Hey there,
So we have adjusted the capacitor hats, tightened all the screws and brought down the antennamast........and hey presto it works!!!!! Our beam is back in business and sitting proud 40ft in the air.
Tony has just tested it on a station in Brazil .. and got a report of 58 from him.
So now the fun is on, lots of stations on the way into my log, shame Im a bit busy this afternoon (my eldest child is 12 today) but otherwise Tony would be getting a push outta "the chair" in order for me to conquer the world again.
Now to have a look at the mini rotatable dipoles for 40m, with the NCRG rally coming up on the 11th Sept, it might be the best time to accost some of our resident traders and grab ourselves a bargain..... in the interest of experimentation of course.
Right Im off of birthday business so ciao for now
Lisa, EI9GSB
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
Sunday, 28 August 2011
Radio weekend all over
Hi Guys,
Well, another busy radio weekend done and dusted, and I have to say Im a little sick of it to be honest, I feel drained and my ears are exhausted from straining to listen.
Firstly we were in Blackrock Castle for a CASHOTA activation. I had really wanted to operate on 40m but our antenna was having other ideas, so much so that it refused to operate effectively. That, plus the interference from the castle technology and the noise from the people coming for the free tours for Cork Heritage Day made it a challenge to hear to say the least. So we settled for 15m for voice, and one of the other members had set up a WSPR station, followed by PSK31 on 20m (which I found extremely fascinating). We also had one of the members with a satellite station set up.
Although the voice station wasnt great (partially due to all of the above factors), the digi station was brilliant, being able to log different signals throughout EU, and some Stateside, which we had then projected on to the wall for visitors to see. The PSK31 station also did its job quite effectively and made some nice contacts. In saying that though, the major achievement of day for me was the contact to Japan, which I thought was really good despite the problems. There was also a lot of interest in the satellite station, finishing the day with a lot of stations calling through Im told.
Today also was the IRTS 2m counties contest. I decided to operate in the low power fixed category and as it was my first contest of this kind, I had to read the rules to see what it entailed. Unfortunately for me, I didnt get the responses I had thought I might and was getting a bit frustrated as time went on. I used the max of 10w allowed and honestly thought there would be more QSO's involved. In saying that, my log book is a complete washout as I was concentrating so hard on how to operate within the contest (ie you have to QSY once you have called and been answered, or if you have answered a call, then you have the freq for one more QSO) I totally made a hash of the logs, not that there were many, I think 6 in total, which I was dissappointed with, I thought the participation would be a lot more (or maybe it was a I just couldnt hear them)
So now its all done and dusted and Im mentally tired. Maybe I have to take another holiday from the rig or else Im just not cut out for the constant activity lol. My brain may need to be trained, Im sure I have a game on my Nintendo DS that does that haha.
So Im off to relax for another couple of hours.
Ciao for now, Lisa EI9GSB
Well, another busy radio weekend done and dusted, and I have to say Im a little sick of it to be honest, I feel drained and my ears are exhausted from straining to listen.
Firstly we were in Blackrock Castle for a CASHOTA activation. I had really wanted to operate on 40m but our antenna was having other ideas, so much so that it refused to operate effectively. That, plus the interference from the castle technology and the noise from the people coming for the free tours for Cork Heritage Day made it a challenge to hear to say the least. So we settled for 15m for voice, and one of the other members had set up a WSPR station, followed by PSK31 on 20m (which I found extremely fascinating). We also had one of the members with a satellite station set up.
Although the voice station wasnt great (partially due to all of the above factors), the digi station was brilliant, being able to log different signals throughout EU, and some Stateside, which we had then projected on to the wall for visitors to see. The PSK31 station also did its job quite effectively and made some nice contacts. In saying that though, the major achievement of day for me was the contact to Japan, which I thought was really good despite the problems. There was also a lot of interest in the satellite station, finishing the day with a lot of stations calling through Im told.
