Radio and rails...

Well that's a fail. I tried a dry run today for when I hopefully go portable. Whip on the car on a magmount, tuned nicely for 7.074MHz for FT8, but the rig manages about a second of tx and then straight back to rx. I've had similar before with RF getting into the USB leads. The setup is pretty standard, FT818, Signalink, Z817 tuner, lead from rig to Signalink, lead from rig to tuner, lead from Signalink to USB hub for audio, lead from tuner to USB hub for CAT. First off, the tuner refused to tune. One ferrite cured that and it was happy with a match (of course I forgot to try a 1:1 unun here). But lots of ferrites later and still no go on tx. The trouble is likely to be the long USB lead to USB dongle for CAT control, or the USB hub. Actually I can do without the hub as the MacBook has two USB ports and I only need two for this. In fact, for FT8, which is my aim here, I can do without the tuner too. But now the sun has moved round onto the car and it's too hot…

Getting ready for a trip in early July, hopefully /A from a hotel and also /P from the car. I might even manage one POTA. I am just assembling the final items such as this LiFePO4 battery, the smart charger for which has no lights or any indication of when it has finished charging which I found a bit odd. Anyway, it is on charge ready to see if everything plays properly together while still parked on the drive!

Another new toy, only small this time. This is a 433MHz LoRa transceiver with TinyGS firmware loaded. More about that below. The device has radios built in - WiFi and BLE built in via an ESP32 chip and LoRa via an SX127x transceiver. It comes pre-loaded with software which I did not investigate as I planned to flash it anyway. It can be powered from a supplied connector or via a micro-USB and has an SMA socket on board. There is a wealth of info on the web about these devices and some include GPS capabilities. I got this because I came across the TinyGS project. Quoting directly from their website: TinyGS is an open network of Ground Stations distributed around the world to receive and operate LoRa satellites, weather probes and other flying objects, using cheap and versatile modules. This project is based on ESP32 boards and currently it is compatible with sx126x and sx127x LoRa módules but we plan to support more radio módules in the future. The TinyGS firmware basically does everything. Installation is straightforward provided you have a supported board. The first board I got was a Heltec and sold as V2 but was a V3…

I had a dabble with 70MHz FT8 these past few days seeing I have been moving stuff about and can now connect the 70Mhz transverter to the FT817 and not be worried about blowing it up. Only one confirmed QSO but a couple of reception reports today via pskreporter... one in Wales at 181 miles but an incomplete QSO despite me sending several RRR's though we did at least exchange signal reports, and then one reception in EI at 298 miles, plus one more local in England at 56 miles. Not too bad given this is all via a halo in the loft.

Late to the party as always I recently looked in more detail at POCSAG and that led me to DAPNET. I spotted this a while ago but somehow it didn’t register as interesting back then. Signing up to DAPNET was seamless. You first sign up for an account and the only thing that threw me there was the need to specify a RIC. A document suggested just using one’s DMR ID which I did. You need to send a copy of your licence and I keep a PDF handy for just this. I received account information early the next day. You then need a transmitter ID, same form, different option. That came back almost immediately. Details of that go into pi-star and it all worked in that the DAPNET website could see my pi-star, and pi-star started to display incoming DAPNET connections. Given my desire for new toys for old technology I purchased an Alphapoc 602R pager from an eBay trader. This arrived in a couple of days but despite me programming it all up it never received any pages despite pi-star displaying some test ones directed at my RIC. Firmware perhaps? After soldering the wire pi-star could not update…