Hey there ham radio peeps (or in the words of the Inbetweeners "special radio friends :p)
The countdown is on, 6 days to the event of the year, the NCRG radio rally, held at Blarney Golf Resort at 1130am on Sunday next.
I cant wait, lots of bargains to be had, or a one stop shop to reinvent the shack, either way its gonna be epic. Im gonna be on the door doing what I do best, handling money and chatting, hope to meet you there (if I dont know your face, dont be afraid to introduce yourself, I dont bite.....much)
So Im off for now, have admission tickets to organise.
Talk to ya soon (hopefully with a few new bits), ciao for now
Lisa, EI9GSB
Monday, 5 September 2011
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
And we're off!!!!
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
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
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
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)