OFFICIAL EVENT LOG

EVENTS I HAVE PARTICIPATED IN

As a newcomer to the hobby, I am keen to join in the 'Special Events' that come about throughout the year and so I thought I'd find a place for my participation certificates. There's only two so far, but....

ROTA - Railways On The Air

Remembering Horwich Train Station

This weekend is "Railways On The Air" and instead of going to one of the usual active stations, I thought I might help commemorate a disused station in my home town of Horwich by operating from the grounds upon which it stood.

"Horwich Station" (painting by Morton Murray)

The station opened in 1870 and was closed in 1966. Almost all traces of its existence have now gone, but the original entrance remains, along with a few footpaths and 'railway relics'.

The branch connected to the Bolton & Preston line. A long single platform was provided upon which stood a single storey sandstone building, housing the booking room, waiting room, store room and toilets. The platform was linked to the town by a sloping cobbled footpath which remains in place today. The footpath led passengers to the town at Lee Lane (pictured above).

I'll be operating on the grounds of the station, closeby the loco wheels and the plaque which celebrates the station's history...

Details of the ROTA 2019 event can be found  >>>HERE<<<

Certificate Arrived

SHARK-RF OPENSPOT2

OPENSPOT2 WIRELESS DONGLE

I must admit, I was a little confused by this device's marketing. It appeared (to me at least) to be a dongle similar to my DVAP, but with the bonus of being wireless and standalone. Well it sure is wireless, but it's certainly not standalone!

SHARK-RF videos show it being small and compact enough to "slip into your pocket", making you think it works on its own, requiring nothing else to support it after the initial setup. But the fact is, it needs a power-supply! Why they couldn't incorporate a battery I do not know - especially at this price!!

So there you have it - if you're gonna "slip it in your pocket" be sure to slip a battery and a USB-C lead in there with it. Apart from that little gripe, it's a pretty impressive bit of kit. It's very compact, boots up in seconds and it will work with DMR, DSTAR, C4FM, P25 and more. So you only need to buy the one dongle for all your radios.

In the shack, it's no big deal plugging the dongle into your Mains Adapter (supplied) but outdoors you need to get yourself one of those portable USB Batteries. I've got a 7800mAh rechargeable unit, so it's no big deal, but if you don't already own one, be sure to factor in the cost of purchasing one.

The unit draws a maximum of 150mA so it's not a high-drain device, but if you're going to use it all day (or maybe over a weekend event) then you may want to think about the size of battery you're going to buy.

The OS2 transmits at approximately 20mW which is twice as much as my DVAP dongle. I suspect that it needs to pack that extra little punch because it has no external antenna option. The DVAP on the other hand has an SMA connector to permit the installation of a larger antenna for longer range around the home and garden. I'll do a direct range comparison when I get a minute.

Working from home you would normally use your PC/LapTop to run the software, but outdoors you would need to use your phone or wifi-enabled tablet. The software (which is run through a web-browser such as Chrome) is really quite good. It's pretty intuitive and doesn't bog down your CPU in any way. And I guess the best thing about it running through a web-browser is that it can be operated on virtually any platform.

So, my understanding (at this point) is that you need to carry the Radio, the OpenSpot, the Battery and the Phone or tablet whenever you wish to operate /portable. Your phone would need to have the option to operate as a Wi-Fi HotSpot (most do) and if you're using a tablet instead, then it would have to have a 3G/4G/5G simcard installed with a data-plan.

I don't know enough about it at this point because I've only just bought it, but it seems to me that to 'change rooms' say from CQ-UK to American RagChew you need to use the software. I'd have thought you would be able to do it directly from the radio, but so far I haven't worked out a way to do that on the FT3. I really do need to RTFM I guess :-) 

It's day-one, so I'll continue to experiment and come back with an update.

UPDATE!!!
I've figured out how to change rooms from the FT3 screen now, lol. 

YAESU FT3D

NEW FUSION RADIO

I had previously tried a Yaesu FT-400XD radio and the matching HRI-200 which I just didn't get along with. I tried allsorts to get it working, even calling upon the help of two local advanced operators who couldn't figure it out and so I came to the conclusion that I didn't want to work so hard on a hobby.

Anyway, having got shut of the 400, I decided to get something more compact - in the form of a handheld Fusion radio. Looking around online, I could see that the new FT3D from Yaesu was probably the best choice and so I opted for that one.

It's quite a small radio compared to my Kenwood D74 and is extremely light. It has a lovely colour-screen and it's also touch-sensitive which is nice. I find touch-screens very intuitive - you press the thing you want to change and up pops your options. You can't get easier than that. Other menu items are also pretty simple to figure out and up to now, I've not had to read the manual (although it's early days).

After a visit to my friend (G0UXF), I determined that I could easily access various rooms via his SHARK-RF dongle. I could not, however, access local Gateways - they must have been off or out of range. I'll need to look further into that, but first of all I needed to alter my Registration Details on Yaesu's Wires-X website. That takes a few days to go through apparently.