As promised last month, I’ll explain my 'pirate' activity.
Several weeks ago, I was approached by a friend in another club and asked if I could do an interview on a radio station.
Having done one a couple of years back using a mobile phone to make live on-air contact with a presenter and several thousand listeners I thought this would be something similar.
This time however I was invited to the studio of Mid-Downs Radio. Located in the Princess Royal Hospital, it is a true hospital radio station (overlooked by the water tower - location of our UHF repeater 'HY'). The studio consists of two small rooms full of equipment. I am not an expert, but most of what I saw was audio control gear and lots of computer controllers and screens. The heart of the unit is a mixing desk with sliders and switches, all overlooked by a big screen with the running order and prompts for the presenter. The microphone I was given was as big as a pint pot, covered with foam and mounted on a sprung arm like an Anglepoise lamp.
Following a short introduction, with a sound balance check, off we went. After about 10 minutes we paused while a piece of music was played. An opportunity to plan the next segment.
We carried on for about half an hour at which point the presenter, who was not concentrating on the technical stuff, exclaimed 'Oh, we have missed the news!' (the prompter was not working too well) 'but we will run it on the next hour'. Good fun and not too serious and probably no DX listeners! Apparently, this was heard as far away as Burgess Hill by G7AIE!
Interestingly, the station receives QSL cards and SWL reports, however, the station staff don’t seem to understand what they are...
Now the technical stuff; The station is licenced as a LPAM Low Power AM station. The transmitter was not visible but is rated at 1W EMRP and runs at 1.350 MHz, shared with a couple of Italian kW rated broadcast stations and another hospital station in Lancashire (the one where I was born, Oldham General).
This month I’m adding pictures of a couple of electronic QSLs. Both are from EQSL. They are of little value for awards, but do prove contacts. These two show the effectiveness of FT8 on 60 Metres, one from the east and one from the west.
Some DX this month included 7O73T Scotra Isl’ just off Yemen. This was another 5 Meg FT8 contact (see screenshot below) IOTA AF-028. In the Caribbean area, St Vincent, Puerto Rico, Bonaire, and St Kitts. Also at the time of writing, just for the month of November, 15 States of the USA - too many to list here.
On Sunday the 26th it was a really grotty day so I had a dabble on 30m FT8 for a change. Using 40W, I worked 60 grid squares and 24 DXCCs over a couple of hours - the run rate was about 50 per hour. Two contacts stand out: Greenland and Kazakhstan. Several stations were active in a 'dispute zone' Ukraine and European Russia. They seem to be on the air regardless! Braver than me and they have my admiration.
The next edition will be my last for the year, and I would be grateful for some feedback, particularly on 60m propagation and why do I see only 'flashes' of contacts for a minute or so, ZL, DU, VK, ZS, LU, CX etc?
Good DXing
Chris, G4ZCS
