The HX Files 010

Hello and welcome to excerpt 010 of the HX files.

AGM.

Photo 1

Many thanks to the people that came over to the I.R.T.S. stand to chat to me about the HX files and microwave in general, (and also to pay their subs). I was displaying some microwave gear at the MICROmax stand at the I.R.T.S. AGM and rally, which was hosted, and ran, by the Dundalk Amateur Radio Society. Whilst I spent the rally at the I.R.T.S. stand, my fellow microwaver’s, Michael EI5GG and Mark EI9FX had a brilliant day they told me, with many people talking about the display and asking them plenty of questions about the GHz bands and taking picturesof the many aerials and fittings on display. I am sure they gave people sound advice on the items displayed and

on the microwave bands.

Amateuring?.

Photo 2

At last the good (ish) weather is here and the clocks have gone forward, so now there is more daylight to go out and play portable radio. After doing a bit more of portable amateuring with ATV (well as we are no longer experimenters, we must now be amateuring and not experimenting), I decided to make some sort of portable bench so that when I get to a site I could have a sturdy piece of kit and I could be sitting outside and not in the car with cables all over the place. As I mentioned in the last Echo Ireland I first made a bench out of a combination of plywood and MDF but that unit was quite heavy, even before I put the gear on it so that unit was used for something else, (to light the fire). A couple of weeks later I was in a hardware store (Homebase) looking for something else (as is the way) and I came across a foldable aluminium platform. (€38.00).When folded it measures 160mm high and 500 mm high in use. The platform itself measures 300 mm x 690 mm. The platform top is made of 3 aluminium strips with a gap between them and I decided to use the gaps to fasten a length of wood on top, and with the wood held in place I would fix the ATV gear to the wood and I should have a nice piece of /portable equipment ready at a moments notice and with a cover over it I would be ready to protect the equipment in the unlikely event that some rain would fall in the summer. Photo 1, shows the platform as it comes from the store and photo 2, shows the finished bench unit.

Photo 3

Storage.

I made a seat out of plywood, and it is not just a seat, the top is hinged and it is used as a parts holder for extra fittings, cables and spares. I guess you know what a wooden box looks like so there is no photo of that, (I forgot to bring it to the photo studio).

In photo 3 you can see the 1.2 GHz transceiver and also an old analogue sat receiver and an inverter to turn my 12 volts dc to 240 volts ac. This will run the sat receiver which will be used as the main 10 GHz Rx, and a backup 1.2 GHz Rx. It is a bit mixed up at the moment but after a few portable outings it will be sorted out.

And finally.

Thanks yet again to Thos EI-2-JD for taking the pictures for me.

73’s to you all,

Pat, EI2HX.