Radio and rails...

I had a patch lead, about 1m long, PL259 to BNC from the tuner to the patch panel. It's been fine since I made the thing weeks ago. Today, halfway through an FT8 exchange it decided it no longer wanted to be at all functional. I wondered why the ALC on the FT450D had suddenly gone to max then I noticed the flashing antenna symbol! Fortunately the rig reduces power if the SWR goes mad. Typical.

I have finally removed the remaining X10 controllers having replaced the outside light controllers two days ago and the main room lighting dimmers today. Time will tell if any of these suffer from interference being 2.4GHz Zigbee but so far, so good. All of the X10 stuff is destined to go on eBay but it doesn't seem to sell well - I guess I waited far too long to update everything here. It's not a major setup, one Zigbee controller / hub or whatever it's called - USB and currently stuck in the front port of the server, two dimmers, two bulbs, and three relays. The setup is Mosquitto and Zigbee2mqtt on the server and Homebridge on a Pi. The server is due to be replaced by another Pi shortly to save space and watts. So now Siri rules our lighting - well some of it! Be nice to Siri...

Shame. The planned SAQ broadcast on the 24th is cancelled - see https://alexander.n.se/en/covid-19-stops-saq-on-christmas-eve-morning/ Oh well, no rush to sort out my VLF antenna then.

Armed with the LF converter I have been experimenting with antennas for the low side of things. There is far too much electronic hash in the house for any hope of receiving things so I now have a couple of antenna options to try outdoors. Given the radios are all upstairs and there is no easy cable route to the workshop where the antennas can go this means a remote SDR. There is already Ethernet in the garage where the QO100 transceiver was so experiments can begin. Anyway, here are the new fiddleables... an IP35 mini whip from eBay seller radio.el32 complete with bias tee: This comes as the two PCBs - antenna and bias tee - plus 3 BNC sockets. The metal box was sourced from eBay and the waterproof plastic housing from Amazon. It's a lot bigger than is needed but should be fine. And a 'loop antenna amplifier' (LAA++) and bias tee from Cross Country Wireless: All being well the first test will be of the IP35 antenna once mounted on a wooden pole. The LAA++ will take me a little longer as I need to make a loop for it.

Getting closer to being portable - not that I go anywhere! I now have an LDG Z817 automatic tuner. It seems to be working fine although it arrived with dead batteries, one of which had leaked a bit. That cleaned up ok and it now sports a set of Energizer Max batteries (ok, I had a box...) Having run up FT8 on the Mac 40m was packed but I did manage a contact with an EA station on 80m with 2.5W via the random bit of wire in the loft. Note to self: remember there are batteries in it!