g4bao.com

G4BAO.COM

Microwave Amateur Radio Station, Waterbeach. 8km North Of Cambridge JO02cg

To Contact me:

Skype johng4bao

E-mail john at g4bao dot com

Home

About me 

My Equipment

Projects

Related links

Downloads and Bodger's Guides 

For Sale

Backscatter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to G4BAO's Amateur Radio Website 

Microblog,  3rd February 2012

Been a while since I waffled on the website, but nothing really exciting to report, what with Christmas and all that. Thanks to the CUWS for hosting my talk "The Bodger's Guide to Amateur Microwaves" last night at Caius. The slides are available to download here, and I'm told it will shortly be appearing on the Camb-Hams YouTube channel.  Had a great time and was inmpressed with the enthusiam of the under-30s in that group. There is hope for the future of our hobby!  

2012 GS3PYE/P Camb Hams DXpedition  Recently I've been making plans to take a serious 10GHz station to The Isle of Mull, IO66VH between April 28th and 5th of May as part of the 2012 GS3PYE/P Camb Hams DXpedition.  I would guess that IO66 has not been activated on 10GHz before but I could be wrong. Keep an eye on the Camb-Hams website for details of operation. Thanks to Dave, G4HUP who's lent me the "bits" to put together a 10Watt station. The deal is, I build it, use it on Mull then give him back a working system to bolt on his mast. More activity from JO02 will then follow hopefully! 

Hardware I'm working on modifying some QRO 1900MHz SSPAs for 13cms. I plan to donate these to EME2012 as raffle/door prizes and publish the mods in due course. I've submitted a paper on this work to EME 2012, so it may get chosen, who knows, the competition for papers is very tough with over 30 submitted so far! 

 I'm also starting modifications to some Band III Harris SSPAs for 144MHz for the Camb-Hams and CUWS.     

Activity news On 9cm on 22nd November in the SHF UKAC I finally worked Ralph G4ALY (IO7ØVL) 365km via aircraft scatter. Ralph is always a consistent signal on 23cm here in Waterbeach, but 9cm has always eluded us. The path is over Dartmoor, so is quite a challenge. We are aiming for a 3cm contact next!  During the same contest I also surprised Martyn G3UKV (IO82RR) 193km by easily completing an aircraft scatter contact using 1 minute periods. The following weekend I worked DK2MN (JO32MC) 466km for my best DX on 9cm for the year.

On 3cms there  have been some  winter rain scatter produced by storms in the English Channel in mid December. On the 13th I copied the F5ZTR beacon (JN19FK) 352km, from early evening right through to the following day, peaking 56S, when in late afternoon I finally managed to hook up with Maurice F6DKW (JN18CS) 414km on CW, followed later in the evening by Marc F6DWG (JN19AJ) 345km.

On 24GHz, sadly it’s been a case of listening for beacons. The Martlesham team very kindly re-oriented the GB3MHK 24GHz horn to point at me, and I’ve started to receive it over a very obstructed path when conditions are suitable, mainly via rain scatter. The beacon is currently low of its nominal frequency at 24048.817MHz and remarkably is inside the equipment room pointing through double glazing!

 

On 10 and 24 I use a 45cm Sky dish, with the W1GHZ dual band feed; on 24GHz a Thales transceiver unit housed in a box along with the DB6NT 12GHz multiplier and a Relcom WR28 waveguide relay. Control is via a PIC controller housed in the 10GHz box just under the dish.

Still haven't repaired my 23cm system antenna (too damn cold!) so no activity on that band until next Spring when I also plan to return to 70MHz.

  

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

 

 

 

Follow g4bao on Twitter

free counters

 

Waterbeach in the Winter Floods

            

                The river Cam at  Waterbeach

            

             Sunset over Waterbeach

 

Oliver is not a kitten anymore!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This Web Page Created with PageBreeze Free Website Builder