Sunspot

Photos of Sunspot 1339 inspired me to try to take a photos by an attempted to capture sum thing about this event. It was a bellyful evening out in the felt about 3km north from Secunda in the west the sunset and in the east the moon. Unfortunately my photos do not show the sunspot but this was what i got instead.

This is how my shack grow

You will see on my photos that my equipment got upgraded to the first shelf of my newly build radio rack. And the Crowe's nest of cables move to the flour. I have also got myself a 2m, 70cm handheld Radio. The Anofeng UV-3R radio is a 2W handheld toy that have gave me a range of about 80Km when I was testing it with the Rustenburg repeater. I think it is good enough for me to us for now. After all I’m only live about 800m from the Secunda repeater and I can use it on low power and still have good 2m communication.

I have also got DSL internet now and after about 2 hours on the phone with Telkom that is also now working. I have also learned about ECHOLink and that is also now working on my PC and I am looking forward to see the Secunda ECHOLink on line soon. More on that on the Secunda club site.

I hope to grow this Blogg and if you have suggestions please write a comment

Progress on my first rig

I have got my first radio in the post a secondhand Yesu FT-707 and it seems to be in a very good condition. So on a low budget I have to get my station going. I still have a old deep-cycle Battery in the garage that I got for camping purposes and a car charger that must make the power supply. I also had a 6m length of lip channel from a previous construction job that will have to be the tower. I had to borrow a 12m peas of coax cable from a friend because no one in Secunda keep it in stock. I will replace it as soon as I get the opportunity to go to Gauteng. I bought a 100m earth wire that was just enough to build a milt band dipole antenna. ZS6GC helped me with his equipment to get the SWR cut for 40m so that I can get going we will get the rest of the friekwensie spectrum sorted out later. Thank you, Gert for your help and knolling shirring. I have tested the rig today and it seem if there is still a vie things that I need to sort out on the modulation but the imported part is it is a beginning and I hope to have my first QSO tomorrow. The plan for the antenna came from the following web site: http://www.angelfire.com/mb/amandx/dipole.html

SOTA Ossewakop ZS/MP-004

My First Contact

On 16 Jun 2011 I was invited to join the Secunda Radio Club on a SOTA just 3 weeks after i have pass my Amateur exam. I dit not know what a SOTA was but i had to learn quick. Behind Wakkerstroom is a mouton with the name of Ossewakop we setup a station on the top of this mouton in extreme strong wind. The whether forecast was sunshine withe wind of 50Km/h I'm sure it was way above it and it was not practical to setup a mas withe a antenna so the best antenna for the day was Tom's long wire.

Just after the first contact I was coaled to make my first contact it was withe ZS6ACT how took of my Amateur exam what an honer to make the first contact withe him. On the end of the day I have made contact withe 7 people. The other Amateurs Chris ZR6LJK, Tom ZS6TMO and Gert ZS6GC each had 8 contacts. I had a grate time withe them and now have the bug bit me to get my own equipment ready to go on the ear.