Saturday, 29 July 2017

GB4IOT ISLANDS ON THE AIR IOTA special event


GB4IOT


We decided to try Islands on the air from our usual portable spot in laleham near Staines.
using the special event call sign GB4IOT we made a few contacts over the weekend.

Times are in BST (GMT+1) or UK local time.


Saturday 29th July

**Raining some logs wet / damaged**
5B4AIF           14.161  21:20
DL3SFb          14.184  2149
PJ4DX                           22:02


Sunday 30th July

G0IVR             14.280  14:28
RA3QK           14.215  14:42
HF6TWG        14.167  14:47
UA9CUA        14.188  15:04
HG17DA         14.184  15:05
HG17HD         14.234  15:09
OE5SLN          14.267  15:14
DK1NL            14.168  21:09
IK4LZH           14.192  21:15
5Q7DX            14.216  21:19
S57DX             14.240  21:21
EA7GX              7.163  21:28
M0KVK             7.128  21:31

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Bob passes his Extra USA ticket **Well done!!**


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Wednesday, 26 July 2017

Retevis RT-36 **Robot* Walkie Talkie





 



The Retevis RT-36 Walkie talkie comes in a set of 2, has rechargeable batteries, belt clip and a really neat double charger (you can charge both radios together from one plug)

Assembly is easy, insert batteries, push the belt clip in place and you are ready to go.
Batteries are hidden behind the belt clip and no concerns that children will get access easily.

Charging is simple, move the robot arm up, insert cable and plug in, few hours is all that is needed for several hours of operation.

As a Parent, I had a concern that the red rubber feet of the robot, could easily be pulled off and therefore swallowed or become potential choking hazard!


The radios have some neat features, you can customise the colour of the screen (7 to choose from)
There is a paging signal, press the power button for a second, you can choose 10 different sounds
You can activate VOX, which means when radio hears your voice it will transmit, useful for smaller children who can't quite press the button
On one of the Robot feet is a small but very bright LED light, which the children found useful when it got darker and at night (kept by the bed)



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Tuesday, 25 July 2017

12 SSTV images celebrating 20 years of ARISS










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Monday, 24 July 2017

CRC demonstrating SSTV at Egham Raspberry Jam








We were invited back to the Egham Raspberry jam (hosted by gartner in Staines) this weekend and quickly set up a SSTV demonstration. We had quite a few technical issues but were able to show SSTV in action and share about ARISS 20 year celebrations, talk about our great hobby and recruit several people into taking their foundation license. We also met some existing Hams and had a great conversation.




Here is the receiving station running Raspberry pi(3) with 7 inch touch screen display, running latest version of QSSTV. To make this as simple a possible for people to copy and try out, we showed using the PC microphone held against both the 857 (big radio) and a simple hand held.


 Here is Bob (M6FLT) at the transmit side of the SSTV station, sending a picture from his Raspberry pi(3) hooked up to an external monitor, and receiving on the lynx 7 inch tablet (in his hand)


Showing that the Lynx 7 inch windows tablet can also TX sstv (whilst holding hand held next to it)


Bob (M6FLT) having just shown a few people to all the leaflets we bought along


Receiving the SSTV images on the Raspberry Pi3


Few more guests at our stand


Our little display with some posters and fliers  for our guests to take away with them.


























Bob M6FLT (chairman CRC) manning his SSTV station just before the door open
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ISS SSTV decoded on the Raspberry Pi(3)








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Friday, 21 July 2017

Chertsey Radio Club Summer Raffle

Chertsey Radio Club is holding its summer raffle and has some great prizes to give away.

RETEVIS have kindly donated an RT82 DMR dual band radio and programming cable.



and there is even more... Kanga Products (UK) approached us wanting to help too and very generously offered TWO MORE prizes... the MOTGN Morse Tutor kit & DX40rx kit

We also have a years membership to AMSAT-UK up for grabs which the Chertsey Radio Club has added to the prize pot ourselves. Because we have had so much fun on the satellites recently we thought you should investigate them too (if you haven't already?)!

The money raised will help purchase a simple UK Business License (radio) For use with Autistic and vulnerable children and young adults Project "Thomas Watch" We hope that after obtaining the licence it will make Project Thomas UK wide project and thus help support people on the autistic spectrum, by allowing them to use radios as a form of communication, monitoring and helping them gain some independence.

All other monies remaining generated by this raffle will be donated to Cancer Research UK for the fantastic work they do and the help and support several members of the club and our friends have had in the last few years.



