http://www.m0gky.co.uk The amateur radio exploits of Ben Gamblin, M0GKY http://www.m0gky.co.uk/entry/534/ http://www.m0gky.co.uk/2011-08-05/rsgb-website/ After visiting the website of the Radio Society of Great Britain for no particular reason the other day; I noticed that the results of the national survey of radio amateurs had been published. After reading through these I was rather pleased to see they ... Fri, 05 Aug 2011 22:21:08 +0000 http://www.m0gky.co.uk/entry/531/ http://www.m0gky.co.uk/2011-04-12/royal-wedding-callsigns/ To mark the wedding of HRH Prince William to Catherine Middleton; the RSGB has negotiated with Ofcom to permit UK licenced radio amateurs to run special callsigns based on their ordinary call following the successful application for a Notice of Variation ... Tue, 12 Apr 2011 22:39:05 +0000 http://www.m0gky.co.uk/entry/514/ http://www.m0gky.co.uk/2010-10-17/2m-dipole-and-mast/ This weekend, I set myself a little project. Construct a dipole for use on 2m and an appropriate stand. The project is pretty much complete apart from some minor adjustments and pictures are available on my Flickr page (see link in 'Related Links', or v... Sun, 17 Oct 2010 19:09:08 +0000 http://www.m0gky.co.uk/entry/511/ http://www.m0gky.co.uk/2010-07-30/samsung-n210/ Last Wednesday I added to my collection of computers by purchasing a Samsung N210 netbook - a small, low-power, long-life laptop computer. My primary reason for purchasing such a machine was for a forthcoming holiday, allowing me to backup photographs, v... Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:36:59 +0000 http://www.m0gky.co.uk/entry/510/ http://www.m0gky.co.uk/2010-07-07/mis-information-over-the-digital-future-of-radio/ Today seems to be a day of negative digital radio news - and not necessarily entirely accurate news at that. Be warned, I'm going to ramble on for a bit. If you can't be bothered to read it all, I sum up my point at the end. An Open Letter to Rt. Hon. ... Wed, 07 Jul 2010 22:49:35 +0000 http://www.m0gky.co.uk/entry/501/ http://www.m0gky.co.uk/2010-04-14/magnetic-loop-tweaks/ I've made some slight changes to my magnetic loop aerial. Nothing major, but useful none-the-less. The original design, as copied from G4ILO, featured a T shaped mast with hooks on the left and right of the top bar to support a loop of RG-213 coax. The... Wed, 14 Apr 2010 15:39:56 +0000 http://www.m0gky.co.uk/entry/499/ http://www.m0gky.co.uk/2010-04-03/uk-postcode-data-search/ On 1 April 2010, Ordnance Survey opened up a lot of it's data including a cut-down version of Code-Point - a database of UK postcodes. Since this data is available free of charge, and has a licence aligned to the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Licence;... Sat, 03 Apr 2010 23:09:41 +0000 http://www.m0gky.co.uk/entry/496/ http://www.m0gky.co.uk/2010-03-09/testing-the-magnetic-loop/ I've been further testing my magnetic loop aerial over the last 24 hours, but haven't made any changes to the setup as such. I did find out why, just before writing my blog yesterday, I couldn't get a good SWR reading despite doing so the day before. Ra... Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:19:28 +0000 http://www.m0gky.co.uk/entry/495/ http://www.m0gky.co.uk/2010-03-08/magnetic-loop-aerial/ About 6 months ago, I visited the website of Julian, G4ILO who had detailed how to build what he has called a 'Wonder Loop' - a small indoor magnetic loop aerial. Following this visit I was inspired to build one myself. As is my way, I've taken a little... Mon, 08 Mar 2010 19:17:57 +0000 http://www.m0gky.co.uk/entry/493/ http://www.m0gky.co.uk/2010-02-25/new-digital-mode/ A new digital mode is on the scene called ROS - a spread spectrum mode ideal for weak signal/QRP use. The mode can operate at two symbol rates - 1 and 16 baud; the former is ideal for very weak signals with the user guide stating transmissions can be dec... Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:34:28 +0000