UK Six Metre Group
Radio Station EA7JXH
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Operator Nick Sheard.
QTH Alhaurin el Grande in the Malaga Region of Andalucia, Southern Spain (locator: IM76pp).
E-mail: EA7JXH. See a view of our pueblo.
Married to Susie, who's from 9M2. She has no interest in amateur (ham) radio - "Why does our house have to look like a ship?" - she has asked in the past. Visit Nick & Susie's page and see our picture. Arrggggh!!
Interest in radio started at a young age, developing from building simple valve receivers and transmitters from the age of 12 in the late 1950's. The RAE (Radio Amateurs Examination) was passed in 1974 and license G8KLY was issued in 1975 while living in Leeds, Yorkshire, Northern England. Next the 12 WPM morse test was passed and G4GCP was issued in 1977. Finally I became EA7JXH in July 2015 in Malaga, Spain. That's 50 years licensed and over 65 years involved in the Ham Radio hobby!
The Station operates on all bands 40 metres to 70 centimetres from our house in the Málaga Region of Southern Spain. The QTH is about 960 feet (292 metres) above sea level on the northern slopes of the Sierra de Mijas and has a clear take-off from the south-west, clockwise round to the east. To the south-east and south the mountain, at 3,773 ft (1,150 metres) provides a very effective RF screen.
Equipment currently in use for HF and VHF comprises a Kenwood TS-890S into antennas for all bands 7 MHz to 144 MHz, a modified and GPS disciplined Ukrainian transverter giving me the 2 metre band.
For 2 Metres & 70 Centimetres all modes I also have a Yaesu FT-991A.
A Philips FM1100 or an Alinco DR-605 are there for VHF/UHF FM with a Motorola GM900 for occasional UHF mobile operation.
Antennas HF, on a crank-up mast from Silcom on the house roof, are a rotatable trap dipole for ten, fifteen and twenty, at about 13 metres (42 feet) above the ground. A dual band beam with five elements for four metres and four elements for six metres is mounted above the trap dipole at about 14 metres (46 feet).
Immediately below the rotator the mast supports a wire inverted V trap dipole for 17 and 12metres.
A wire dipole for forty metres is at about 11 metres on a seperate support.
Antennas VHF/UHF, At the top of the mast, above the HF antemnnas, is a dual band beam from YU1CF with 7 elements for 144MHz and 14 for 432 MHz at about 15 metres above ground. There are verticals for both bands for FM on separate poles.
Antennas siting. As I have no land for an antenna 'farm', all antennas have to be accommodated on the house roof. See pictures below.
Power amplification for HF and six metres is done by a solid state HVLA1K3 linear from RFpower, easily capable of the legal maximum power (1000 watts HF and 600 watts 6 metres here in Spain).
For two metres I use an Atlas 1000 - AR144 from ITB Italab, also with full legal power capability.
On 70 MHz and 432 MHz I run 50 watts only.
HF Digital. I have little enthusiasm for watching my computer exchange reports with other people's computers on HF. I much prefer using a microphone and communicating directly with an actual person.
I do however occasionally run a low power HF WSPR station, which can be a useful propagation and antenna testing tool.
VHF Digital. The exception to the above is 2 metres, where I have the TS-890S and transverter working on the digital modes. FT8 can be useful for contacts on a sparsely populated band here in southern Spain with mountainous terrain and stations often far apart. I have also upgraded the station with high power and a SSB Electronic mast-head low noise preamplifier in order to work meteor scatter using MSK144.
Current antennas for 70cms, 2, 4, 6, 10, 12, 15, 17, 20 and 40 metres taken from below. All on the house roof.
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Logbook, the latest contacts. Live feed, updates every minute. Scroll down for last 30 entries.
You can see all my latest contacts, on a world map in real time, here.
All contacts are uploaded to LOTW, eQSL and Clublog as they happen.
Digital Mobile Radio. It came to my attention that the local digital repeater, ED7ZAC, which was previously just D-STAR, had been upgraded to include DMR on the Brandmeister network. As it is only about 9km from here I had to have a go!
One TYT MD-380 later, for a surprisingly small amount of money, and off we go. Quite a learning curve, but what a clever radio and remarkable value.
Unfortunately, the local terrain means repeater coverage is not good enough for a handheld radio in our village.
A bit more shopping and a SharkRF hotspot sorted things out. Another learning curve but, at the end of the day, it all works perfectly, but is rarely used.
The Kenwood TS-480 HX was previously my main station transceiver. It is a great little transceiver, and I searched hard to find all the information, options, upgrades, tips and modifications available for it, which I have consolidated in one place and share with you here.
The Kenwood TS-890S is now my main station transceiver.
I have compiled a catalogue and store of useful information, documents and associated files and firmwares for the TS-890. If you are looking for something, it may be here.
Useful stuff I've accumulated on antennas. I intend to build on this to cover other subjects too, in time.
73’s
from Nick
E-mail: EA7JXH
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