I will be taking my IC-706MKIIG, a couple of sealed lead-acid batteries and will most probably be active on Sunday 12 August around 1300 UTC on following frequencies and modes:

• 14 MHz SSB (using inverted V)
• 144.300 MHz SSB (3el Yagi)
• 145.500 MHz FM

Please keep an eye on SOTAwatch Alerts, I will post updates there.

We will be keeping low-profile - we plan to sleep in the car most of the time (we tested it last year in Wales and found the Mondeo estate surprisingly comfortable - when sleeping on one duvet and being covered with another one it feels like home! :). We want to see Edinburgh (of course, it’s the capital), climb Ben Nevis and visit the north-most part of the UK - Dunnet Head near John O’Groats.

Although Minatko wasn’t very happy I couldn’t help it and I’m taking my radios with me. I plan make a couple of contacts from the summit of Ben Nevis - SOTA G/WS-001 - more info in this post.

Submanager work is a voluntary one; submanagers only receive £25 per year from RSGB as a small incentive. The submanager then sorts the cards by callsigns and stores them. Any ham that wants to receive QSL cards via the bureau can do so - whether or not they are a memeber of RSGB - simply by sending self-addressed stamped envelopes (SASE) to their submanager.

Now, a few weeks ago I found out that my submanager, Simon, GØSJH, had given up the position due to extra work commitments. I immediately asked at RSGB QSL Bureau if the position was still available and expressed interest to take over. Quite luckily a person approached before did not reply, so the position was awarded to me. I was confirmed as a QSL Submanager for callsign block MØPAA-MØZZZ on 23 July 2007. I’m happy I will be able to contribute to the amateur radio society here in the UK!

More information can be found on the page QSL for MØPAA-MØZZZ.

As you may have read in my “Me and Amateur Radio” introductory posts, I have already taken part in one big contest - 2006 CQ WW SSB Contest. However, it was my first shot at contesting and I was only operating for a few hours. This time I wanted to take part properly, take it a bit more seriously.

IARU HF Championship is a world wide contest organised by ARRL (American Radio Relay League, main amateur radio organisation in the USA) on behalf of IARU (International Amateur Radio Union). It is on every second weekend in July for full 24 hours - from 12:00noon GMT on Saturday to 11:59am on Sunday. I wanted to try to operate as much as possible, with only short breaks. In the end I spent about 22½ hours at the radio. Honestly, about 5am I was thinking about giving up and going to sleep for at least hour and a half because all the activity dies down around that time and it’s not as easy to find a station not worked before. My hope was to make 1000 contacts, but I found that to be a bit too optimistic ;) Especially because I was too “shy” to call CQ (general call, soliciting contact) with low power (only 100 W). But when I finally started calling CQ on 10 and 15 metres, I found it to be very productive - it saved my score and brought me about 200 contacts in the last few hours.

In the end I only (?) made 623 contacts with a total of 163 multipliers (ITU zones and HQ stations /stations set up by IARU member organisations like RSGB in the UK, ARRL in the USA or CRC in the Czech Republic/) resulting in a claimed score of 275,238. Now let’s just wait and see if I placed reasonably well at least in the low power category in the UK :)

The highlight of the contest was that I finally worked VK (Australia) - and even on two bands! The first contact was with VK4WIA on 20 metres around midnight via long path - it means by aiming away from the station, over the “other side of the globe” :) In certain times, this long path, although being substantially longer (short path to VK is about 17,000 km - long path therefore about 23,000 km), can present much lower attenuation to the signal: 1) it goes more over the oceans, and 2) it goes more over the daylight area of the globe. The other contact was with VK7GK on 40 metres - very surprising for me as I only have rotatable end-loaded dipole quite low over the ground.I made the contact about 6am - if I wanted to go to bed before that, this really cheered me up and gave me new enthusiasm.

