Innehållsförteckning för September 2025 från Practical Wireless

It’s been a good year for scanning so far. A few months ago, I took a good look at the Uniden Bearcat UBC160DN handportable scanner (PW June 2025: 8-11), still a relatively new kid on the block, as it were. And in last month’s edition (PW August 2025: 9-14), I introduced the Alinco DJ-X100 scanner, which offers some advanced decoding features (e.g. ACARS). I feel certain that these two handheld scanners will appeal to different kinds of scanner enthusiasts, depending on the functionalities – analogue or digital – desired. The Uniden Bearcat UBCD260DN (Fig. 1) is the first larger base station scanner to fly across my busy shack desk this year. Here, the term ‘basestation’ refers primarily to the radio’s external form factor. Naturally, you can also take this radio…

“Martin would do much better if he concentrated on lessons and spent less time selling bits and pieces in the playground.” That may not be verbatim but it is the gist of one of Martin Lynch’s school reports. The precocious schoolboy who went on to become ‘the guvnor’ of a world-renowned amateur radio business, was a salesman and entrepreneur from a very early age. His first ‘store’ was a corner of the school playground, where he would sell anything for which his school mates were prepared to hand over money. His move into soft drinks at around the age of ten, was an enterprise too far for his mother. It was after Martin had turned the Lynch family bathroom into an orangeade mixing and bottling plant that Mrs. Lynch became…

As UK amateurs, there is no shortage of tools and resources to support our hobby. There is always that temptation to add an extra gadget, and I was looking for a clock or dashboard, but rather than another Raspberry Pi or device with another plug in PSU I wanted to see what was online, and that’s where HamDashboard comes in, a lightweight, web-based dashboard that provides at-a-glance information for the active amateur. Originally developed by Canadian amateur VA3HDL, HamDashboard has become a wellregarded tool in North America, particularly among EMCOMM (US RAYNET equivalent) groups and field operators. It’s open source, actively maintained, and refreshingly easy to use. I’ve now adapted the project specifically for UK use, with local data sources, weather feeds, and content relevant for the UK. What is…

I suspect some readers, brought up, like me, on the sketches of Morecambe and Wise might be tempted to reply with a one word answer, ‘rubbish’! Of course, it’s never that simple. If you miss the openings, which after all, can be pretty fleeting, then you tend to surmise that it’s been a poor Es season and on the other hand, if you manage to catch some openings and make some contacts, then you tend to have a more positive view of things. Generally, I think there’s a sense that the Es season started later this year and has been of poorer quality. On 6m there has been a fair amount of single-hop Es around Europe, which has provided a fair amount of interest if you’re interested in those sorts…

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Friedrichshafen – the home of the airship. This where Zeppelins were made and still are – one operates regular tourist flights over the surrounding area. There is also a Zeppelin museum to visit in the town. I was last at Friedrichshafen in 2023 and my report appeared in the August issue of PW. This year, I’m delighted to say, both the RSGB and Yaesu were there and I thought attendance was quite strong, though maybe not back to pre-COVID levels (last year’s attendance was apparently 11,300 from 58 countries, while initial reports from 2025 are that there were 11,600 – 300 more). One of the very positive aspects was an emphasis on youth. As well as Worldwide Young Contesters and Youth on the Air, several exhibitors were running constructional activities…

The introduction of the Raspberry Pi 5, as shown in Fig. 1, prompted the Raspberry Pi team to update the Pi Operating System, bringing it up to date with some of the latest developments in Linux operating systems. While this was precisely the right approach, the changes created problems for the amateur radio community and other groups that employ mainly enthusiastdeveloped software. Much of the popular software we use for data modes and other aspects of amateur radio activity was originally written a few years ago. While the most popular systems enjoy continuous improvement, these updates typically consist of extensions or modifications to the core software. They rarely undergo a complete rewrite, as happens with commercial software. As a result, when the operating system introduces significant changes to core components,…

Please refer to the antenna as described in PW Nov 2024 p22-24. Matters rarely stand still. I have continued the illustration numbering from the original article. The linked dipole described there remains my principal antenna for 10 - 30m. For 40m I use an end-fed half-wave (EFHW), which only outperforms the multiband dipole on 40m itself. Looking at my 40m coverage using PSK reporter, it is very obvious my EFHW has the ability to project my signal over greater distances. I am now loading the dipole for 30m differently than was described originally, terminating both dipole ends in a 4mm socket, see Fig. 10. Rather than replace the outermost section of the dipole with a loaded segment for 30m, I instead add a suitable section which just hangs vertically from…

Like many others, my interest in shortwave listening led to becoming a radio amateur. However, while some have fathers who were amateurs, others probably knew a friend or friends who were one but my father was an artist and not technically minded. This is my story on the road to becoming an amateur. I was born in Uxbridge, England and in 1953 we all went to Durban South Africa. Every Sunday I was made to go, with my sister, to Sunday school. I must admit I did not pay much attention to the lessons but instead became very friendly with another attendee called Graham and spent time chatting. One Sunday he informed me that he had a radio he would like to swop for a couple of Dinky toys. The…

Welcome to the September HF Highlights. In last month’s column we said that the sun had been very active in May and early June. Well, it continued in the same vein, with sunspot region 4114 releasing an X1.2 class solar flare on 17 June, followed in the early hours of 20 June by an X1.9 solar flare. Both flares led to HF blackouts on the daylight side of the world. Regular readers of this column will know that between 2013 and 2024 I lived on the island of Bonaire and was active as PJ4DX. That callsign was re-issued this year to Paul Veldkamp Waalen PJ4SON, who plans to use it in contests and special events. Paul sent me a picture, Fig. 1, of the new antenna he and Jan PJ4HOT…

An earlier GPS project was published in the May 2019 edition of Practical Wireless with the proposal of using an NE0-7N GPS module. I ordered a lot of these from three sources but I was sent NE0-7M types. The difference being with the ones sent, when the power source was removed the information was lost. It was found that the ‘7N’ was no longer available and the dealers supplied the ‘7M’ types instead. Rather than send them all back (after several communications), about 30 of them, I decided to use them with a battery mounted on the module. The battery, CR2032, was mounted in a holder and connected to the on-board super capacitor via a 1N4148 diode for reverse protection. This worked well provided the battery was not removed or…

I enjoy experimenting with aerials and often have two or three on test, but I already have three coaxial cables passing through the shack (bedroom) wall (one for my VHF/UHF collinear on the chimney, one for my ‘Wellgood’ receive loop and just one for HF). I really did not want to drill more holes in the wall, so perhaps a remote switch was the answer? On exploring the internet, I discovered, to my horror, the price for a 4-way remote switch to be a few hundred pounds. At this point AliExpress came to the rescue as they had both a relay operated 4-way coax switch and a Wi-Fi module which with a bit of ingenuity I could utilise and for a very moderate cost. My junk box provided a redundant…

SINAD Dear Don, Phil Moss describes a method of measuring SINAD based on measuring the wholespectrum audio output of a receiver receiving RF with and without a modulating signal. I think this was the ‘x db quieting’ method, where x was often 20. The methodology I covered is indeed not the same. It is more complicated because it takes account of the AF harmonic distortion resulting from the handling (de-modulating, filtering and amplifying) of the modulating AF. This is the ‘and distortion’ element of SINAD. The broken via on my first board did not ‘surface’ anywhere else and I wasn’t able to wire a link. On a single or even two-level board, I could have, but this board has four levels. I had a very good look, believe me! And…