Radio and rails...

Made some useful progress on packet radio today. I managed to access a node in Scotland and one near the south coast on 40m, 300 baud. This was using QtSoundModem on the Linux box connected to the FT450D via a Signalink, fed into the random length wire in the loft. Access was via EasyTerm running on the Windows PC at first, but then I managed to compile QtTermTCP so ran that on the Linux box instead. A bit of fun but it proves the possibility of using 40m to interconnect where there is currently no VHF or UHF paths here. Fingers crossed once I get some wire and metal in the air things will only improve.

So... I am out of the valve game. Finally. Of my collection I am keeping the 10 rarest, friends are picking at the list with their wants and the rest are available if anyone is interested. Note that these are not 'audio' types and are all CV marked which is what I collected. Some are rare, some very rare, most are mundane but you never know you may find something of interest. The dwindling list, automatically generated is at https://m0rvb.uk/valves/valves.php along with contact information.

I've been a member of Facebook for many years, joining since before it became the advertising behemoth it is today. Back then I did make fairly regular use of it to interact with friends and colleagues as well as groups. But my use of it dwindled to reading group posts and posting 'happy birthday' messages. But I kept it. As hobbies changed with time and retirement I joined several new groups. Again, really all I did was read posts. At some stage during this time I also began to use Messenger. I now find that I rarely get any use out of Facebook and only have two contacts in Messenger that I do not have elsewhere. So I thought it time to get rid of Facebook. That did not go as planned! First, the Messenger app on the Mac decided it would log me out and I cannot log back in. I get as far as the 2FA challenge where it allegedly sends me a text which never arrives. Three goes at that and I just deleted the app, life is too short. Then I went into Facebook and after being bounced around between Facebook and the overarching Meta sites…

So... that time of year again! Where did the last 63 go... Currently all my antennas are in the loft and this is something I have wanted to address for far too long. So 2024 is going to see some actual metal outdoors. First on the list is the collinear for GB7RVB. The plan there is to use a TK bracket and put it up on a mast so it is just above the roofline. The issue I will have here is our house is silhouetted against the backdrop of far away hills and I just know there will be complaints. But as we do not have an external TV antenna there are many oversized examples around where people have clearly been done over by unscrupulous installers. We can see Emley Moor mast to the south plus at least two repeaters and our 6 element or so TV antenna in the loft provides perfectly good signal strengths so why the large 'digital' antennas? Anyway, they cannot really whinge at me for a collinear given all that metalwork along the rooflines. That's my defence anyway! Depending on complaints, or hopefully the lack thereof it will probably get a coup, of feet…

I've been doing the '12 days of QRZ' again this year and managed to get the award yesterday - I started two day late as I forgot about the award. So far I had endorsements for 80m, 40m, 30m and 20m, and today I added 17m and 10m. A couple of log entries were the same stations over two or three days, I'm not actually stalking you! It's fun and frustrating at the same time, logging, sending to QRZ and LoTW and hoping for a match. A few 60m QSOs from yesterday were from stations that had previously logged to LoTW and now are not... but never mind. Just one more day for 60m and 15m to get 12 days in each and the associated endorsements. The award updates automatically once you get sufficient days and go to the awards page again, Now then, 12m. I did not realise last year, nor this year that it is included, as are all bands. You need to go to the bottom of the awards check page and click on 'all bands'. So this year I added 3 days (so far) of 12m, 9 to go. I've never heard anything on 160m, the…