Posts

I have a lot of noise on my system so am building one of GM3SEK‘s RF filters to see if it will help. I’m waiting for parts, but so far I have wrapped the flex cables....

I wanted to be able to show my on-air status on this website and on my QRZ.com page, so set about figuring out how to do this. It appeared that Node-RED was a suitable piece of software to give me a two-way access to the radio, so I had a play on my dev PC. […]...

I wanted to do something a little more portable this weekend, so I decided to make a signal-stick-esque antenna. I ordered the following items: I deliberately bought slightly larger gauge wire than the BNC could accept as I wanted something a little thicker. This meant using some sandpaper to whittl...

Not content with a small 9:1 unun and trying different bands plus a bit of FT8, I decided to beef up my random length antenna. I bought two FT240-43 toroids (already conplemplating replacing them with 52’s), a reel of enamelled 16AWG wire and some other bits and bobs, and set to work. I stacke...

Well, this is new for me. I decided to finally have a go at HF work. With the layout of my place, it made sense to have an end-fed long line antenna. My shack is at the front corner of the house and there’s a gap to the fence, and the fence is around 25 […]...

I can’t believe this is my first post of 2025! January was crazy busy. I recently change dout my shack radio, from an AnyTone D578 to a Yaesu FTM-500D. It was used, from Martin Lynch, and the price was right to grab it. I decided that the main body could go where the D578 had […]...

To celebrate my full callsign, I’ve rebranded the site to M0KCL.com I wanted KCL suffix but they were unavailable on foundation and intermediate. I looked at the latest export of callsigns from the end of October and saw that M0KCL was reserved, and no action since 2016. I tried to register it...

Wow! I just managed to get a decent pass at full level. As I said to the invigilator at the end, “I’m going to start second-guessing myself so I’m just going to hit submit”! After having bought the Exam Secrets book and completing all questions and the mock within, and the th...

You know that thing where you decide “do or not”? Well, I did. I was going round in loops on some areas and thought I’d never get my head round things. So I decided, in my infinite, er, wisdom, to give myself a deadline. So I booked the exam… It’s booked for 29th Novemb...

I sometimes passivley scan through Private Mobile Radio (PMR446) channels and am surprised at how many stations I can hear. Chances are, you’ve bought some PMR446 licence-free radios and have charged them up, picked a channel and started using them. The issue here is that ANYONE in range can l...