Month: June 2024

I have a little project planned to make a new power lead for my Yaesu FT-710 using a pair (positive/negative) of Anderson Power Pole connectors and inline 30amp fuse holders to make it quicker and easier un-hook my radio should I need to. I started looking for a standard 4-pin Yaesu power lead that I…

I have to say that I’ve not played with the Digital Noise Reduction (DNR) option on my Yaesu FT-710 before tonight. I watched a few YouTube videos explaining all about it so I gave it a go tonight and I’m very impressed with the results. It needed dialling in a bit and after playing with…

Like all amateur radio operators in the UK it was my turn to receive my email this morning from OfCom advising me that my callsign is no longer 2E0BAF but is now officially 20BAF. The Regional Secondary Locator, in my case “E” is entirely optional now. For now I’m going to maintain the “E” in…

I have to smile to myself, I think it’s fair to say that we are by our very nature always curious about how things work. On Friday I took delivery of a 3 way coax switch and to be honest, I couldn’t unwarp it and get the back off quick enough to see what was…

I’m delighted to confirm that the work I discussed a week ago has been completed along with some additional work that wasn’t planned. Instead of just replacing the low quality HF coax with  Messi & Paoloni RG-58 Military Spec coax and connectors I’ve also replaced the coax on the VHF/UHF D-31 Discone with  Messi & Paoloni Airborne…

Really nice to turn the radio on tonight and find that both 40m and 20m bands are buzzing for once. With all the solar activity in recent weeks it feels like the HF Bands have been completely closed.

This week I really tried to use this new fangled “lead free” solder. All I can say is it’s like trying to solder with butter. It doesn’t flow like real solder it spreads. It’s complete crap. I’ve therefore done a bit of hunting on the inter-web and found this little gem from RS Components. Real…

So, after buying a few Messi & Paoloni PL-259 connectors and RG-58 cable I have been so impressed with the quality that I’ve decided to swap all my connectors and cable in the shack over to Messi & Paoloni. So order placed with the great Martin Lynch & Sons and delivery early next week.

Yesterday evening I got the Icom IC-705 powered up in HF mode and decided to have a QRP (5w-10w) session. I had a lovely time with a few FT8 contacts including a nice one into France. Because of my antenna I don’t really get French contacts very often so very pleased with that, and even…

As you might have seen I have a little bit of antenna work planned for the end of the week. Actions are as follows: (1) Replace to cheep and nasty coax on the HF long wire with high quality Messi & Paoloni RG-58 Mil Spec coax along with Messi & Paoloni fancy reusable PL-259 plugs….