Confessions of a Radio Pixie part 2 - Mr. Mervyn: The Spy from the DTI

Mr. Mervyn wasn't actually a spy, he was a radio investigation officer from the Department of Trade & Industry's Radiocommunications Agency, which is now part of OFCOM*. Affectionately known by his first name Graham by radio users locally, he doned in those days a fetching moustache and had a piecing stare through his tinted bifocal spec's. He had busted a few people in his time for using unlicenced equipment, and my time was coming.

Around 1991 I rented a small room (more like a cupboard) off a CB radio shop to do repairs, and one afternoon Graham came in to have a nosey around. He pulled his ID card out and asked to inspect my workshop. Unfortunately I had several shelves of  CB radios that were unlicensable stacked high belonging to customers. So calmly (even though inside I was shitting myself) and said the words, "You can't come in without a search warrant", just miraculously popped out of my mouth. He grinned nervously and replied, "Fair enough". So he hanged around the shop for a while and then left. In the shop at the time was John the sales assistant (who also does repairs) and a regular customer Dave. We bundled all the illegal CB rigs into Dave's car, a Fiat Panda, and drove back to my flat several miles away to drop them off for temporary storage. You would of thought we were dealing in moonshine or even drugs, than radio equipment that didn't have the right stamp on it.

I didn't get bothered again by Graham. Prehaps he had bigger fish to fry, or prehaps I stood up for my rights. Most people would of caved in and let an authority figure in, whether they had the right or not. It's the same with the TV licence. People just let them in, as they think the authorities have some magic device that can detect TV's in the house. Even if it was stored unplugged in the cupboard, lol. This of course is nonsense, and this digression has lead me to an interesting future blog to write my opinions of the TV licence. Watch this space!

73's from Dave the Pixie

* The UK regulatory authority for communications

Radio Sport - CQ Contest

I've always consider myself a easy going person. I try my best to accept other people's interests and one of my favourite sayings is "nature thrives on diversity". But there is a peculiar aspect of Amateur (Ham) radio which does my head in at times - CONTESTS! Also known as Radio Sport, contests is basically how many stations can you contact within a given period, and with the highest amount of confirmed reports you get a nice certificate.

You may be wondering want's wrong with that? Initially, it's prefectly fine, but on the HF (shortwave) bands it's wall-to-wall contesters almost every weekend. HF has sadly become like shark infested waters. All these contestors do is shout, and shout and more shouting. And all they are shouting about a signal report (which is more or less the same report - 5 & 9), progression number, and a goodbye. Meanwhile other types of operators cannot use the bands. Even as I was typing the draft of this blog, there was a dispute on 80 mtrs where contestors were walking all over M3/M6 foundation licence holders that can't operate more than 10 Watts. Luckily some high powered 400 Watt muscle stations (advanced licensees) came in to help them out.

The following video is from Burt K1OIK who has even more stronger opinions than myself. It's nice to see in the vid that not all contestors are selfish scumbags.

There are of course benefits in contesting. It can hone the skill of an operator, help in understanding radio propagation, fine tune the equipment used, and using frequencies that may be hived off to other radio services. VHF/UHF and microwave contests take considerable skill and patience as long distant contacts are much more rarer than on HF. But on HF many operators seem to suffer from that modern disease of arrogance, ignorance and greed. Walking all over anyone in their way just to get a bit of paper to put in a frame and displayed in their shack.

Is there a solution to this problem? Since amateur radio is well organised on a national and international level, agreements can be made to restrict HF contesting. The radio spectrum is just like the highways: many different vehicles for different purposes but we all have to share the lanes.

73's from Dave G7OPC

Car stuck on the dunes, PMR to the rescue!

In 2008 I went to visit friends in the west of Ireland. We decided to camp out one weekend in the Connemara. We stayed near Balliconneely near Clifden, which for some reason I kept calling it Ballybikini. We all had a good laugh over my mispronounciation and turned into some good craic. We camped out by the coast on the sand dunes, and was occasionally spied on by a herd of cows and the local rednecks. One afternoon I went off by myself for a walk with a small bag which included a small PMR446* walkie talkie.

