 Welcome to my Amateur Radio pages |
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I've been interested in radio for many years and the things on this page
are just a few of the things that interest me the most at the moment.
I hold Amateur Radio licences with the call signs M1ACB and M3SGT.
First licensed as in 1994 as 2E1CRV.
I do a bit of contesting,
a bit of teaching for the Amateur Radio exams and a bit of chatting on the
HF bands when I have time. If you fancy a chat on the radio, drop me an
email and we'll arrange a time.
I'm located in Ipswich UK
JO02oa, TM14, 52.03'N 01.18'E
73
Steve M1ACB
thomassg@btinternet.com
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Yaesu FT-1000MP MkV Field
Yaesu FT-990 and FT-650
Yaesu FT-897, VX-7R and VX-2R
Timewave DSP-599zx, DSP-59Y and ANC-4
Kantronics KAM Plus |
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Future & Recent Events |
 | 11-13 May 07 :
Members of a number of amateur radio clubs (CRC,
FDARS,
HARIG)
from the east coast area of the UK have formed the
GB400AA team to organise and
activate a unique special event station to commemorate the
400th Anniversary of America.
The plan involves operating from the quay at Harwich which has many
historical links to the ships that first arrived in America. The main
operation will take place from 1200 UTC on Friday 11th to 2300 UTC on
Sunday 13th May 2007 on a number of HF bands (primarily 20m, 40m & 80m),
using CW and SSB. Ad-hoc operation may also take place at other times
during May 2007.
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James M0ZZO operating GB400AA in Harwich |
| 06-08 Oct 06 :
RSGB HF Convention 2006
at the Gatwick Worth Hotel, Crawley, West Sussex. I met up with other
members of the
De Montfort University ARS to pick
up the G5RV Trophy for the 80m Clubs Championship and the Martlesham
Trophy for VHF National Field Day (Restricted Section), both for the third
year running.
Another year of excellent talks. I would have liked to see more, but the
morning was pretty much taken up with the trophy presentations - a small
price to pay for being part of a successful contest group. I might stay
for a second day next year to see a few more lectures.
IOTA is now sponsored by Icom who were there showing their range of
transceivers including the IC-7800 and IC-PW1 combination which was used
for the MB2HFC special event station. It was impossible to get Neil G0ORG
away from it once he started ragchewing with the DX.
It was interesting to work the EU Autumn Sprint SSB contest on 40m /M on
the way home. Neil's FT-857 and ATAS-120 worked really well but it gets
difficult to spot the dupes without a logging program or even a notepad !
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Neil G0ORG operating MB2HFC at RSGB HFC 2006 |
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Icom IC-R9500 on show at Leicester |
| 03 Sept 06 :
SDG Rally in Ipswich. Another local rally which is struggling with
poor attendance, both from car boot sellers and visitors. It's a shame
after all the effort which the organisers go to to put on these events,
but perhaps eBay is changing the
marketplace for a lot of businesses and events.
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| 19 Aug 06 :
FDARS HF Field Day
in Ipswich.
This event has been on the
FDARS calendar for
the last few years to encourage people to operate HF/P. Peter G8BLS took an amazing amount of equipment into the field
as usual and others brought along a few interesting antennas and radios to try.
Some
Ipswich Radio Scouts, who trained for Foundation and Intermediate
licences with
FDARS, went looking
for Wi-Fi connections with an old satellite dish and a laptop - it's
all radio !
   
M1ACB with the balloon antenna and
Peter G8BLS/Pedestrian Mobile with an IC-703
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Felix 2E0??? on 40m at FDARS HF Field Day 2005 |
| 30 Jul 06 :
Colchester Radio Rally.
A really good car boot sale and always worth getting up early for, even on
a Sunday. Like most local rallies, the number of traders in the hall seems
to reduce each year, but Waters and
Stanton are usually there. I get time at this rally to meet local
friends and have a chat.
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| 01-02 Jul 06 :
VHF NFD
in Norfolk. Another great contest weekend with
De Montfort University ARS. We won
the Restricted Section of the VHF NFD for three consecutive years, so this
year we dropped the power to 25W and had a go at the Low Power Section
with stations on 6m, 70cm and 23cm.
We're still waiting for the results to be published.
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Alan G0TPH in the 2m tent during VHF NFD 2003.
I can't find any pictures from this year. |
| 23-25 Jun 06 :
Ham
Radio 2006 at Friedrichshafen. My first visit to this event, but it
won't be my last. A great place to see all things radio, old and new. One
huge hall for manufacturers, major traders and organisations, and three
further halls for the flee market.
