to join in the conversation, here is a link that will work for the seven days.
If you would like to read more about EMFcamp I wrote about it in my other weekly dispatch.
FINALS
Thanks for reading and I hope subscribing.
Please share this wherever you think it might resonate. You are some of the more curious people in radio ;-) And I thank you.
Over
73 de Christian G5DOC
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