Practical Wireless №1 2020.pdf

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IRELESS
JANUARY 2020
THE UK’S NUMBER ONE AMATEUR RADIO MAGAZINE SINCE 1932
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Contents
PRACTICAL
WIRELESS
January 2020 Vol.15 No 1
On sale: 12 December 2019
Next issue on sale: 9 January 2020
ISSN 0141-0857
5
Keylines
Don
is on his travels again but finds time to wonder
about the proposed Beginner Licence.
6
Subscriptions
Your guide to taking out a regular subscription to
PW
and/or
RadioUser.
Practical Wireless
Warners Group Publications plc
The Maltings
West Street
Bourne
Lincs PE10 9PH
www.warnersgroup.co.uk
Tel 01778 391000
Editor
Don Field G3XTT
practicalwireless@warnersgroup.co.uk
Designer
Mike Edwards
mike.edwards@warnersgroup.co.uk
Advertisement Manager
Kristina Green
01778 392096
kristina.green@warnersgroup.co.uk
Advertising Production
Nicola Lock
nicola.lock@warnersgroup.co.uk
Publisher
Rob McDonnell
robm@warnersgroup.co.uk
Subscriptions
Subscriptions are available as little as £11.
Turn to our subscriptions page for full details.
Subscription Administration
Practical Wireless Subscriptions,
Warners Group Publications plc
The Maltings, West Street
Bourne, Lincs PE10 9PH
Tel: 01778 395 161
subscriptions@warnersgroup.co.uk
Components for PW projects
In general, all components used in
constructing
PW
projects are available from
a variety of component suppliers. Where
special, or difficult to obtain, components
are specified a supplier will be quoted in the
article.
Photocopies & Back Issues
We can supply back issues, but we only keep
them for one year. If you are looking for an
article or review that you missed first time
around, we can still help. If we don’t have
the actual issue we can always supply a
photocopy or PDF file of the article.
Technical Help
We regret that due to Editorial timescales,
replies to technical queries cannot be given
over the telephone. Any technical queries are
unlikely to receive immediate attention so,
if you require help with problems relating to
topics covered in PW, please either contact
the author of the article directly or write or
send an email to the Editor and we’ll do our
best to reply as soon as we can.
7
News
PW’s
monthly roundup of news from the UK and
internationally, including new products, club news
and recent events.
10
Review: the Yaesu FT-3DE
144/432MHz Dual-Band Transceiver
Tim Kirby G4VXE
gets to try out a new Yaesu hand-
held that offers an awful lot in a compact package.
10
34
World of VHF
Tim Kirby G4VXE
discusses the need to increase
activity on the VHF/UHF bands and whether a begin-
ner level licence could help.
14
HF Highlights
Steve Telenius-Lowe PJ4DX
highlights a forthcom-
ing DXpedition, reports on the accreditation of
SV2RSG/A and has the usual roundup of news.
38
Quiz Answers
Here are the answers to the quiz on page 24.
18
Review: the Ham Air 2m Half-
Wave Vertical Inflatable Antenna
Tim Kirby G4VXE
reviews a 2m antenna that is a
little out of the ordinary!
42
Carrying on the Practical Way
John Dunton G1RXC
follows up his previous piece
(Practical
Way,
August 2019) by describing a home-
brew PIC programmer.
20
Radio Bookstore
Your one-stop shop for hobby-related titles, biogra-
phies, reference titles, historical accounts, technical
advice and successful building projects.
48
Doing it by Design
Gwyn Griffiths G3ZIL
offers a design for a calibrated
noise source that you can build.
24
Practical Wireless End of Year Quiz
Tom Morgan ZS1AFS
brings readers a quiz based on
the contents of this year’s issues of PW. The answers
can be found on page 38.
52
Exam Practicals
As a follow-on to his various features related to the
new examinations syllabus,
Tony Jones G7ETW
turns
his attention to the practical exercises.
26
Valve & Vintage
Bernard Nock G4BXD
returns with some new addi-
tions to the collection, from Japan and the USA.
56
Radio Eye on the Sky (Part II)
Dr Bruce Taylor HB9ANY concludes the story of the
origins of Jodrell Bank with the saga of the construc-
tion of the iconic Lovell Telescope.
