At about 15:00 UTC today Martin Hayes (EI9FMB) and I (EI7IG) got the Amateur Radio Station in Waterford Institute of Technology back on the air. Now it may not sound like a big deal, but I can assure you that it was. Its taken several years of hounding the “powers that be” in order to get this fairly small step accomplished.
Continue reading EI3RCW is Back →

I’ve started back experimenting with APRS, now that I have time again. My renewed enthusiasim is due to the fact that we have a local APRS to Internet gateway under test, and at the moment, I’m really the only person that can ‘test’ it.

I have to sort out my mobile setup, I just need to box the Tinytrack and get power and GPS cabling sorted out. Unfortunately, it is taking much longer than I thought it would, but, it will get sorted out eventually.

I’ve not been posting much of late, been very busy work wise. I did manage to head for the hills for a bit of excercise and we headed up galtymor for the IRTS 144Mhz (2M) Counties Contest.

For some reason, my dad came with us the first time as I told him it would just be a walk, albeit a long one. When I mentioned we would be going up galtymor for the counties contest he invited himself along, as he had never been up Galtymor before. Here is the proof.

Maurice and Stephen rang to wish me happy new year from oz this afternoon, Happy new year to you as well. Seeing as they were drunk and seemed to be enjoying themselves, I rapidly lost interest in writing up notes for the class I’m teaching. Now what? Looking around the room I was wondering what to do, and, seeing as I have a radio experimenters license, I thought I would do some radio experimenting.
Continue reading PCsat →

Finally, I received my Wellbrook ALA 1530 Loop from the Shortwave Shop. I’ve wanted one for a while, pretty much since I read John Wilsons review of one in Shortwave Magazine a year or so ago. I’ve only ever heard good reports about it being used in urban locations, and, as its relatively small, I should be able to make it blend in to the surroundings quite easily.

The moon was fairly impressive looking this morning. I spotted it as I was getting into my car on the way to work. Being a Amateur Radio operator, I was wondering why no one has put a repeater on the moon. It appears that there are several reasons.
Continue reading The Moon →

I was in Clonmel last night as Tipperary Amateur Radio Group had their AGM. Being a founding member, it would have been bad form not to turn up. For my troubles, I was voted onto the committee as the secretary. Its great to see such an interest in the hobby in such a large county.