RADARC 'Rag chew' Zoom meeting - Thursday 23rd December 20:00

[Simon Watson]

Dear Members,

Hope all is well.

Although we wouldn't normally hold a RADARC meeting on this date, we thought it'd be nice to have an informal Christmas rag chew Zoom meeting.

Zoom details below -

Topic: RADARC Christmas 'Ragchew'
Time: Dec 23, 2021 08:00 PM London

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86782307170?pwd=MnpldHlSZzNmWHhOQVFvSmQ2eEJpZz09

Meeting ID: 867 8230 7170
Passcode: 300934

Look forward to chatting.

73

Simon M0ZSU RADARC

[Michael Meerman]

Hi All, 

On the Radarc website (https://radarc.org) there is a link to the QSL website (follow the tab 'ONLINE->QSL CARDS') that shows all eQSL cards received for the various clubcalls, and also a selection of historical cards from original members and a collection of SES calls that were used over the years.

You can access this page also directly at: RADARC-QSL Display

Today I downloaded all outstanding eQSLs (over 400 of them)  for the following calls, and it's becoming quite a big and interesting selection.

You can view them all through this website.

Callsign - total eQSL

------   ----------

M0AAA   - 3598

MX0AAA  - 2121

G3ULT   - 4498

GX3ULT  -   13

G3AKF   -  447

M0EEE   - 1310

MX0EEE  -  317

M4T     - 3234  (this call is no longer held by Radarc but was used till about 2010)

The 'Statistics' button shows the prolific qsl-ers, and the monthly overview shows our calls' activity by received QSL cards - on a month by month basis 

(surprise surprise : G3ULT shows a spike every June and September, except for 2020!)

If you haven't used or seen this site before: Almost everything you see on the page is clickable.

Just click on any of the club calls in the top left box to see the cards for that call. You can select by band, mode, date, locator or click

on a starting letter such as W for US calls. The cards appear as thumbnails, hovering over them expands them and clicking on them opens the QRZ.com page for the selected call.

At the bottom, the 'MapDisplay' shows a map of the world and the locator squares for which QSL cards were received. The red dots are clickable, 

they show the cards for that locator. Somewhere hidden is a classical game, which may entertain you for a while if you manage to find it.

If you think this concept of displaying eQSLs (and other scanned -in qsl cards) is useful for your own collection, I have a version available, packaged up with a description

how to install it. Just drop me a line if you're interested and I'll email it. It makes it very easy to download directly from the eQSL website onto your own system.

I'll try to be on the general 'waffle' zoom meeting that Simon announced, but if not , have a very good Xmas and hopefully a slightly better new year than the previous two! 

73 Michael M0MPM

[Denis Pibworth]

Hi All

This popped up on one of the scanner enthusiasts Facebook
groups:

Receiving and plotting Radiosonde transmissions from weather
balloons using an SDR:

http://escursioni.altervista.org/Radiosonde/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRYW_LmUPNc

And thanks to John (G4RDC) for mentioning the following on
the New Year's Eve net:

The short range device transmissions plaguing 70cms
(433.900MHz + -) can be decoded using a plugin with the
'AIRSPY SDR# Studio' SDR receiver software in conjunction
with a cheap RTL 'dongle' receiver.

https://www.rtl-sdr.com/rtl433-plugin-for-sdr-now-available/

Note - The link to the required .dll files is not correct - they
can be found here:

https://github.com/marco402/plugin-Rtl433-for-SdrSharp/tree/master/install

It quickly found the wireless temperature sensor that I have at the
bottom of the garden and I can now log the temperature data to
a file if I want to. Quite a few of our neighbours devices are being
received also.

Denis G4KWT

[Denis Pibworth]

Echolink on GB3BN - Calling CQ

There are thousands of EchoLink nodes online around the world,
but sometimes it can be hard to find another station seeking
a QSO.

Introduced recently, the Call CQ function is a quick way to be matched
up with another station also seeking an EchoLink connection. Each
Echolink station calling CQ automatically connects with any other
station that is also calling CQ at the same time. If no such station
is already waiting when you call CQ, EchoLink will keep you in the
queue until a match is found or until you cancel it by transmitting
DTMF # to the repeater.

The CQ Calling preferences on GB3BN's Echolink are 'Any Country' and
English speaking.

You can invoke this feature by transmitting DTMF codes 2 & 7 (the
letters C & Q if you have a radio with an alpha-numeric keypad) to
the repeater.

There is a live monitor for this feature at:

https://secure.echolink.org/cqlist.jsp

If a station does return your CQ call, they will call using GB3BN's
Echolink callsign (GB3BN-R), not your personal call, of course.

A general note on using DTMF with GB3BN. For reliable results
it is best to manually dial the DTMF code, sending fairly long
bursts of each character. The auto-dialers found in some radios
are a bit quick for it.

Have fun..

Denis G4KWT