I really enjoyed participating in IARU HF and will definitely be looking forward to the next big contest - the earliest being RSGB IOTA Contest on 28/29 July. Hope to meet you there! :-)

From the previous part you know I had a G5RV aerial. It was my main aerial for quite some time and was working pretty well. I was just trying to get it higher, so I used longer fishing rods - which on the other hand snapped more easily in strong winds. After some time, my lady boss decided our roof needs to be checked and repaired. At the same time she got worried about excessive load the aerial mast could put on the chimney. I was trying to argue it’s just normal TV aerial mast with a light weight fishing pole, but to no avail and in the end I had to take the aerial down.

As I only had simple wire aerials until then I started thinking about a better, directional aerial with gain for higher bands - so called beam. After some time I bought an old 3 band (20, 15 and 10 metres) 3 element beam made by Mosley off eBay. It was pretty cheap, but not in a great condition with some parts missing. Anyway, I was able to fix it and put it up on top of a very light (and flimsy) 8 metre portable aluminium telescopic mast. I used a cheap crappy TV rotator, but it was sort of working :-) You can see how it looked in our tiny garden on the right.

OK, so I had a tribander - but not for long. One day this winter we woke up and everything was lovely white! Unbelievable, we had about 5 centimetres of snow… It was really funny to watch English drivers with summer tyres on in action, struggling even with light slopes ;) Anyway, it lasted only about 4 days - and when the snow got wet, it was quite heavy too. Unfortunately it was too much load for the light mast; it bent and the beam fell down.

After some time without an aerial again I realized that if I want a good one, I will inevitably have to spend some money. When I accepted the fact, spending itself was quite painless :-) I found a very smart aerial design on the Internet - a Spiderbeam. It’s basically a type of yagi aerial, a beam, but instead of traditional straight elements (which then need to be made of aluminium tubing) its base is a fibreglass cross (boom and spreader) supporting wire elements that are bent from their centre on the boom to the end of the spreader. The big advantage is much lower weight and wind loading. Computer modelling also allows for the beam to have full size elements (monoband) - the multiband aerial is in fact a number (in my case 5) of single band multi-element beams. I have ordered 5 band kit - my Spiderbeam is actually a 3 element beam on 20 metres, 2 el on 17, 3 el on 15, 2 el on 12 and 4 el on 10. With 14 elements in total, this aerial still weighs just about 7 kg (15 lbs)! I ordered much sturdier 15 metre aluminium telescopic mast at the same time and also bought a Yaesu G-650 rotator to swing this beast - it might not look too large in the photo, but the main cross measures 10 x 10 metres :) I’ve had it up for about 4 months now and I must say I’m impressed with its performance! It’s so much easier to work DX with a proper aerial and it’s a great feeling to break through a pile-up with just 100 W. It might sound like a marketing talk, but be sure it’s true. In those 4 months I worked over 100 new DXCC countries! At the moment my logging program says I worked 153 countries and 79 of them are confirmed - 21 to go for my DXCC :-)

Before I finish, a few words about radios. As you know, my first HF radio was Icom IC-706MKIIG. It’s a nice small radio with detachable front panel, ideal for mobile/portable operation. However, because it’s small not too many controls fit on the panel and apart from the very basic functions everything else must be set in menu. Also, as it combines HF/6 m/2 m and 70 cm in such a compact case it must inevitably be a design compromise. When I become more active, I naturally started thinking about getting a “bigger”, better radio. First one I found on eBay for a good price was Icom IC-746 (see picture on the left) - according to reviews at eHam.net it’s a solid performing radio. I must say I was very happy with it - it’s really a lot easier to work with a proper desktop radio. However, I kept looking and after some time I found my “dream radio” for sale for a reasonable price - Icom IC-756PROIII (on the left). It’s a former Icom’s top-of-the-line radio (now superseded by IC-7800/7700) with large colour LC display, full DSP IF filtering (no additional filters to buy) and real-time spectrum scope. It’s a real pleasure working with it!

