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MØMTJ
MY AMATEUR RADIO STATION   My amateur radio station consists of an Icom IC-706MKIIG Transceiver with FL-223 (1.9 kHz) and FL-232 (350 Hz) filters. The 706 is used as a home base radio for HF and 2 metres. I also have a lovely little Yaesu FT-857D which I sometimes use for mobile work and 2 metres and 70cms at home. It also has a narrow INRAD 2.0 KHz 8-pole Collins filter installed for SSB work which improves reception on crowded bands. A narrow filter such as this can also help increase the audibility of transmitted audio under difficult conditions, when selected for TX in the menu. http://www.inrad.net For the HF bands there is an MFJ 945-E Antenna Tuning Unit fed by an Inverted L aerial trapped for 40 metres and 80 metres this is fed by RG213 coaxial cable. There is also a trapped dipole for 20 and 10 metres fed by 75 ohm twin feeder and 1:1 balun to the ATU. The antennas are switched for easy selection. There is a SignaLink external USB sound card that links the Icom tranceiver to a Windows PC for use with data modes such as CW (Morse), RTTY, PSK31, SSTV and Packet etc. I rebuilt the PC in August 2008. It now consists of an Abit Motherboard, AMD Athon X2 5000+ Processor, 2GB of PC2 5400 / 667 MHz RAM, a Western Digital 320GB Sata II Hard Disk Drive, a Card Reader, a Hiper brand HPU4S425 Silent 425 Watt PSU, and the existing components; the case, a CD Writer, DVD Rom and a 3.5" FDD. The system runs Windows XP SP3. All supplied by CCL Computers. I have found from experience that the switch mode power supplies that come with many of the cheaper PC cases and towers can create rather a lot of RF noise across all bands. I have used the 'Hiper' brand of ATX PSU's previously and found them to be fairly quiet as far as RF QRM is concerned. QRM I Use Ham Radio Delux for logging together with eqsl for QSLing; Digital Master 780 for data; FTBasic and FT7800 for memory management. I also use RadioMobile for pixel plotting. I do also have a Morse key (of course!), but I have yet to learn this art - though I am very keen to do so at some point.   'I
have a choice of several
external loudspeakers; A couple of old 'Realistic' Tandy brand
speakers, and a
little 'CRT' brand MS120 mobile CB speaker that I
purchased from Knights. Although it is
small it is very clear and because it cuts out a lot of low frequency
sounds it can be very helpful in improving intelligibility in some
circumstances.
The main speaker is the large one that sits on top of the cabinet. This I made myself from a GL13 10 watt, 6 inch loudspeaker unit and a grill that I purchased from Maplin. I housed it in an admittedly rather roughly made wooden cabinet that I made for the purpose. I find this loudspeaker to be very good in most circumstances. The Maplin GL13 unit is very sensitive and has a good frequency range.     73
Mike MØMTJ
 This is
Frederick George, my
stepmother's father, at the controls of his amateur radio station. His
call sign was VE2BV and was located in Quebec, Canada. This photograph
was taken some time in 1936. Fred was a radio engineer at RCA
in
Montreal, as the lower photograph shows. His experience at RCA no doubt
enabled him to establish an excellent station.
 The photograph
above shows a
closer view of the station; headphones, morse key, transmitting and
receiving equipment, clock and what looks like the battery power source
under the table. The 'ladder line' going to the antenna can also be
seen.
 The last
photograph shows Fred George (VE2BV) at work as the radio engineer at
the RCA company in Montreal, Canada.
VE2BV is recorded by the ARRL's QST magazine as 'silent key' in November 1948. 
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Amateur Radio Page | My Station | Antennas
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Mike Smith - MDS975.co.uk © 2003 - 2009
M0MTJ
Subjects covered on this page:
Amateur Radio; Ham Radio; Radio; Transceivers; HF; VHF; UHF; Data Modes; Morse Code; RTTY; PSK31; SSTV; FSTV; Amtor; Sitor
Antennas; Aerials; Cable; Coaxial Cable; Twin Lead; Masts; Poles; Propagation; Computer; PC; USB Computer Interface; Microphone
Loudspeaker; Filters; Noise Reuction; DSP; Digital Signal Processing; Morse Key; SWR ; Inverted L; Inverted V; Dipole; Doublet;