CB'ing and Ham radio in the 21st Century

[Uncle Peter]

Ha someone been bitten by the PSK31 bug?

[Kymmy]

Much prefer psk63, a lot faster at getting across the info...

It's a lot better now I've finished off my little radio interface, isolated the in/outs with some audio transformers and a salvaged opto-isolator (from an old broken CRT monitor) Means that the mouse/Keyboard now doesn't stop working due to the RF

[Kymmy]

Well RTTY won the day with a short QSO with LU7HF (Argentina and no I didn't try to start a war) on 17m at about 22:20 last night Pity he doesn't eQSL as I don't believe in chopping down a tree and paying him $3 just to get a card

[Jon T]

I've been on eQSL for as long as i've been on HF. Wish more people would get AG status though.

Have you had a PSK125 QSO yet?

[Kymmy]

Not yet, Still trying to work out how to identify some of the squeeks and bleeps

Got AG status on eqsl within 24 hours of finding the site, I think it's great and even found some cards waiting theere from 4-5 years ago

[Blackened]

Originally Posted by Kymmy

It's a lot better now I've finished off my little radio interface, isolated the in/outs with some audio transformers and a salvaged opto-isolator (from an old broken CRT monitor) Means that the mouse/Keyboard now doesn't stop working due to the RF

That's a major pain. My monitor goes off as well when I key down. Comes back on again when I key up and down again.

[Kymmy]

The interface isolates the PC from the radio hence I don;t now have an issue.. If your monitor is going off then there's RF leakage somewhere.. What's your earth like? Have you got a ferrite on your rig power lead and also have you tried a metalic spray ( or a bit of well glued in aluminium foil) on the inside/outside casing of the monitor

[Kymmy]

Originally Posted by Jon T

Have you had a PSK125 QSO yet?

Weird you should mention psk125 as I've just had my first QSO via that mode, an EA8 in Lanzerote...WOW does the info whizz by

[Blackened]

I'm not sure about the earth, Kymmy. I'll take a look tomorrow.

I have some fat ferrite rings in the garage, I'll give that a go. Cheers

[Kymmy]

Make sure you wind the ferrites properly if you use them

[Blackened]

Yeah, will do - cheers.

Just been to get them out the garage but Mrs Blackened's parked her car behind mine so I can't get to the bottom cupboards.

[Kymmy]

Nice little contact with St Helena last night again on RTTY but this time 20m

Conditions are definitely improving as we go further into 2012, even heard quite a few stations on 10m which is above the 11m freqs so for the CB fraternity the bands looks like they're going to be really good this summer.

[Kymmy]

Just had to strip down the antenna connector for my old 1/2 G5RV after the reflected power on the SWR kept popping up when transmitting.. Turned out to be a load of corrosion which I've now stripped, re-soldered, hot-glued, sealed and heat-shrinked

Result = 20 mins using PSK31 on 17m (18Mhz) got me denmark, Finland, 2 Ukraines, 4 EU Russians and JF3PNQ in Sanda, Japan Now that's a result

[Uncle Peter]

17 is a brilliant band when it's open. You can actually have a QSO on fone rather than the usual 59, 73 you get in Kilowatt alley.

There have been quite a few E alerts for 6m this week so that's worth checking out if you have a suitable antenna of any description. Going to put my 5ele back up at the weekend as it had disintegrated during the storms last winter so I've managed to drill out the element fittings and replace them with stainless.

[Kymmy]

HRD has finally released 5.21 with a few fixes after it's previous attempted release a few weeks ago..