Keith Rawlings G4MIU
takes a look at
Advanced
Antenna Modelling
by
Marcel De Canck ON5AU
30
Book Review
26
56
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4
PRACTICAL WIRELESS
January 2020
Keylines
I
61
Colin Redwood G6MXL
starts the New Year by look-
ing at the options for replacing an expired internal
battery for the popular Yaesu FT-817 and FT-817ND
transceivers.
61
What Next
64
Data Modes
Mike Richards G4WNC
continues his tutorial on
interconnecting SDRs and data modes decoders
in software. He also has a new spectrum analyser
from SDRPlay along with free Pactor monitoring and
JS8Call news.
67
Notes from a Small Station
To round off his
Footsteps
project from 2019,
Joe
Chester MW1MWD
ponders what did
Marconi
really
achieve?
’m writing this while back in the
Gambia, this time for the CQWW CW
Contest at the end of November. I
started coming to West Africa with
the Voodoo Contest Group in November
1999 and quickly realised that it’s a great
location for these international contests.
There is a good sea path to North and
South America, Europe is directly north
and the proximity to the equator means
that the ionosphere gets more solar ra-
diation than more northerly latitudes,
something that’s especially helpful at
times of low solar activity. Most impor-
tant though, it beats putting contest an-
tennas up in the inevitably cold, wet and
windy autumn weather in the UK!
I did wonder whether I would struggle
to put
PW
to bed from here – the internet
was somewhat variable on previous vis-
its. However, I was recommended to buy
a 4G router (available locally, along with
30 days of unlimited data) and I’m inding
that speeds are pretty much as at home
in the UK. Africa and many other parts
of the world have beneited enormously
from mobile telephony, whereas wired
telephony was always a challenge – not
least because overhead copper wires
were too tempting to would-be thieves.
But nowadays, mobile phones are used
for everything, including small payments
and money transfers. Yes, wireless tech-
nology is everywhere nowadays.
they can now enjoy the DX to be found
on the band, and learn about its propa-
gation and other characteristics, by op-
erating on FT8. The same is true of the
10MHz band, where phone operation is
discouraged by international agreement
because the allocation is so narrow.
Beginner Licence
I commented last month on a proposal
for a Beginner licence, put forward by
John Regnault G4SWX.
Our VHF col-
umnist
Tim Kirby G4VXE
also covers the
proposal this month, in somewhat more
detail. I would be very interested in feed-
back from
PW
readers. Is this an innova-
tion that you support and, indeed, may
have valued yourself on coming into the
hobby? Or is it a step too far, when we al-
ready have a three-tier licence structure?
After all, many of us (myself included!)
had only one option – to take the Radio
Amateurs Exam (and a Morse test, if we
wanted access to the HF bands). Tim’s
concern is primarily related to activity
on our VHF and above bands – is the
problem simply that the cat escaped the
bag well and truly when Class B licen-
sees were given access to HF? The topic
is certainly worthy of a (reasoned, as
against emotional!) debate.
Let me inish by wishing every reader
and contributor Seasons Greetings. I al-
ways appreciate feedback from what I
like to think of as the
PW
family. Here’s
to a great 2020.
70
Making Waves
Activity from Home
I have also been a bit more active from
home following the house move. A mod-
est effort on 80m SSB in the CQWW
Phone contest at the end of October,
followed by swapping the 80m verti-
cal for a 160m inverted-L antenna in the
hope of working some of the autumn
DXpeditions on topband, which has al-
ways been my favourite amateur band.
I started by playing on 1.8MHz FT8 and,
in the irst 24 hours, worked A65 (UAE),
UN (Kazakhstan), 5T (Mauritania), the
USA and lots of Europeans. But what
was most interesting was to see activity
from a number of UK stations that I don’t
associate with 160m DXing. Topband
DXing has never lent itself to SSB op-
eration (signals are generally weak and
Morse gets through much more effec-
tively) but that has pretty much locked
out those who don’t use CW. However,
Steve White G3ZVW
looks at propagation prediction
software and websites.
72
Readers’ Letters
This month we feature a pre-war reminiscence, an
unusual antenna, Morse Boot Camps and more.
76
Rallies
Locate a rally or event near you; we have our usual
comprehensive list.
64
Don Field
Editor,
Practical Wireless
Magazine
Enter our competitions at www.radioenthusiast.co.uk/competitions
January 2020
PRACTICAL WIRELESS
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