Resources

Repeaters

The RSGB has basic information on using repeaters here:-

https://www.ukrepeater.net/operating.htm

Accessing repeaters is detailed here:-

https://www.ukrepeater.net/access.htm

Table 1 below shows the closest repeaters to where the club meets. If you live elsewhere you can go to https://www.levinecentral.com/ham/grid_square.php and enter your postcode to find out your grid location. Then go to https://www.ukrepeater.net/repeaterlist1.htm?filter1=analogue and enter your grid location and click on [km] to filter by distance.

There is a useful app called ‘RepeaterBook’ for Android and Apple devices which uses your location and shows the nearest repeaters to you of the selected type.

One thing which has caught me out is that new repeaters are required to support CTCSS however they often also support the 1750Hz tone burst. When CTCSS is used to access them then they are also required to output CTCSS. The mistake that I made was configuring the radio with the CTCSS tone for send/receive. I was missing some transmissions and the radio was indicating a CTCSS mismatch. This might have just been the the regular beacon they transmit but it might have been someone talking which used the tone burst to access. Switching my Yaesu from ‘T SQL’ to ‘T ENC’ resolved this issue.

Table 1
List of UK repeaters closest to IO91nk which is the grid containing the Woodford Park Leisure Centre.

Logging & QSL

I use https://www.qrz.com/ for looking up callsigns as it seems very popular and it is nice to see a bit of information about the person you are speaking to in addition to being an additional check you have recorded their callsign correctly.
If you sign up you should be able to get someone else to add your callsign to the database. If that doesn’t seem to work or you prefer you can go onto their forum and provide basic information and someone there will add it for you. It took a couple of days for someone to update my callsign so that it was associated with myself correctly. Once it is all setup you can update some information about yourself and use the online logbook.
If you prefer windows software then I have played with ‘log4om’ which seems pretty good. If you want it to automatically post to qrz.com then you need to subscribe to at least the qrz.com xml logbook package which is around $30/year. Personally I just use qrz.com but if you are using HF and have a link to the computer so log4of can read the radio settings and are making a few contacts then I can certainly see the benefit in it.

Although using the qrz.com logbook you can request confirmation you don’t get any form of QSL card. The RSGB offers a bureau service (https://rsgb.org/main/operating/qsl-bureau/) but a lot of people seem to use an electronic version like https://www.eqsl.cc. Basic access is free but you can pay for various additions such as bronze membership which enables you to upload your own custom card design plus additional benefits.

Tom M0LTE Suggested https://www.magicbug.co.uk/cloudlog/
“You mention logging, which reminded me – for anyone interested in logging, might I also suggest Cloudlog, a modern web app fit for this decade, which has just been launched as an inexpensive subscription service (previously your only option was to install it on a webserver of your own – you can still do that for free but it’s hardly worth the hassle for £4/month).”

Other Links

There are various web based SDR’s that you can use to listen on different bands at various points around the world. http://websdr.org/ is a very good list and the Farnham one can be accessed at http://farnham-sdr.com/

http://www.echolink.org/ is a system where you can use a PC or an app on a mobile phone to link to other Echolink devices. You do need to upload your Ofcom certificate to get the account validated but I found this was very quick. Other devices can be other users, groups or even repeaters.

73

Gareth M7GRB