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Written by Matt Bennett-Blacklock
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Monday, 30 August 2010 |
Well, I know I've made general blog posts about radio before, in particular when I tried doing PSK31 for the first time. Well, I thought it would be at least slightly appropriate to have a section. Perhaps somebody somewhere might just possibly, while delusional, want to read about my failed experiments in radio.
This weekend I did manage to take some time out to experiment with possible solutions to my antenna problem. Since purchasing the FT-450ATU (which is a huge improvement over using the FT817 for a main rig), I cant tune up all the bands. This makes sense, I've got a random wire with a 4:1 Balun. It's unlikely that the internal ATU that can handle a 3:1 miss-match will be able to handle it. The LDG QRP Z-817 tuner I used with FT-817 had a 10:1 impedance matching range and could tune the wire from 160M-6M without any problems. Clearly an option for me would be to by a similar external tuner. That said I do like the tight integration and one box solution that is the internal ATU.
This weekend I decided to try a little experiment. I'd use a 1:1 balun and cut a dipole for 40M and tuned it measuring the SWR. I tested this and it seemed to work well. I was getting a good 2 S points above the random wire. I tested also to see if it would tune on 80M or 20M, no luck there. I therefore added another set of elements. After some web searching the only thing I could find about a fan dipole was that the end separation should be greater than 5.25 inches. Bearing this in mind I cut and attached some wire for 20M. Testing proved this to have worked well without adversely effecting the 40M performance. It seems to also tune up on 15M, 12M and 10M. I'm still without 80M, I might try adding this. It will need a little folding to fit in the garden. I'd also need to add something for 17M which seems to have a few interesting openings at the moment. 160M seems to work fine with the random wire, so I'll leave that in place for top band.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 31 August 2010 )
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Written by Matt Bennett-Blacklock
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Wednesday, 23 June 2010 |
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Well I don’t usually discuss work on this blog, but last week we launched the new agency last week, and I thought this was worth a mention. True Worldwide covers both digital and traditional advertising and bases its approach on empirical data. Have a look www.true-ww.com Oh, and I forgot to add last time, I even get my own page! Matt Bennett-Blacklock |
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 31 August 2010 )
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Written by Matt Bennett-Blacklock
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Saturday, 20 September 2008 |
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 Last night was a lovely clear night. Seeing appeared to be good too. However I was feeling pretty unwell so I couldn't face a full set up. I did pop the Skymax 127 out to cool, just in case. By the time midnight approached I had a look outside and the moon was very clear. I took a few simple shots with the Canon 400D. I keep meaning to try a monochrome moon in red light, but I stuck to white last night. Visually the conditions were very good. It's the first time I've taken to observe the moon properly with the Skymax. I was impressed with the contrast and with the good seeing the view was excellent. I was reminded that I should take more time to look before getting down to the mechanics of imaging. |
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