I flew from Stansted to Friedrichshafen with Ryanair on the Friday
morning, got to the rally by mid-morning. |
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M1ACB at Ham Radio 2006 in Friedrichshafen
[Photo by Sam G4DDK] |
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06 Aug 05 :
I've applied a software
modification on my FT-897 to cover the extended UK 40m band allocation of
7.000-7.200MHz without soldering any internal jumpers or losing the
Automatic Repeater Shift that some of the other modifications remove.
I
used
Softjump by VE2JCG with the
eprom settings suggested by M5GUY for a UK model.
If you really must
use a soldering iron to modify the radio, you could perform the equivalent
hardware modification
but I didn't try it. If you want to check the jumpers before you change
anything, read the
Jumper Sheet. If you break your radio, it's not my fault !
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Yaesu FT-897 |
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Regular Events |
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ESWR - East Suffolk Wireless Revival
The Ipswich Radio Rally - 15 June
2008
ESWR 2008 will be held on Sunday 15 June 2008 at the
Trinity Park in Ipswich.
The East Suffolk Wireless Revival is held annually in Ipswich as a meeting place for all
those interested in radio. For the last few years, we have returned to the Suffolk
Show Ground, the original home of the East Anglian Mobile Rally.
Please have a look at the photographs of the
ESWR 2003 event.
Historic photographs are
also available for the very wet event in 2000. |
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Andy M0BXT operating GB4SWR at ESWR 2005 |
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| International Marconi Day
The most recent event was on 28 April 2007
Please check the
GB4IMD web
site for up-to-date information.
"Throughout his life, Guglielmo Marconi pioneered the
use of radio as a method of transmitting information over long and short distances;
these experiments were conducted from many famous sites around the world.
International Marconi Day (IMD) is a 24-hour amateur radio event held annually to
celebrate the birth of Marconi on the 25th April 1874 and each year, usually on the
Saturday closest to Marconi's birthday, amateur radio stations are set up and operated
from the original sites, or nearby." More information about International Marconi Day
can be found on the GB4IMD web site.
Mike M0AWS/F5VKM, Andy M0BXT and I have joined in with International Marconi Day a few times in
recent years. We usually manage to contact enough of the participating stations to qualify
for a certificate, and have a bit of fun in the process. Mike took a couple of pictures of
Andy and I in his shack during IMD 2000. We used Mike's collection of old valve radios for
most of the contacts, but if you look really carefully, you can see that my Icom
IC-706MkIIG is hiding on the shelf too !
  
International Marconi Day certificates for
2005, 2006 & 2007 |
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Andy M0BXT and Steve M1ACB on IMD 2000
[Photos by Mike M0AWS]
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Contests |
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RSGB VHF National Field Day Contests
I joined the
De Montfort University ARS for the
RSGB VHF National Field Day for the first time in 2003. We operated on the 6m,
2m, 70cm and 23cm bands as
G3SDC/P from the Norfolk coast and won the Restricted Section
of the contest. We repeated the win in 2004 and 2005 to make it three in a row.
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You can see the detailed results of the VHF
NFD for 2003,
2004 and
2005 on the
RSGB VHF Contest
pages.
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| RSGB 80m Club Championship Contests
I've been taking part in the RSGB 80m Club Championship contests as a member
of the
De Montfort University ARS. I
started with the SSB sessions, then had a go at Data and have even had a
couple of attempts at CW. The contests are great fun and have brought out some
really good team spirit within the club. We've won the contest in 2004 and
2005, so we're the current holders of the G5RV trophy. |
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Tim G4ARI, Steve G4EOF
and Bob G0ORY collecting the G5RV Trophy for DMU, winners of the 80m Club
Championship 2005. The trophy was presented by RSGB President Jeff Smith
MI0AEX at the RSGB HF Convention 2005. [Photos by M1ACB] |
You can see the detailed results of the
80M Club Championship for
2004
and
2005 on the RSGB HF Contest
pages.
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| RSGB 144MHz Backpackers Contests
I entered the RSGB 144MHz Backpackers contests for a few years, usually
operating in the 10W multi-op section with Mike M0AWS/F5VKM
using his old call G1SYT which gave us the name Single Yagi and Transceiver
contest group. We did quite well, won a few sessions, came third or forth
more often and had a really good time. I highly recommend this series of
contests because you can do them without spending a fortune on equipment.
I'll try to find some old pictures of Mike and I drinking beer in the sun
and doing a bit of contesting.
Have a look at the Backpackers information on the
RSGB VHF Contest
pages. |
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Amateur Radio Links
A few of my favourite amateur radio links
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