Archive for April, 2006
Woke up this morning and felt the urge to get out in the open, so trekked off to the top of the downs and had a good old wander around and cleared my mind. Found a good position to build my house about 400feet above Willingdon, just need to get onto the council for planning permission and be prepared for an answer along the lines of “You’re ‘aving a larf! Now Sod Off You Time Wasting Twonk!” But hey we can all dream… I had noticed that throughout my walkabout on the downs a single Magpie was always in front of me, strange I thought. I usually have a lone Magpie in my face before a particularly distressing event, so when I got back to the car park I notice an official looking dude in a hi-vis jacket wandering around, and yes I had a parking ticket! So that poxy Magpie was telling me, har har, you’re now £60 worse off! I should of stamped on its head…
Chain invited me for a cuppa tea which was very well received, had a play with my pocket PC before heading home…
Recently I bought a 70cm hand-held radio and, to put it bluntly, it’s a bit crap, thought I’d put my technical abilities into use to improve the radio’s performance and set about armed with sodering irons, DVM’s, Scopes and tea. A little dissapointed, managed to get rid of an annoying tone that played everytime you turned it on, had to drill a hole in the front of the case for the microphone element. Not sure why the manufacturers didnt do it? Maybe they thought it’s such a crappy radio that whoever buys one will probably never use it so why bother. The next thing was to improve the audio quality, it sounded rather muffled, half due to the lack of passage for sound through the case to the mic, the other half I believe to be bad pre-amp design. Modestly adjusting the filtering for the mic pre-amp made a slight difference, the next stage was to find out where the background noise was being generated. This apparently, after reading forums and reviews, is characteristic of this radio. Got as far as proving it wasnt the mic pre-amp stage causing the noise, more likely the problem lies within the design of the RF stages and will be impossible to eliminate. So all in all, The JingTong UHF FM Tranceiver is quite naff, but it looks nice. Having reassembled it it seems a new noise has popped up, and I couldnt be bothered to rip it apart again. Another day, thanks to Chain btw for patiently monitoring 70cms while I tried several mods on the radio.
April 15th, 2006
Well Friday was wierd…Jade spent the day with me, popped in to see Cam investigating money making schemes! Not much more to go on about really…
April 15th, 2006
Work today went kinda quick…Ended up in Morton Surrey which can be a bitch to get out of during rush hour, luckily I got off early. Back to Eastbourne one last call, then home for bath and change before of to Chain’s for dinner 😛
Nice bitta curry with noodles and all the trimmings then a spot of TV before dissapearing upstairs and logging onto my PC at home. Had a bit of a chat with Jo my Ex on MSN, she needs a shower cubicle, the all in one type I can guess what for too…Conversations with her tend to end abruptly, dunno whether I say something wrong or she just wanders off to do something else that needs doing in her scatty little world. But hey, whatever! Oh found out I lost my Manometer today (gas pressure guage) which really hacks me off as I purposely forked out for a decent one because I knew I would be using it alot. Few addresses to check back on tomorrow. First call East Grinstead so early start and I’m off to bed.
April 12th, 2006
Well…Not alot to write about really, started getting some flack of of the guys on GB3ES today, that is the Hastings repeater and the guys in question are really a bunch of sad twats who have only just recently obtained the foundation license after operating as pirate radio operators for some time, this totally contravenes the the amateur radio licensing laws. The thing is this, they very seldom, if at all, follow the correct operating procedures whilst using the repeater and they tend to hog the repeater for assumingly pointless conversation. To add insult to injury most of them need not use the repeater at all as they are normally close enough to each other to use a simplex channel and chat direct. Some of the guys involved should know better as have been licenced for years. When monitoring the Hasting Repeater (GB3ES), there are echoes from the past there, the CB days on channel 19 and the endless monotony of keyers, music playing, bitchin, bad language and “Radio Checks,” and they have the audacity to compare me to a CB radio operator! Most of the original operators who used to be about on the 2 meter band have now gone else where because of the moronic attitude of this new breed of amateur radio licensee. Anyway, I’m thinking of dedicating a page on my site to these delightful people where names (and callsigns) will be mentioned just as a wind up! So keep an eye on the home page 😉
(((Deep Breath)))
ok…Gave the converted antenna a good testing today and operates really well, so chuffed with that. Popped into Chains for cuppa tea and several ginger nuts and choccy biscuits…Rahl was onboard too, came home and did nothing.
April 11th, 2006
Finished early yesterday popped into Chains for a cuppa, Rahl was there too, seems he’s overloaded his PC with porn and now has problems with it. Though he denies this! Off home to set about making a mobile antenna to stick on the van, butchered an old 27MHz mag mount I had and it tuned up really well for 144mhz after a few minor modifications, went for a drive about to test it…
April 11th, 2006
Tell me! Retro Suburban City Scape, ANOTHER SUNSET
The dying sun, red and swollen, goes down for the final time in a blaze of glory. A symphony of colour. Orange, red, green and violet dance across the horizon, leaving a last perfect skyline, a sad goodbye to humanity. Leaning over the balcony gazing at the illuminated landscape, now devoid of its once teeming life, you wonder why you decided to stay.
The Answer is Simple…
We Have No Choice!
April 9th, 2006
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