Of toys and tools [067]

Greetings from the mobile shack...

HERE

Greetings. I’m Christian G5DOC, radio hobbyist, photographer and writer of Documentally. At this moment in time i’m sat at a folding table in the van pictured above.

The heater is humming and my coffee still warm. I recently part-exchanged my car for this VW van and even with a breakdown on its first adventure, hundreds of miles from home, I’m not regretting the switch. It was an easy-ish repair. Fuel starvation caused by sludge in the tank. I’ve a feeling that moving forward, I’ll get to learn a lot about how to maintain older vehicles.

I’ve already had fun getting the van equipped to be radio friendly, but more on that below.

Current location is the exciting sounding ///avocado.blows.negotiators and I have just finished chatting on the 10am GB3OV net.

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THERE

If like me you enjoy spending hours trawling the internet for weird and wonderful content relating to your interests, then you may well have come across ‘The Digital Library of Amateur radio Communications’ or DLARC . Here is a video summarising their work.

I probably don’t need to stick any more in this post as that link to DLARC could keep you busy for months if not years if you really wanted to dig deep. Thanks to Andy Mabbett for the heads up.

Having properly fallen in love with mobile radio in the 80’s with 27MHz on my pushbike… and then not that long ago riding from London to Edinburgh hitting all the repeaters (CyclingHertz.com)… I of course had to go take a look at the Bicycle Mobile Ham’s of America newsletter. I know there are a few bicycle mobile radio operators in the UK but no idea if they have their own newsletter. (Not interested in FB) Pretty sure that young CB operators were probably the pioneers in the UK but it’s fun digging up some of the older blogs like this post from 22 years ago.

Here is a post I did a little while ago on Bicycle Mobile. (Apologies for the terrible use of AI imagery. It felt new and quirky back then. ;-)

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GEAR

As you know only too well this hobby has us playing buy-it-now buttons like a piano virtuosos. So yes — there have been a few purchases since my last post. Mostly of toys and tools.

All of it in the name of radio of course. A leisure battery and smart charger, a diesel heater, a folding table, a hook up with mains plugs, cables and adapters and so on. Oh and the van which is basically a shack I can take to noise-free high up places and sleep in.

Then there’s some new portable radios. My favourite kind.

In fact I’m noticing just how much I take portable radios for granted. The walkie-talkie or Handy-Talkie (HT in the states) was invented by Leicester born British-Canadian Donald Hings, More info.

And it was this video that had me pick up yet another HT.

The TID Radio H3 feels like an awful lot of radio for the money. As do a lot of radios now-a-days. Mine will sit in the glovebox of the van and on the dash I have the Yaesu FTM500 for 2/70, fusion plus APRS and the Anytone AT 779 for 4m. My Icom 705 will too and fro in a radio go-bag.

I have also craved the ambient connectivity that I used to get on Twitter and although my Bluesky account goes some way to replacing that, I have rediscovered the joy of having a handheld radio dedicated just for Zello so that I can have a bunch of dispersed friends a PTT away.

Personally I feel Zello has to be done on a radio. Something you can turn off when you need to focus and does the one job. Also, a dedicated radio (with no touch screen) is robust and something i’m happy to throw in a bag.

And yes GSM cellphones are still radios. Using Zello on what is basically an Android phone feels like another social media app but having an always on dedicated PTT enabled device feels much more like radio. Try it. You can pick up a POC (PTT over Cellular) radio from £30 ($50) but ask around at your club as there’s a chance someone will have one for sale. They’ve been around for a while.

Wifi will get you started, but I’ve found a simcard from Lebara in the UK that’s only £1.15 for the first six months and £4 after that. You get 3Gb of data but talking every day has seen me use only about 300mb over the month. Here is a link to them but not sure what offers they have at the moment.

Personally I am loving it as a backchannel, an international intercom, and a device I can take abroad to keep in touch with those back home. Plus of course you don’t need to be licensed to use them, so there are a load of groups on there where the radio-curious can connect with other learners as well as experienced hams. It’s a great way to hone your radio etiquette in anticipation of passing your exam.

If you are interested I have created a Zello Group for this newsletter called 73fromG5DOC and the password is documentally. Perhaps I will see you pop up on there. I hops so, as I write this i’m the only one on it :-)

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If that’s not enough

This is a great looking tiny receiver

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Did you know that the volume knob on the Baofeng UV5R is also a tool to assist in taking it apart.

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Incidentally, if you enjoy these sporadic posts and would like to keep me in tools and toys, you can do so by taking out a supporting subscription.

Or if you prefer a random hat tip, you can do that via PayPal or Monzo.

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ONAIR

Me and a friend 2E0OZX headed out to do some direction finding recently.

On this occasion we didn’t get to find what we were looking for, but it was a lot of fun all the same.

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And last night I sat on a hill in my heated van and joined in the 4m net on 70.4MHz. there were 13 of us in all. I soon realised how just letting the hand-break off and rolling forward a meter can make all the difference to someone’s signal. Much easier than fiddling with, or swapping out an antenna.

Before the net I tested both my 4m antennas with the RigExpert Stick Pro. I’d never really bothered to check them before as the radio had always told me they were OK. And they are OK. Not perfect though.

And when you are transmitting with low power you really want to get all you can out of the antenna. So with these more accurate readings, I’ll be honing the antennas to give me the best performance they can. This might also mean bigger mag mounts with more surface contact.

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ELSEWHERE

• Freaks of the wireless is a new book coming out soon. Here are some words from the author

• Never one to be out-nerded, my friend M1NER has compiled a list of amateur radio software for the BBC Micro.

• Here is a link to some world radio history

• And here are some regularly updated maps showing where there is GPS interference.

• This is my other more regular, slightly more eclectic email.

• Some BBC Radio programmes you might enjoy. With or without VPN ;-)

• Don’t forget the Zello Group for this newsletter is called 73fromG5DOC and the password is documentally

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FINALS

Thanks for reading and I hope subscribing. It’s great to see this publication grow.

As the weather improves in the UK there should be more outside radio opportunities.

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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