Isolation Station [008]
Greetings from the sofa...
HERE
In the living room reading RadCom.
I’ve spent about a week with what is most likely the Omicron variant of COVID-19. But I’m feeling pretty chipper today as I had my first clear lateral flow test. I still have some minor symptoms and a little weakness but I’m keen to get on with some projects.
I recorded a video yesterday and edited it last night. It’s full of errors and mispronunciations but I’m not going to stress over it. It might be a while till the brain fog goes and my concentration comes back.
Over this last week I have been good at resting and doing little, so this email might be slimmer than others.
THERE
In regards to where I have been. You guessed it. I’ve been isolating. Feeling very lucky to have a large garden (a throw back to the post war years where people grew their own veg) and most of my exercise has happened between the house and the shack.
The mini shack you see on top of the pergola walk way is a ‘play house’ that the kids no longer use. It sits at the base of my main mast and I’m wondering if I could give it some kind of radio purpose. Perhaps it could house a remote tuner.
Two years ago I installed the mast with the Comet GP9 on top and yesterday my better half asked me what the new cable was. It appears my Messi & Paoloni Coax has been invisible for 24 months. I have been thinking of tidying the cables (ie rerouting them) but I’ll need to calculate the extra loss. If it’s minimum then I might actually be able to make then invisible.
GEAR
In my delirium this week I appear to have bought one of these. The last one from Moonraker. Although I’m sure they will restock soon.
I really like the FT3D and although the 5D is not a massive upgrade, my FT3D is mostly used as my mobile radio in the car. With only doing repeater work when driving, 5w is enough and the APRS gets much more use in the car. With it being my only radio that can do Fusion this was my main justification for grabbing the FT5D.
Also after sending the iCom to be repaired I really missed a loud speaker that I can still hear with the radio in my pocket. The Icom although not as pocketable as a Yaesu has a superior speaker to the FT3D.
The FT5D is certainly louder now, and I can pocket the radio and easily listen to a local net while walking the dog. Even along a busy road. Great improvement.
I also appreciate the improved water resistance, faster GPS, plus a transmit/receive LED for both VFOs.
It feels bulkier, and my muscle memory will take some time to learn the new button configuration. The rubber flap on the side has changed for the worse in my opinion. I’m not a fan of the MicroSD card now being exposed when the camera mic is in the data port. But these are all niche niggles. I think 95% of FT3D users should wait for whatever Yaesu bring out next. Who knows they may even enable usb charging ffs. ;-)
Although pretty au fait with the FT3D the new interface on the 5D does take some getting used to. This concise guide will refresh those that need to get up to speed on what has changed.
In regards to programming my main computer my Mac is next to useless as RT systems is the only option out there. I’m glad someone is coding for iOS but it’s not much of a step up from the free windows software. As a result I have spent far too long faffing about with my old Windows computer trying to do things you think would be easy. Things like cutting and pasting frequencies from the old version of ADMS into another. I don’t have the massively overpriced programming lead and so programmed the FT3D by taking the microSD card out and using a card reader. I’ll save you the long and painful list of fails as I repeatedly tried to transfer my codeplug or CSV from one radio to the other …and instead thanks to the assistance of M7HJR I’ll give you the solution.
Luckily the FT3D and FT5D use the same internal format for memories. That means that although this will not work for the settings, you can copy your memories from one radio to another.
All you need: MicroSD card and a computer with a card reader. NO OTHER SOFTWARE REQUIRED!
First, you want to put the SD card in the FT3 and allow it to boot. Then put the same card in the FT5D and allow it to boot in there. Both radios will then have created the appropriate folders on the microSD card.
Then put card back into FT3D. Long press DISP, select SD Card. Select Memory CH, then select Write to SD and confirm.
Now put the microSD card into your card reader attached to your computer.
Go to Finder/Explorer to explore the contents of the card. You should see a folder called FT3_MEMORY-CH and inside that folder, there is a file called MEMORY.dat. Copy that file into the FT5_MEMORY-CH folder.
Now put the SD card into your FT5D. Long press F-Menu then select SD card, Select Memory CH, Select Read from SD, and finally confirm.
Check your saved memories are now on your FT5D and if you plan to use that card in your new radio, format it.
Then you are all done!
I was so pleased to finally get all 600 repeaters and saved frequencies onto the new radio. Thanks again Henry-James for the info.
I finally managed to test the 72000mAh power bank as well as the Windcamp Gipsy 5-55MHz portable dipole antenna from Martin Lynch and Sons. I was still positive for covid at time of recording, so please excuse the fumbling over words and general flakiness. :-)
ONAIR
Outside of the quick dabble in the garden above I have mostly been on 4m, 70cm and a little HF this week.
Conditions have been pretty good across the bands. We managed the first HF net with CROWS earlier in the week.
ELSEWHERE
This is a gift to the amateur radio community great fix, modification and improvement.
Found an indie rock band called ‘Ham Radio’. They must have a nightmare getting found on YouTube. what with all the other ham radio related stuff on there. Despite the song being only 2 years old, they sound a little like a band I was in back in 1999-2000.
Just discovered a load of interesting videos put out by the DEF CON infosec conference. This one is a great intro to the digital modes.
Should you still have snow where you are this ice fishing tent looks like a decent option for amateur radio field ops.
Some handy propagation tools shared by 2E0HFW - PropQuest.co.uk and Hamqsl.com
A web page to help you make QSL cards.
Meteor burst communications. aka MBC
FINALS
Thanks for reading and I hope subscribing.
Welcome to the new subscribers to this email. Please share this wherever you think it might resonate with other likeminded folk.
All going to plan tomorrow I’ll officially be COVID free and back in circulation. I’ll still take it easy for a week or two so might catch you on the bands.
I’m both @G5DOC and @Documentally on Twitter.
Till next week.
Over
73 de Christian G5DOC
_._