Today also was the IRTS 2m counties contest. I decided to operate in the low power fixed category and as it was my first contest of this kind, I had to read the rules to see what it entailed. Unfortunately for me, I didnt get the responses I had thought I might and was getting a bit frustrated as time went on. I used the max of 10w allowed and honestly thought there would be more QSO's involved. In saying that, my log book is a complete washout as I was concentrating so hard on how to operate within the contest (ie you have to QSY once you have called and been answered, or if you have answered a call, then you have the freq for one more QSO) I totally made a hash of the logs, not that there were many, I think 6 in total, which I was dissappointed with, I thought the participation would be a lot more (or maybe it was a I just couldnt hear them)
So now its all done and dusted and Im mentally tired. Maybe I have to take another holiday from the rig or else Im just not cut out for the constant activity lol. My brain may need to be trained, Im sure I have a game on my Nintendo DS that does that haha.
So Im off to relax for another couple of hours.
Ciao for now, Lisa EI9GSB
Wednesday, 24 August 2011
Long weekend for me!!
Hello there,
Just thought Id put a little blog on before I hit the hay, Ive just won €18 on the lotto, Ill have to try and not to spend it all at once lol
I just have one more day at work and then im off until next Wed, a few days to recover from returning to work on Mon last haha. We have a CASHOTA activation at Blackrock Castle on Sat 27th Aug to coincide with Heritage Week. My plan is to set up the rig (Kenwood TS2000) along with the 65ft EZ wire and hope to operate on the 40m band.
A few of the other members of NCRG will be operating different modes also, Ciaran plans to set up a WSPR station and Mick Quilligan will be showing satellite presentations. A few of the other lads, Edwin and Martin, are looking into streaming the activation on the Groups website, www.ei1nc.com , so that is another interesting element going on.
Not long now to our annual rally, held on Sept 11th at 11am, Blarney Golf Resort. This should be good, you get to see bargains and meet some of the hams you speak to over the airwaves.
Right, im wrecked so ciao for now
Lisa, EI9GSB
Just thought Id put a little blog on before I hit the hay, Ive just won €18 on the lotto, Ill have to try and not to spend it all at once lol
I just have one more day at work and then im off until next Wed, a few days to recover from returning to work on Mon last haha. We have a CASHOTA activation at Blackrock Castle on Sat 27th Aug to coincide with Heritage Week. My plan is to set up the rig (Kenwood TS2000) along with the 65ft EZ wire and hope to operate on the 40m band.
A few of the other members of NCRG will be operating different modes also, Ciaran plans to set up a WSPR station and Mick Quilligan will be showing satellite presentations. A few of the other lads, Edwin and Martin, are looking into streaming the activation on the Groups website, www.ei1nc.com , so that is another interesting element going on.
Not long now to our annual rally, held on Sept 11th at 11am, Blarney Golf Resort. This should be good, you get to see bargains and meet some of the hams you speak to over the airwaves.
Right, im wrecked so ciao for now
Lisa, EI9GSB
Tuesday, 23 August 2011
The return of the YL
Hey there,
So I have finally returned to the airwaves, only to find there has been a mass holocaust on the bands and no one is left to talk to me!!!!
Over 2 nights, I managed to call and call and call on 20m and only received 8 replies!!!! Have the waves decided to punish me for deserting them? Even the fact that I am a YL didnt help, but then again neither did my antenna, it needs to be stripped and reconstructed to ensure its 100%.
I even called through our local repeaters (3 of them to be exact) and even the local hams didnt feel like chatting. So there I was all ready to chat and noone responding :(
Oh well, at least I have the CASHOTA event on Sat coming at Blackrock Castle, hopefully the airwaves will be nicer to me and I can get the chance to have a chat, bet that will be much to the dismay of the other lads haha.
Ciao for now
Lisa, EI9GSB
So I have finally returned to the airwaves, only to find there has been a mass holocaust on the bands and no one is left to talk to me!!!!
Over 2 nights, I managed to call and call and call on 20m and only received 8 replies!!!! Have the waves decided to punish me for deserting them? Even the fact that I am a YL didnt help, but then again neither did my antenna, it needs to be stripped and reconstructed to ensure its 100%.