GOOD LUCK TO YOU ALL!! 73SORRY - TICKET SALES HAVE NOW CEASED!


The draw will be held on August 31st 2017 @ 21:00

THE DRAW WILL BE BROADCAST LIVE THROUGH PERISCOPE AND WINNERS WILL BE INFORMED BY E-MAIL TOO

73 de MX0MXO - Chertsey Radio Club

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Thursday, 20 July 2017

ISS SSTV 00:58 UK celebrating 20 years of ARISS


Live from the shack of James Preece M0JFP
Second UK pass of ISS SSTV

Tim Peake **Hooray**




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ISS SSTV (23:23 UK) 20th anniversary ARISS

Happy to report live from the shack of James Preece M0JFP, we have SSTV images decoded from the International space station again...









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Wednesday, 19 July 2017

Virtual buildathon is back







Chertsey Radio Club Buildathon 2017


Diplexer for 144 & 430 Mhz



  Welcome to the Chertsey Radio Club second buildathon.  This project, though   simple, does present some constructional challenges. The kit contains mainly surface mount components (known as SMD's), which are extremely small and easily lost or incorrectly identified.  Below is a list of essential items you will need to build the kit.

A clear well lit work area
18-25w soldering iron with fine or needle tip.
60/40  Resin cored electronics solder for SMA connectors
Surface Mount Device Solder (Available Online)
Blue Tac or White Tac to fix the PCB  in place when soldering
A pair of fine tweezers to hold SMD's
A good magnifying glass or jewellers loop
Set of Helping Hands or small clamp  (when soldering SMA connector)
Multimeter to check continuity

  Surface mount solder is essential. It will be extremely difficult to build this kit without it.  It is a grey paste, usually supplied in a syringe and contains a mix of powdered 60/40 lead solder mixed with a sticky flux. The advantage of this will quickly become apparent as the SMD contact pads on the PCB are not big enough to work with solder wire. This way the solder can be applied in advance, and will only require a touch from the iron for the component to take.


 The diplexer is rated with a peak power handling of 10w.  It is ideal for use for use    with small yagi type antennas and for satellite work.  


























Notice the board in the middle of the picture....
Kits ready to be shipped out
















Here are the first 10 Kits ready to be shipped out.

Macro shots of the SMA connectors


Macro of the tiny inductor compared to a UK 5P coin !

Marco of the PC Board.

Another macro of the Inductor next to a UK 5 Pence coin.

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Monday, 17 July 2017

MX0MXO portable again..


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Sunday, 16 July 2017

Setting up raspberry pi 3 and QSSTV latest 9.2.4 GB8SSD special update / ARISS 20 anniversary

You need an external usb sound card

Next set up alsa mixer and increase the microphone gain!

In a command line window type:
Sudo alsamixer

Press the F6 key to select sound card

Choose the usb sound card using up and down arrow keys and press enter.

Use arrow right key to select Mic, use up arrow to increase to about 52.

Press escape key to return to command line

To install QSSTV type:

sudo apt-get install g++ libfftw3-dev qt5-default libpulse-dev
sudo apt-get install hamlib-dev libasound-dev  libv4l-dev
sudo apt-get install libopenjp2-7 libopenjp2-7-dev

Next download and install QSSTV

mkdir downloads
cd downloads
wget http://users.telenet.be/on4qz/qsstv/downloads/qsstv_9.2.4.tar.gz
tar -xvzf qsstv_9.2.4.tar.gz
cd qsstv_9.2.4
qmake
make
sudo make install



You can now run the program by typing qsstv at the prompt of a terminal session, or make a short cut on your desktop.


qsstv



























Click on configuration





















Click on sound and copy the above settings



Input and output set to your usb sound card.



Set the sound to alsa.









Plug an external microphone into the sound card. Turn up your radio and watch your pictures get decoded.



Space station is 145.800 fm



However 14.230 upper side band is more regular broadcast.



You can also hold the microphone near a sstv recording or YouTube video.







Have fun let me know how you get on!







We were really happy to hear from Lee DV8BVK:

"Hello Chertsey Radio Club,







My name is Lee, DV8BVK here in the Philippines. I am very
thankful of your article/blog re install of QSSTV to Raspberry Pi 3 with the
USB sound card. I followed all the instruction and put it to the test last july
22,2017 of the ARISS SSTV event. Thank you very much. "
























































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