Radio
This is my main hobby/interest, but as with many technical hobbies it tends to get blurred into other areas. Two other interests, computing and WxSat have their own page on this site. I don't have much interest in DX, or contests (except to note that contests are quite useful for testing antenna systems), nor repeaters. I much prefer to have a pleasant `natter` with another station.
The Radio setup is fairly comprehensive, and I can operate on all the Amateur bands, 1.8 MHz - 50Mhz, and 144Mhz and 432Mhz.
The equipment is pretty much all ICOM with a FT290 as an all mode back-up.
The HF box is the IC-756 Pro. This is an upgraded version of the 756 that I upgraded. There is a lot of bells and whistles on this box, and it will take me quite a while to make full use of them. However my first impressions are very good, and I'm sure that it will give me hours of enjoyment.
The VHF/UHF box is the IC910H a good solid workhorse, which I have only one complaint, there is no center tune meter. There is a flashing LED to show when a station is off frequency, but it's not the same as having a center meter. Also it lacks an AM mode. not that critical, but sometimes it's nice to use the older modes, if only to cause a bit of confusion :-)
The main receiver is the R9000, well over ten years old now. Not the most modern of specs, but it is a very very nice receiver to use. It also doubles as a very useful test instrument.
Antennas consist of a 6 ele quad for 144, (now replaced with a pair of 4 ele beams, one horiz. and one vert. a pair of 12 ele yagis for 432, a three ele beam for 50Mhz and a 144/432 colinear. For HF I use a Welz CP6 vertical, and a random wire. Now here's a big tip for everyone. If after several months of twiddling about and earnest head-scratching wondering why you can't get out very well on topband, and that the vertical seems to be performing rather poorly, it might be a good idea to check which antenna is connected into which input on the ATU. Correcting this simple and embarrassing error has made a world of difference to the performance of the equipment.
The main interest was in SSTV, but that has declined on the bands being replaced with DSSTV This is a pretty pointless mode. It needs almost perfect reception to get a image. This is OK between stations in a QSO, but almost impossible for any listener to get images. Unlike analog SSTV where you always get something even if very noisy.
Then there is another mode of operation where the image is uploaded to a server, and the radio transmission sends the file and server link. The receiving station then gets the file from the server. You might just as well tell the receiving station that the image is on xyz server!
I've tried a number of data modes as well , such as FT8, PSK and so on. Having moved away from MS Windows I use:
flrig-2 for remote operation of the equipment
qsstv for both analog and digital SSTV
Wherever possible you should download these programs via your Linux software repositories.