If you made it up to this point - congratulations to your patience! I’m sorry for another long post but there is simply so much to write about… Can’t help it, I’m just crazy about amateur radio :)

Let me finish with an amateur radio greeting - VY 73 Petr

Hey, you sass that hoopy Ford Prefect? There’s a frood that really knows where his towel is.

Most of you carbon-based humanoids living in ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha sector probably already know :-) For those who don’t - it’s a quote from Douglas Adams’ famous Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Created initially as a BBC radio series it was later published as a trilogy of five parts. If you like sci-fi and fantasy and have a good sense of humour, you will LOVE Hitchhiker. I read mine for the first time some 10 year ago in Czech (a very nice double edition with Restaurant at the End of the Universe) - and I read all five parts at least three times from beginning to end in Czech as well as in English. The Czech translation is very good, but if you feel reasonably confident with your English, go ahead and read the original - you will definitely appreciate some untranslatable bits.

The “trilogy” actually consists of five parts:

• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
• The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
• Life, the Universe and Everything
• So Long and Thanks for All the Fish
• Mostly Harmless

In addition to the radio series and the books, there was also a TV series of 6 episodes released in 1981. The effects are definitely not it’s strong part - but it sticks closely to the original story and is a nice complement to the books. A must see for a Hitchhiker fan. In 2005, a long awaited film was finished - which is unfortunately a different case. I am not entirely sure how Douglas would feel about it (although he wrote a screenplay)… I personally didn’t like it too much. It modifies the story quite strongly, which is on the other hand quite understandable - it is virtually impossible to fit the story into a single film.

Anyway, back to the original point - Douglas Adams, a hero of millions of Hitchhiker fans has died in 2001. As a tribute to him, an international Towel Day has been set to 25 May. You can show your appreciation of His Froodness by wearing a towel visibly all day!

However strange and unusual may driving on the left side of the road seem, getting used to it was actually quite easy. The fact that you are sitting on the right side of the car (ie. really right :) helps a lot and makes driving on the left quite natural. Apart from a couple of times when I headed to the opposite direction when turning right (ie. not along the corner) in the beginning I haven’t had any major problems.

What was actually harder was to get used to handling the steering wheel with my right hand and the gear stick with the left one. Although I hadn’t been driving as much back home before we moved to the UK, it still felt quite awkward steering with right hand (supposedly the more clever one for a right handed person) and at the same time change the gears with left hand. Also, the indicator switch lever is actually on the same side of the steering wheel (ie. on the left), so you can’t simply switch the indicators while changing the gear at the same time. Anyway, no big deal, after a couple hundred miles it all becomes natural.

Another unusual aspect of driving here are the ubiquitous roundabouts. They seem to be considered superior to classic crossroads which are being replaced by them wherever possible. (The truth is they are now being built on many places in Czech Republic too, aren’t they?) I can imagine they can probably help to make the traffic more fluent - which is I’m afraid not working here well with the driving style of English drivers (more on this later… grrr). Anyway, I can’t really understand why are they turning even a very small crossroads into a roundabout - simply by painting a white circle in the middle (and adding the signs, of course) - when it’s then equivalent to a crossroads without any signs; you simply give way to the right.

One more thing to mention are the speed cameras (or safety cameras) - that’s what we call “radars” in Czech. Unlike Czech Republic, police are not trying to hide them in any way to catch more speeding drivers and make more money on fines. On the contrary, a typical speed camera is a bright yellow box mounted on a post close to the road and preceded by a number of “speed camera” signs. I think this approach is a lot fairer - the goal is to make drivers slow down, not to catch them and fine them. Unfortunately, I’ve got quite an experience with speed cameras myself - I got caught three times already… Once about a year ago near Warwick (59 mph at 40 mph limit) and then twice in seven days in Stourport not long after the two new speed cameras had been installed (35 mph at 30 mph limit - both times!). If you don’t exceed the speed too much, you can deal with the matter by accepting so called Conditional Offer - which means paying £60 fine and having your driving license endorsed by 3 penalty points. The only other possibility is pleading not guilty and going to the court. The fine can then be even higher and so can be number of penalty points. The maximum number of penalty points is 12 - it means I’m now driving as a driving school instructor, ’cause I really don’t want to go to work by bus :-)

