28,10,0,50,1
600,600,60,1,3000,5000,25,800
90,150,1,50,12,30,50,1,70,12,1,50,1,1,1,5000
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My shack
My Antennas
Leicester skyline

Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Phil Taylor and in the coming months I plan to create a number of blog postings in an attempt to chronicle my journey through the world of amateur radio. 

I received my Foundation callsign, M6ESV in October 2014 and then completed the Intermediate examination, receiving the callsign 2E0DSQ in December 2015. I then passed the Advanced exam and received the callsign M0VSE on 19th August 2016. I also received the SCC (Special Contest Callsign) G7T in May 2017 and I generally use this when operating HF contests.

I am also an active member of the Leicester Radio Society http://www.g3lrs.org.uk who meet every Monday night.

 

 

For a number of months now, I have been working as part of the core development team for wfview, this software has evolved into very comprehensive software for remote control of many Icom rigs, especially SDR based IC9700, IC705 and IC7610 where it is able to use the LAN/WiFi connection. It is able to provide a remote spectrum display for supported rigs and is constantly evolving.

For more information on wfview, please visit https://www.wfview.org

 

 

One of the often overlooked aspects of amateur radio is the importance of being able to monitor the quality of your outgoing signal and to ensure that you aren't transmitting an excessively wide or out-of-band signal. The UK licence states:

"Whatever class of emission is in use, the bandwidth occupied by the emission is such that not more than 1% of the mean power of the transmission falls outside the nominal modulated carrier bandwidth."

Things are slightly more "nailed-down" in the USA where regulations state for transmissions below 30 Mhz, any spurious emission must be at least 43dB below the mean power of the fundamental emission, and for 30-224 Mhz, unwanted emissions must be at least 60dB below. 

In June 2018, the UK communications regulator, OFCOM, decided to sell-off some old equipment and vehicles. Included within this was a 2009 Nissan Patrol 3.0d which came complete with a 9.6m Clark pneumatic mast (on a retractable roof trolley) and a bench fitted in the rear with mains hookup and 110Ah battery/inverter.

IMG 0302

In a moment of what I call, absolute clarity (and my family call something else!). I placed a bid on this vehicle and subsequently won it. The vehicle didn't come with a compressor for the mast but it did have all of the pipes and mounts so I managed to get the matching compressor on one of the other auction lots.