The Art of Amateur Radio [053]

Greetings from the shack...

HERE

Greetings new subscribers. And welcome. I’m Christian Payne aka G5DOC. I value creativity, human connection and storytelling. I’m also passionate about exploring how technology can enhance human interactions and facilitate communication.

When it comes to radio, I’m an amateur in more ways than one. A geek, working on being a nerd and keen to learn from, understand and connect with others.

For money I occasionally use my skills as a writer, photographer, film maker and consultant to help people tell their stories and navigate the digital landscape.

I’m also based in the UK. But don’t hold that against me.

Actually….

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THERE

Lot’s of radio related excitement has been happening in the last couple of weeks. Mostly on the community and infrastructure side of things.

One extremely rewarding endeavour was assisting the Huntingdon Amateur Radio Society with erecting a new mast in a new location for our local repeater. The owner of the previous location has sold up, but we found somewhere not far away and it looks like this slightly higher mast will improve the overall reach of GB3OV.

The repeater is the lifeblood of the local Amateur radio community and has been serving the area and those passing through for the last 38 years. It’s an honour to play a small part in its history and assist in the relocation.

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I spent the weekend in Manchester at a TEDx. Despite the great content and topics covered, no one was talking about radio ;-)

Come May I plan to do a radio based talk at Thinking Digital. Pretty basic stuff but hopefully it might get some new people into the hobby.

When I last did a talk on Amateur Radio I got at least one person interested who then got licensed. Mark M7OLN.

We met for an ‘eyeball’ in a carpark last week and I could see he was already in neck deep. We got his first simplex contacts in the bag. On 2M and 4M. That’s it now. No going back. This week he is messaging things like…

“Picked up a node on the East side of Northampton but now near Warwick and nothing since then. Will leave it in the car all day and see if it picks anything up whilst stationary… That’s assuming my car doesn’t get viewed as a security risk, with cables everywhere, a 2/70 mobile antenna on a window mount and a heltec hanging off the rear view mirror!”

He’s been assimilated. All he needs now is the T-Shirt equivalent of the secret handshake.

On the same day as I met Mark. I helped out Dave G8BKG with a radio issue. You can hear the audio here…

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And Manchester? Well that was a blast. The best bit about being in the big city was the night before the talks, when I was invited to dinner on the 17 floor of the Hyatt Regency. While there I had my LoRa node with me and when on street level I might catch a glimpse of the occasional node, all of a sudden, up at hight, I got to see what all the fuss was about.

I didn’t know that there was a GPS issue with the iOS app but nevertheless in a matter of minutes I was connected to 52 nodes.

The VIP dinner was filled with uber-nerds including scientific advisors to the US secret services one of the world’s top AI experts. Despite all that geekiness in the room, for a moment I could hold my own with few people keen to know what this mysterious little comms device was and what it can do.

The closest I could do to describe it was say it was a mobile decentralised self-configuring network that feels a little like a fusion of CB Radio and SMS without corporations in the mix.

The next question over my shoulder was… “How long till the government shuts it down?”

I replied that I think the cat is out of the bag now. And I’m interested to see where it scampers.

Chat on the ‘Long Fast’ was friendly, welcoming and fun. I just had time to say hi to a few people before popping the device in my jacket pocket by the window. At that height I imagine I was routing a lot of messages and as I grabbed the first free wine of too many, it felt good to be of service to the LoRa fraternity in the city below.

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GEAR

This lightweight, compact cloth J-Pole is pretty impressive.

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The first Meshtastic upgrade for me was a larger antenna for my loft node and a larger solar panel to power the it and the attached battery.

The antenna was less that £2 ($2.57) from Amazon ← (this affiliate link won’t make me rich).

And the panel is one of many I’ve hoarded that I used to take camping. The one shown is the Powertraveller Solar Gorilla that I have had for many years.

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Having a good antenna is one of the most important parts of the LoRa system.

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ONAIR

Earlier this week, just before the 10am repeater net I connected with Gareth M5KVK on Fusion. He’s usually local and also on the net, but on this occasion he happened to be 10474 miles away in NewZealand. Thanks to the magic of a Pi-Star hotspot I was able to assist him in dropping onto the net by holding my FT5D close to the mic on my FTM 500. There I was with my morning coffee, while he was in a camper van on North Island supping a glass of whisky.

Outside of the repeater chit chat I’ve mostly been playing with Meshtastic. But you probably guessed that.

This new shiny toy seems to epitomise what amateur radio is all about. Building, experimenting, modifying, playing and all the time having fun. And so throughout the week the playtime continued.

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ELSEWHERE

• Thanks to the Internet archive you can now get stuck into 319 episodes of ‘Ham Radio and More’. [Link via M5AEO]

• The UK seems to be leading the charge in regards to creating a widespread mesh network. Check the Mpowered map to see the leaderboard. Although perhaps in the US the offgridders don’t have the internet to see the map. ;-)

• Also check this video to see the coverage and antenna mods. How are things looking in the US?

• An online book on TV-DX

• If you enjoy reading my simplistic approach to radio and want to take it to the next level, check out Zero Retries and Random Wire.

• And then this is my other more regular, slightly more eclectic email.

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FINALS

Thanks for reading and I hope subscribing.

If you are wondering about the image at the beginning of this post, it’s a shot of a Heltec V3 on top of a fishing pole in the wind at night. The orange lights come from my shack windows. If this was in the gallery I reckon it would sell for the same price as a YAESU FTDX101D. Or i’ll print you one and gladly exchange.

;-) Worth a try.

Failing that you can all support this email with a small subscription and I’ll save up for the next epic-shack-in-a-box. I still think we are overdue an iCom 705 that finally does 4M.

And what of the title. What is the art of amateur radio? IMO

"The art of amateur radio involves striving to understand the technology and mastering its use. It encompasses experimenting with and troubleshooting equipment, antennas, and modes. This pursuit encourages a learning mindset, explores where it leads, and builds communities while sharing that knowledge and passion." ~ G5DOC (after a glass of wine and a small whisky.)

Please share this wherever you think it might resonate. Also, likes and comments go a long way to getting this publication seen and are also appreciated.

You are some of the more curious people in radio ;-) And I thank you.

Over

73 de Christian G5DOC

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