The last thing I wanted to write about are English drivers. They really do drive with that famous English ease - which is ever so annoying for us hot-blooded Europeans! They drive way too carefully and slowly, accelerate sooo slowly - as if they were dying there at the steering wheel… I’m not trying to say there is something wrong with careful driving - but nothing should be overdone. When you combine it with British narrow roads with an average of two good spots for overtaking per 50 miles, you get quite a frustrating experience!

In July 2005 we moved to the UK for some time as you probably already know :) Quite naturally it wasn’t possible for me to take the rig with me straight away (and we originally planned to stay here just for 2 months anyway…), but upon returning from our first visit back home in September I brought my rig with me. I installed a 40 metre dipole sloping from our flat on 11th floor to a nearby tree. I was able to make a couple of contacts on this aerial until the house manager noticed the aerial, made it a big issue and I had to take it down immediately. I was operating as M/OK1THA (M/ prefix meaning operation from a different country, M stands for England in this case).

Fortunately, we moved to a much nicer place soon - to a small bungalow near the riverside in Stourport-on-Severn. It has a small garden (and even a small pond :-), so there is some space for experimenting. It is actually on the same land as our lady boss’ house (she generously offered the rental to us), but fortunately she’s been very understanding to my antenna-building experiments so far.

The first reasonable aerial I put up was G5RV, a simple multi-band wire antenna designed by Louis Varney, G5RV who first described it in the November 1966 issue of RSGB Bulletin. Today, after more than 40 years, it is still very popular due to its simplicity and decent performance on multiple bands. The full size (102′, ie. 31.1 m) version works pretty well on all bands from 80 to 10 metres. I installed it on a glass fibre telescopic pole attached to a metal TV mast on the roof with the centre at about 10 metres over the roof. I attached the legs to a nearby tree and a wooden phone mast opposite to it. At this height, I was quite happy with its performance. I made a couple of hundreds of contacts mainly on lower bands (simply because I didn’t have much time to operate during the day and in winter, the higher bands are closed at night). One night the propagation on the 80 metre band (3.5 MHz) was so good that I was able to call CQ (general call) even with my 100 W and had about 20 North American stations come back to my call in an hour. What an incredible experience for me back then! :-)

As I become more active on the bands, I started thinking about applying for a UK call sign. Czech Republic takes part in the CEPT/HAREC agreement, so it is simply possible to get the local amateur radio license and call sign issued on the basis of HAREC certificate in many European countries. However, I needed to apply for a new Czech license first as it expired in September 2005. When the new one arrived, I immediately applied for a UK license and was issued a call sign MØWTF.

Shortly after receiving my new call sign I took part in my first big contest. Contests are amateur radio competitions taking place either locally or worldwide and are on for anything from couple of hours to two full days (48 hours). I took part in CQ World Wide DX Contest, SSB part, which belongs to one of the biggest events. Last year’s CQWW SSB started on Saturday 28 October at 0:00 GMT and ended on Sunday 29 October at 23:59. It is a world wide contest, so amateurs from around the globe take part in the contest at the same time. The goal is to make as many contacts (or QSOs as hams say) with other amateurs from as many different countries as possible. Anyway, I wasn’t taking the contest too seriously, I just wanted to try it so I spent only a couple of hours at my rig. I made 336 contacts with amateurs from 56 countries. It was a great fun, the bands were incredibly crowded all the time! Next time I’m going to take it more seriously and see how many contacts am I able to make.

This concludes the second part of the introduction - and there is still more to come :-)