I even called through our local repeaters (3 of them to be exact) and even the local hams didnt feel like chatting. So there I was all ready to chat and noone responding :(
Oh well, at least I have the CASHOTA event on Sat coming at Blackrock Castle, hopefully the airwaves will be nicer to me and I can get the chance to have a chat, bet that will be much to the dismay of the other lads haha.
Ciao for now
Lisa, EI9GSB
Monday, 25 July 2011
Case of the missing blogs
Hi All,
I havent posted on here in quite a bit, mainly due to no radio news but also partially because I have had a lot of things to take care of.
The last time I was on air was at our Blarney Castle activation which was on the 4th, 5th and 6th June. To be honest, I was really tired after 3 days operating in a row so I decided to take a break.....but havent gone back to it yet!!
This, coupled with wedding plans, have been the reason that there has been no blogs. I received a very nice email from a gentleman asking what was up, Mike VE3WDM, and wondering where all my blogs have gone to. So heres the deal - as some of you may or may not know, myself and Tony EI3GAB, have gotten married last Friday, 15th July. This took up a lot of my time, especially leading up to the date, as I organised my own ceremony, hotel, dinner, disco etc so had to pay attention to all the little details, so hence I had no real spare time to do the little things I usually had more than enough time for.
Once the wedding was over with (and the hangover on Tony's part too) we decided to go away for a few days, nowhere in particular, just a road trip to see where we ended up. London was the lucky place. I have never been, and being a pure tourist type person, I couldnt wait to see the sights, take loadsa pics and have a ball.
One the first day, we went in search of a hotel and decided to go somewhere cheap enough, so the Travelodge it was. Now I have never heard nonsense like this but apparantly they couldnt take in walk-in bookings until after 8pm and couldnt take cash although they had the rooms!!!! I had to ring the central bookings line and organise a reservation and this cost me £229 wtf??!!! They also advertised local parking that was operated by a third party but someone they had special rates allowed for guests, and apparantly this turned out to be untrue as the car park "hadnt forwarded any tokens to them, despite asking". I couldnt believe this, the car park for 48 hours cost us £84!!!!!
But despite this, we had a good time and did all the sightseeing, touristy things. But my advice to anyone thinking of London, have a lot of money and organise accomodation in advance.
We spent our last night in Birmingham (just purely to break the drive back to Holyhead) and reserved a room on the internet the night before. This Travelodge only cost us £40 with free parking!! I really couldnt believe it, the difference in city's.
Oh well, we still enjoyed it and have a nice few souvenirs. Heres hoping that I might decide to get back on the air once I have had a chance to get all the washing done and sort all the pressies etc.
Ciao for now, 73, Lisa
I havent posted on here in quite a bit, mainly due to no radio news but also partially because I have had a lot of things to take care of.
The last time I was on air was at our Blarney Castle activation which was on the 4th, 5th and 6th June. To be honest, I was really tired after 3 days operating in a row so I decided to take a break.....but havent gone back to it yet!!
This, coupled with wedding plans, have been the reason that there has been no blogs. I received a very nice email from a gentleman asking what was up, Mike VE3WDM, and wondering where all my blogs have gone to. So heres the deal - as some of you may or may not know, myself and Tony EI3GAB, have gotten married last Friday, 15th July. This took up a lot of my time, especially leading up to the date, as I organised my own ceremony, hotel, dinner, disco etc so had to pay attention to all the little details, so hence I had no real spare time to do the little things I usually had more than enough time for.
Once the wedding was over with (and the hangover on Tony's part too) we decided to go away for a few days, nowhere in particular, just a road trip to see where we ended up. London was the lucky place. I have never been, and being a pure tourist type person, I couldnt wait to see the sights, take loadsa pics and have a ball.
