Call sign

     MØPMB

     QTH

     Porthleven, Cornwall, UK

     Lat / Long

     50º 05´N     05º
    19´W
 

     Locator

     IO 7Ø  IB

    WAB square

     SW62

      Rig

     Icom 720A
 

     Antenna

    W3DZZ trapped dipole & Tuned magnetic
    loop for 20 & 30m

     ATU

     Home brewed Z-match & T-match

     SWR / Power meter

     Home brewed

After passing the amateur radio examination and gaining my Morse certificate I had to set myself up to operate. There happened to be an Icom 720A, Icom power supply and Icom microphone for sale at the local Poldhu amateur radio club, so I bought them and that just left a shack.  My first shack was in the garage because the XYL said that there wasn't enough room in the house; well what can you say?  I enclosed an existing 6ft x 10ft alcove in the garage, (below left), which was fine for the summer months, but the first winter saw me mounting a determined campaign to retreat to the house.  After a few skirmishes my charm and wit won through, (or was it the bribery?), and the shack now resides comfortably in my little den in the house, (below centre).  The workshop stayed in the enclosed garage alcove though, (below right), which works very well.

The choice of antenna was difficult, but I settled on the W3DZZ trapped dipole because I could feed it all the way with coaxial cable with a simple 1:1 balun at the feed point.  When I discovered that my commercial 40 metre traps resonated out of band I decided to make my own, (one of the commercial 40 metre traps bought from a well known mail order catalogue resonated at 8.15Mhz when checked with a signal generator and oscilloscope!).  It is surprisingly quick and easy to make a pair of 40 metre traps, please see my projects page for details.  I also made a tuned loop which works fine on 20 and 30 metres.  The home brewed ATUs both work very well indeed, especially the single coil Z match which was featured in a recent edition of Practical Wireless magazine, and I am always torn between the two. I think the Z match is slightly less 'lossy' than the T section tuner though, so I use that most of the time.  The home brewed SWR/power meter also works extremely well and exceeds expectations.  A long hard think about logging made me realise that computer logging had to be the way to go, so mindful of the licence conditions with regard to computer logging, I set about looking for some logging software.  I settled on Amateur Contact Log, an excellent shareware application which is simple, effective, easily customised and very user friendly.  I downloaded it from http://www.n3fjp.com/ACLog.htm and registered it for the very fair price of $15.  The more I use it the more I like it and I would recommend ACLog to anyone considering switching to computer logging.

Though my main interest is in telegraphy and telephony, I wanted to have both PSK31 and SSTV modes available in the shack so I designed and built a PSK31 / SSTV interface, downloaded the necessary software, (I have to say that I find Win PSK31 by far the friendliest PSK31 application and MMSSTV the best SSTV application), and I have had some nice QSOs in both modes.  Please move your cursor round the picture opposite to identify the equipment, and click to go to the associated project or press the projects button to see design and construction details for all the items in the picture, the 40 metre traps, the tuned loop antenna and a 100 watt 50 ohm dummy load.