For the relaunch of my personal website, I first used the brilliant theme smol. After having customized numerous files of the theme, I have now decided to create my own Hugo theme called “Amberterm”. This is largely based on “smol”, but contains some cosmetic adjustments as well as all layout files in order to be able to generate Gemini files with the help of Hugo. In this way it is now possible for me - without any additional effort - to publish a new post for the WWW version of my website as well as for the Gemini version.
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I have always been fascinated by the infrastructural independence of ham radio stations. You can use them to communicate with people around the world without being dependent on the infrastructure of large companies - apart from the power supply. In order to free myself from this dependency, i have now decided to test the use of a photovoltaic system. For this I have acquired the following:
30W solar panel 100W solar panel Victron SmartSolar MPPT charge controller 22Ah AGM battery The solar panels are mounted on a flat roof at a 30 degree angle facing south and connected to the MPPT charge controller in the shack via a 2.
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I’m in the progress of developing a Python command line application to log QSOs directly into the QRZ.com logbook.
It does the following:
asks the user for a call sign displays available call sign info pulled from QRZ.com displays all previous QSOs with this call (pulled from QRZ.com logbook) asks the user to enter QSO specific data (date, time, report, band etc.) uploads the QSO to QRZ.com’s logbook fetches the just uploaded QSO from QRZ.
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I finally managed to work 100 confirmed entities (SSB/Phone) and have now received the ARRL DXCC Phone award. My new adventures will be working QRP with my recently purchased FT-817ND and building a small PA for the times I need a small boost.
uBitx v6 modifications, Part II: Since the AGC board has a S-Meter tap, the next mod was obvious :) The S-Meter of a dead Yaesu FT-290R was a perfect fit for the uBitx case and I think it looks nice.
uBitx v6 modifications, Part I: The uBitx is a very nice radio but the missing AGC is an ear killer. I decided to purchase an AGC board from kit-projects and soldered it onto the radio main board. It’s tiny and I was afraid to damage something but it turned out fine.
Yesterday I received and built my new uBitx v6 QRP transceiver. Connected to a LiPo battery and the 4-BTV vertical it gave me a few QSOs with Bosnia, Denmark, Poland and Austria. Very impressed so far!
The first mod will be the addition of an AGC.
Finally fixed some issues with the BITX40 and had my first QSO with it today (YU1XA, report 55) - two years after I purchased the kit. There are still some issues but I am on the right track.