RF Eclectica : The Blog
Tue 30/04/24 : Stop Being A Grumpy Old Sad Ham
- I've decided to stop feeling grumpy about the current state of amateur radio.
- I've decided to get on and enjoy it, and to not care if there are people, behaviours, modes or band-uses that would previously annoy me.
- It's just a hobby.
- And I note that the new OFCOM licence documents seem to have redefined the purpose of Amateur Radio:
Purpose 4. The Licensee must ensure that the Radio Equipment is only used: a) for the purpose of self-training in radio communications, including conducting technical investigations; or b) as a leisure activity and not for commercial purposes of any kind
- I'm not sure when
Clause 4. b)appeared, but it means I no longer have any justification to be grumpy at people who use amateur radio with no underlying ethos of self-training. - I don't want to be a sad ham. There's too much fun stuff to do in radio as a hobby, so why spend precious time tuning around and finding fault with what you hear on the air? Just get on the air and do your own thing.
- I recently threw my toys out of the pram over You Tube and its forcing of adverts on everyone - (i.e. when they started to warn people to stop using AdBlockers).
- I decided I wanted no part in You Tube and deleted my account/videos.
- I notice that recently they seem to have stopped warning me about using an AdBlocker (UBlock Origin)
- Have they give up that fight, or are the AdBLock developers just getting better at hiding?
- Anyway - I might post a few videos now that I'm getting back into the hobby, and enjoying it, and not being a grumpy old ba***rd.
- I even had some 40m SSB QSOs recently - something I thought I'd never do again.
Mon 08/04/24 : Wayback Machine
I was wondering if my old Google/Blogspot Blog was still around archived at the Wayback Machine and I found several snapshots are still available;
https://web.archive.org/web/20240000000000*/http://gm4slv-geek.blogspot.com/
Looking through the available captures I can find some specific posts, but there's a lot of things missing, of course. Still, it's an interesting & useful thing.
Sun 07/04/24 : Allstar
I had a think, and indecisive as ever, I decided to change from Svxlink/Echolink to Allstar.
There's no real advantage to either system, as most people/nodes are linked on one of the major “clusters” such as HubNet which is accessible from all platforms (Allstar, Echolink, DMR, YSF etc).
I've set up Allstar node 48148 on 144.9125MHz at 5W. http://stats.allstarlink.org/stats/48148, it also acts as an Echolink node, too GM4SLV-L
I used previous config files from MB7AZE AllStar Config and GM4SLV Allstar to configure the new node which is running Allstar V2 Beta from downloads.allstarlink.org tweaked to suit the current setup where necessary.
I'll add a new wiki page HERE with the details soon
Update
- The Echolink part certainly works
- Someone connected via Echolink while I was walking the dogs and it turned out to be Vic
G0RAS - We had a nice chat - I was trying to keep the howling gale from the TH-D72's microphone.
- Vic was connected via the
Echolinkmobile phone app - no radio link at his end.
Sat 06/04/24 : Echolink & Svxlink
After deciding last year to ditch all internet radio and concentrate only on HF, and then only on CW, I've come full-circle, and have now restored DMR, added YSF and last night I restored an analogue voice gateway connected to Echolink via svxlink.
Thought process....
The amateur radio hobby is just a hobby. Why limit what aspects of it I find interesting because of some feelings of nostalgia for the good olde days when radio meant only manual telegraphy on the HF bands?
I still love CW but it's just one aspect of a diverse hobby, which has many rabbit holes to explore. I've set up a DMR full-duplex hotspot, set up a second mobile/portable DMR hotspot and a third YSF/Fusion hotspot. I've had SSB QSOs on 60m. I am enjoying the various different parts of this hobby.
Since my 2m setup at home has fairly poor coverage due to the antenna location and the topography of the local area there now seems little point in continuing with 2m APRS. What to do with a 2m radio at home? An analogue voice gateway - now it's legal to do without NOV?
I found some Raspberry Pi SD card image files from the last time I ran svxlink and it didn't take long to clone a new Raspberry Pi SVXLINK gateway. I spent some time last night playing around with the configuration and set up audio levels etc. and it now seems to work nicely. I'll stick to 5W on 2m which won't give massive coverage locally but I'll be able to access from anywhere I can reach on foot and there will be a few more distant hills where access will be possible.
I had previously been connected to the svxlink reflector system run by G4NAB http://svxportal-uk.ddns.net:81/index.php but my previous password is no longer valid, but I'll approach Chris and see if I can get reconnected.
I'll try to keep a 2m radio close by whenever I'm at home, ready to answer any calls on Echolink.
I'm at Echolink Node GM4SLV-L / 886089 and might try connecting to Hubnet from time to time.
I'll add some new Wiki pages with the current config. to keep a record of the setup, for future reference.
Thu 04/04/24 : VPS & SSL
Trying to decide if this blog should be a general catch-all place for any and all subjects, or only for Radio related ones.
I'll start adding things that aren't strictly radio and see how I feel.
Let's start with a computer/server related one….
Virtual Private Server
I got a email to say my domain gm4slv.org.uk has renewed for another 2 years and another that my ssl certificate for use on this website has renewed too.
This means remembering how to install ssl certificates on the webserver. Fortunately I didn't have to go through the initial steps of creating a signed request etc. The new certificates were simply drop-in replacements for the existing ones. My wiki already had a step-by step account of installing the original ssl certificates, so it was easy enough to repeat the process to replace them with the new ones.