Recent content by Bashful

FWIW, A pole flip in geomagetic polarity (from what I understand) does not take place overnight. It can take place over hundeds if not thousands of years. There has been many geomagnetic reversals or pole flips through geological time with no evidence of catastrophic animal-extinction events...

Your guess is as good as mine!

Hi Nomad, You are dead right. I have been tracking the movement of the Magnetic North Pole for some years and last time I looked it was way over Siberia. The Schumann Resonance of the lower atmosphere which has been a constant of 7.83 Hz since time out of mind has also changed. Weather patterns...

Hi Crawdad, Belated congrats on getting your ticket. It sounds like you hit the ground running. I hear what you say on what people say or expect near the peak of each sunspot cycle. FWIW and with no empirical data behind it, I think this sunspot cycle will 'peak' later than normal because the...

Back in 1981, I lived in South East London UK (East Dulwich). Every night I chatted to a CB mate about 1.5 miles from my QTH. Most nights during the intense solar activity of the 1980s, he would get wiped out by Scottish breakers. It was awesome and my curiosity about how and why he got...

Life is too short. As long as you are legal, decent, honest and truthful, why not just enjoy the hobby of radio in all its myriad forms?

OK on the missing manual which is normal for a lot of Aliexpress stuff. If I find a decent one, I'll post it here.

Yep, 5 watts is the lowest inpout to initate a tune. Thanks for the info. Did you get a manual for your latest buy?

Pulled the trigger on my ATU-130. Cost £43 (free shipping) plus Chinese tax minus £5.00 coupon. All in total cost - £44.00. Details of item here: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007712422998.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.5.21ef1802UAidc2

bugger, wrong link. It should be: http://www.merseyradar.co.uk/building-improving-the-atu-100-n7dcc-automatic-antenna-tuner/

I will pull the trigger on the ATU-130 in a few days. The price is right and it appears good value for money. I run QRP (about 5 watts) using my rig and this power level should be well within decent operating limits for the ATU. The github page for the ATU-100 is here...

wife, missus, girlfriend, soul-bud, sheesh at th end of the day and if antennas are involved, it is 'she who must be obeyed' :)

Nice thread. See attachment from the ARRL Radio Amateur's Handbook, 1959 on an all-pipe rotating mast structure. I'd love to try this but my missus has other ideas....

Interesting article from Practical Wireless (July 2023) on using a 5.1 centre speaker in the shack. Your mileage might vary but to my ears, voice is much brighter, particularly on SSB with slight decrease in sharpness of background static. I use a re-purposed centre speaker on my ARESII which is...

Thanks Nomad, I've had bad juju with Paypal in the past and swore I would never use them again. This is is a great site with lots of ops freely giving lots of useful info and I will be around for some time. Where there is a will, there is a way! 73