Later that afternoon I noticed a very frustated family of city folk from Dublin with their car stuck on small hump on the sand dunes. I went over to investigate, and yes there were truly stuck - the wheels were spinning! There was no way they were getting out the car out without additional help. So I called back to the base camp on the walkie talkie, spoke to Mary and explained the situation. After a while we assembled the task force of Robin, Dave, Cormac and Kevin (apologies if I left anyone out) with rope, planks, shovels and a vehicle. Gradually we moved the car allowing the poor family to drive home. Their grandmother was so grateful for our help that she gave me 50 euros, and told me to buy a drink for myself and all of the lads. Which I dutifully did at the local shop - wine, beer and food for all.

So even those "bubble wrap" walkie talkies often seen in supermarkets are useful radio communication devices and can help in many situations. Don't underestimate them!

73's from Dave the Pixie

* Private Mobile Radio on 446 MHz. A Pan-European system of low powered portable 2-way radios.

Confessions of a Radio Pixie part 1 - Jamming

Occasionally I will be publishing articles associated with my dealings with radio in the past including when I was a "rig doctor". For several years of my life I used to repair and service radio equipment especially CB's. I used to have a CB customer called Henry (not his real name) how had a passionate dislike for a breaker that used UK CB Ch31 called Clive (not his real name). Henry wanted to wind up Clive and asked me if I could come out with a "jamming" device. Since cheap CB walkie talkies that were very common in the 80's often had crystals for Ch30, I decided to build a jammer with this crystal. I soldered the crystal into a very small oscillator board powered by a 9 volt PP3 battery. This was installed inside a cigarette packet with a short piece of wire to send out a small scale signal and was hidden up a tree by Henry very near Clive's antenna.

So you may be wonder how this worked? Very simply the crystal oscillator board was retuned from 27.89125 to 27.90025 MHz. Channel 31 is on 27.90125 MHz. So when ever someone was speaking to Clive on Ch31, the different between the two frequencies would produce an 1 kHz audio whistle (middle of human hearing spectrum) on Clive's receive. (As 27.90125 minus 27.90025 = .001 MHz = 1 kHz.) This is known technically as the Heterodyne Principle. But in reality no CB transmitter is never bang on frequency so the whistle will vary in pitch, depending on who was talking to Clive.

Well the feedback I got was that this was driving Clive bonkers. He had this mysterious interference that no one else could hear (due to the fact that the jammer was very low powered). He even got the local electricity provider (known then as SWEB) out to check the "lines" for interference. Luckily for Clive the battery went flat after a few weeks, and the interference "magically" disappeared ;-)

73's from Dave the Pixie

Contacting Wales on Flea Power

Yesterday fellow radio enthusiast Martin M6YFT and I went hill topping on St.Agnes Beacon. It was slightly cold and mist was hanging around us. Visibility was poor, which was a shame as on a good day you can easily see the North Cornish coastline from St.Ives to Trevose Head. The Beacon is the highest point in our area being just over 600 ft asl.

Equiped with a Uniden 2830, Yaesu FT817, Kenwood TH-F7e, Thunderpole mk5 11/10m antenna, and a "pixie" made 2 element yagi 2m beam. The beam was made with bits and pieces: a boom from a TV antenna, elements are structs from a portable massage couch, and a connection box from a CB "wotpole" antenna.

Managed to make a few contacts on the 27MHz CB and 145MHz (2m) amateur bands, but the best was talking to Phil GW0IRT portable in Abergevelly on 433MHz (70cm) amateur band with 50mW and a bulk standard rubber duck antenna. We calculated that it was 143 mile trip. It was a lift condition and soon afterwards signal strength dropped. Must mention that Phil was using a 9 element yagi, so part of this contact was due to his set up.

It was only 2 weeks ago I was having a conversation with a local radio ham where he was saying that life was too short for QRP (low power). But Martin and myself were over the moon in making a contact on what can be only described as "flea power". QRO (high power) is all great and dandy, but working QRP has it challanges, taking patience, and a having a sense of propagation (radio and atmospheric conditions). Getting the antenna system right is always a bonus, as you cannot afford losses at lower power levels. Regardless though of the type of equipment and the power levels used, you can only make contacts when conditions are right.

73s from Dave G7OPC