Interesting Items
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Bagnold Sun Compass Presentation
Presentation given on 28th January on the Bagnold Sun Compass given by Malcom M0OLG |
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FT991 and HRD
Here are instructions for using ft8 with HRD. It relies on using a USB cable to make it work and it doesn’t work with anything else. Submitted by Ian (M0XCF) |
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INTERESTING READ FOR NEW LICENCE HOLDERS
Submitted by SID (M0SRS) |
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Interference broad band, etc
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8759459/Old-TV-causes-broadband-outages-village-18-months.htm
lA short synopsis below:
· Alun and Elaine Rees were unaware that their TV was causing broadband issues
· Villagers living in Aberhosan, Wales, plagued with internet issues every morning
· But problem baffled engineers from Openreach who found network was working
· Crack team were called in and found a signal from an old TV set was the problem
Openreach engineer Michael Jones said the company's chief engineering team helped to solve the mystery by using a spectrum analyser to look for a phenomenon known as 'Shine' (single high-level impulse noise).
After exhausting their options, they were forced to call in the Openreach Chief Engineer team, a crack team described as the company's 'SAS', in a bid to fix the problem.
Suzanne Rutherford of Openreach said such issues are not as rare as people may think.
'Anything with electric components – from outdoor lights to microwaves to CCTV cameras – can potentially have an impact on your broadband connection,' she said.
She advised people to ensure their electrical appliances are properly certified and meet British standards.
Submited by Sid M0SRS
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8759459/Old-TV-causes-broadband-outages-village-18-months.htm
lA short synopsis below:
· Alun and Elaine Rees were unaware that their TV was causing broadband issues
· Villagers living in Aberhosan, Wales, plagued with internet issues every morning
· But problem baffled engineers from Openreach who found network was working
· Crack team were called in and found a signal from an old TV set was the problem
Openreach engineer Michael Jones said the company's chief engineering team helped to solve the mystery by using a spectrum analyser to look for a phenomenon known as 'Shine' (single high-level impulse noise).
After exhausting their options, they were forced to call in the Openreach Chief Engineer team, a crack team described as the company's 'SAS', in a bid to fix the problem.
Suzanne Rutherford of Openreach said such issues are not as rare as people may think.
'Anything with electric components – from outdoor lights to microwaves to CCTV cameras – can potentially have an impact on your broadband connection,' she said.
She advised people to ensure their electrical appliances are properly certified and meet British standards.
Submited by Sid M0SRS
ADDING A NEW CALL SIGN TO QRZ.com
There are two ways to add a callsign to QRZ.com; one is simple and one is difficult. Either way, this can only be done by an existing member who is able to log in the QRZ.com. Therefore, new members must request an existing member to sponsor them. This article describes the simple way.
Once logged in, the sponsor should enter the new call sign M0xxx which will result in the following:
Your Search by Callsign found no results for M0xxx
M0xxx looks like a callsign from England (DXCC Entity #223).
Would you like to add M0xxx to the database? Yes...
Click on Yes... which will result in a new screen. Fill in the *required fields and hit the Save button at the bottom. Leave all the other fields for the owner of the call to fill in as they wish.
There will be a delay while a moderator authorises the request and the sponsor may get an email asking for further information.
It is recommended that new users 'explore' the system to discover exactly what can be entered.
M0VTG
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The Radio Society of Great Britain publishes a booklet: Planning Permission: Advice to RSGB Members.
The booklet includes all the information an amateur needs to produce a good planning application and hopefully obtain planning permission. The booklet is made available for Members of the Society. https://rsgb.org/main/operating/planning-matters/advice-booklet/ What’s in the booklet? Subjects tackled include:
The booklet is only available from RSGB Headquarters, or to download from Membership Services. As this is a service for Members only, it is not available for sale as are other Society publications. |
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LOCATORS - WHAT ARE THEY AND HOW ARE THEY CALCULATED?This article is an attempt to help those who may wish to calculate their IARU and WAB locators. A quick look through the RSGB course notes did not reveal any mention of either of these location systems and I hope that the information will also be of help to newly licensed hams. There are two main location systems in common use in the UK. One is mainly used for international purposes and is the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) system and based on the Maidenhead Locator system. The other system is the Worked All Britain (WAB) system. Many GPS systems are able to display the Maidenhead Locator as well as National Grid References (NGR) etc. THE IARU (MAIDENHEAD) SYSTEM. RSGB Yearbook describes how this system works and how to calculate your location. Known in amateur radio circles as the IARU Locator, the system breaks down as LLNNll (i.e. 2 upper case letters, 2 numbers, and 2 lower case letters). For international purposes, normally only the first 4 characters are used, the remaining 2 being used more locally but not exclusively. Calculating locations from the Yearbook is somewhat tedious and, so long as you know where you are it is possible to obtain the data very easily using free software available on the internet. As an example: Ramsey Rural Museum is a museum which takes part in Museums On The Air annually. Using the link: http://gridreferencefinder.com And zooming in on the map to the position of the museum (use Google Earth as a cross-reference to determine exact position if necessary) and right clicking will generate a pin point on the map. Under the map are displayed a number of parameters the 4th and 5th being latitude and longitude in decimal notation; I got 52.450393 and -0.096603692. Now open a second browser session and link to: http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/tools/grids.php Choose decimal degrees and enter the lat/long figures in the appropriate boxes omitting any minus signs. Degrees North is already selected but you may have to select degrees West or East depending on which side of the Greenwich Meridian you are. (If the longitude figure was preceded by a minus sign, select West. This applies to most of the UK). Click on Convert to Grid Square and read off the location (in this case IO92wk). THE WAB SYSTEM The WAB system is based on the Ordinance Survey Grid Reference System. Going back to the first browser session, the one where you got lat/long from (now you know why we didn't close this session), read off the the Grid Reference (the 1st parameter at the bottom of the page) in this case I got TL 29448 85307. This is the Ten Figure Grid Reference and is far too accurate for our purposes. We need only a Two Figure Grid Reference which is derived from the first figure in each group i.e. TL 28 and this is what you should quote if asked for your WAB location. OTHER USEFUL DATA Sometimes you may find it useful to have to hand other data: I keep a card by my rig displaying the following, complete picture: Postcode, Lat/Long in degrees and minutes, NGR (to six figures i.e. the first 3 from each group), WAB, IARU. To calculate Lat/Long in degrees and minutes, go back to Grid Square Converter, select Deg/Min/Sec, and press Convert to Lat/Long. I got 52 degrees, 26 minutes, 15 second North; 0 degrees, 7 mins, 30 seconds West which I rounded to 52 degrees 26 minutes North; 0 degrees 8 mins West. NOTE: CONVERTING LOCATORS TO LAT/LONG WILL GIVE THE DATUM POINT FOR THE LOCATOR SQUARE. If you used Google Earth earlier you will get more accurate figures. --M0VTG Any errors, omissions, and comments please to M0VTG. P.S. Since writing this article, my thanks to G8AKL for a link to a site which provides the IARU locator and lat/long more directly: http://f6fvy.free.fr/qthLocator/fullScreen.php |
