MM7WAB

Scottish radio communications enthusiast with a technical brain, a bit rusty but still ticking over.

My main interests include electronics, restoration of old equipment, communications, offroad mountain biking and exploring the landscape. Amateur Radio brings these all together rather nicely.

I am a member of the Worked All Britain Awards Group 

 Home WAB Square NS41 : Book Number  22648

Working conditions:

QTH:   

700ft AMSL on north side of 1060ft+ hill in S.W.Scotland.

Good ground conductivity (high ironstone content) 

Masked by hills directly South. Clear shot from West through North to East.

Equipment:

Yaesu FT 707 (RF output limited to Max 9.8W SSB)

Icom IC-756 (duff rotary encoder (vfo control knob) & common 'lines on LCD display' fault. Operating with rotary VFO control 'locked' Using direct entry, mic up/dn controls & 'band button memories'. A bit of a pfaff to operate and heavy to move around but works well for /P operation.

Yaesu FRG-7 receiver. (0.5 - 30MHz) Used with various antennas for effective 'diversity reception' when conditions are rough. 

NR-52F1 HF/VHF/UHF multi mode receiver (0.145 - 477MHz in 12 bands)

Realistic PRO-2006 AM/FM receiver (400ch scan)

Inrico TM-7 Network Radio.  Echolink, Peanut, Zello etc..

Inrico T320 Network Radio.  Echolink, Peanut, Zello, APRS, GPS, PPIG (personal portable internet gateway) etc..

Inrico T199 Network Radio.  Network Radios channel suite on Zello platform.

Ally-Box homebrew reciever. AM/SSB 40m, 20m.

Ally-Box homebrew receiver. SSB 80m.

+a collection of random analog valve sets, old receivers, homebrew Ally-Box recievers, tuners, test gear and other oddities.

I also use a BHI NES10-2 MK3 noise eliminating speaker when required. This is very good at cleaning up received audio when 'pulling signals out of the sh.. Noise. hi hi! 

2 x RTL SDR receivers

  RTLSDR_V1. : 24 - 1,300MHz. (ish, useable range varies on each device)

Handy for monitoring band conditions, 6m, VHF, UHF. Also used for ADSB, APRS, digimodes etc.

Note: The original RTLSDR_V1 (amongst others) suffers with front end overload creating multiple 'ghosts' of very strong signals across the reciever spectrum. This can be stopped by adding input attenuation, notch filters (for spot QRM frequencies, BC bands, local transmitters etc) and band pass filter(s) to stop strong out of band signals reaching the reciever.

  RTLSDR_V3 : 0.3 - 1,300MHz 

This is also handy for RF field surveying, spectral mapping, signal measurement, analysis and decoding. (calibrate 'on site' before serious use)

Note: The RTLSDR_V3 direct sampling mode works well for HF.  The V3 is a much better device but it also suffers with front end overload, adding a few notch filters and a band pass filter/pre-selector makes this a very capable SDR receiver.

Antennas:

HF: 

 G7FEK (80-10m) with 20m 1/4 element at feedpoint & good ground plane.

 Half Square (17m)

 NVIS dipoles (80m & 40m) 16ft & 12ft above ground.

 Double-Bazooka (40m)

 STL magnetic loops. (experimenting with single and multiple looped elements)

 132ft 9in enameled copper wire. OCF dipole (80m CF 3.760MHz)

 543ft enameled copper wire. Duo-Loop (160m 40m, 30m, 20m, 17m)

The information above was correct at time of writing. 08 January 2020 but is subject to change over time.

As I am an active radio amateur the antennas and equipment I use is constantly changing as I build, repair, restore and experiment with different equipment and an ever growing variety of antenna designs.

Thank You for visiting my HamQTH page.

for further information please see my QRZ page.

73 de MM7WAB "Hairy Paul" 

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