One the first day, we went in search of a hotel and decided to go somewhere cheap enough, so the Travelodge it was. Now I have never heard nonsense like this but apparantly they couldnt take in walk-in bookings until after 8pm and couldnt take cash although they had the rooms!!!! I had to ring the central bookings line and organise a reservation and this cost me £229 wtf??!!! They also advertised local parking that was operated by a third party but someone they had special rates allowed for guests, and apparantly this turned out to be untrue as the car park "hadnt forwarded any tokens to them, despite asking". I couldnt believe this, the car park for 48 hours cost us £84!!!!!
But despite this, we had a good time and did all the sightseeing, touristy things. But my advice to anyone thinking of London, have a lot of money and organise accomodation in advance.
We spent our last night in Birmingham (just purely to break the drive back to Holyhead) and reserved a room on the internet the night before. This Travelodge only cost us £40 with free parking!! I really couldnt believe it, the difference in city's.
Oh well, we still enjoyed it and have a nice few souvenirs. Heres hoping that I might decide to get back on the air once I have had a chance to get all the washing done and sort all the pressies etc.
Ciao for now, 73, Lisa
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
Blarney Castle activation
What a great weekend I had.
Attended the Blarney Castle CASHOTA activation held by NCRG over the weekend, on 4th, 5th and 6th June at the Stable Yard of Blarney Castle. I had great fun setting up the station, although I was panicking a few days before as I wasnt sure whether Id be able to set up with the lads or whether Id have to stand there like a spare part. Luckily enough I managed to do it, and was quite proud of myself as I had never set up a station believe it or not, the practical things always seemed to be taken care of by the lads.
The first day was lovely, a bit too lovely as the sun beat down on me (apparantly the black t-shirt may have helped lol) and the fact that I had no sun cream on did help either. We finished the activation early as the bands werent great and the sun was way too much by 3pm.
I had gotten burnt, as did the other lads, but mine was sore as it was on one side of my face and on my hands. I had put after sun on it but this didnt ease the discomfort. I woke up the next day to find my face swollen and a little sore. As this was the 2nd day, I put suncream on (factor 50 lol) and set off again. This time I set the EZ wire up on my own (with a little help at the end from one of the lads) and set up the station whoo hoo!!!. Again, bands werent great but better than the previous day.
The third day was a whole new kettle of fish as it was raining so we had to go into one of the stables. It sounded echoey and was hard at times to hear the stations, especially if there were other people present but we battled through. This day seemed to be the worst of the 3 contact wise, but we had fun and got to walk around the gorgeous gardens and grounds, even stopping to have a play on the swings haha.
I have to say, it was fab and although the bands didnt assist us, the venue was lovely, with friendly staff also. Cant wait for the next event.
73, Lisa
Attended the Blarney Castle CASHOTA activation held by NCRG over the weekend, on 4th, 5th and 6th June at the Stable Yard of Blarney Castle. I had great fun setting up the station, although I was panicking a few days before as I wasnt sure whether Id be able to set up with the lads or whether Id have to stand there like a spare part. Luckily enough I managed to do it, and was quite proud of myself as I had never set up a station believe it or not, the practical things always seemed to be taken care of by the lads.
The first day was lovely, a bit too lovely as the sun beat down on me (apparantly the black t-shirt may have helped lol) and the fact that I had no sun cream on did help either. We finished the activation early as the bands werent great and the sun was way too much by 3pm.
I had gotten burnt, as did the other lads, but mine was sore as it was on one side of my face and on my hands. I had put after sun on it but this didnt ease the discomfort. I woke up the next day to find my face swollen and a little sore. As this was the 2nd day, I put suncream on (factor 50 lol) and set off again. This time I set the EZ wire up on my own (with a little help at the end from one of the lads) and set up the station whoo hoo!!!. Again, bands werent great but better than the previous day.
The third day was a whole new kettle of fish as it was raining so we had to go into one of the stables. It sounded echoey and was hard at times to hear the stations, especially if there were other people present but we battled through. This day seemed to be the worst of the 3 contact wise, but we had fun and got to walk around the gorgeous gardens and grounds, even stopping to have a play on the swings haha.
I have to say, it was fab and although the bands didnt assist us, the venue was lovely, with friendly staff also. Cant wait for the next event.
73, Lisa
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