Geminid meteor shower peaks on the 14th of Dec 2023

The Geminid meteor shower is one of the biggest of the year and meteors from this shower should appear from the 4th to the 20th of December. The peak is predicted to be at 19:30 UTC on  Thursday 14th of December 2023.

The radiant of the shower is above the horizon from about 18:00 to 10:00 local time and will be highest above the horizon around 02:00 local time. As the sky will be dark with a new moon, it should be a good visual spectacle as well in clear skies.

From a radio point of view, there should be plenty of meteor pings and bursts with an hourly rate of 150 expected.

On bands like 40 MHz, 50 MHz & 70 MHz, signals that are 500-1000kms distant should give good signals. The higher bands like 144 MHz will need longer paths.

One of the best bands for meteor scatter is 50 MHz. See if there is a beacon about 500kms from your location and have a listen on SSB or CW. It can be useful to have a waterfall display like that used for FT8 so that you can visually see weak signals.

The best time for meteor scatter is usually around 6am local time. If you were to try around 6am on the 14th & 15th of December then you should see and hear plenty of meteor bursts and pings.

Yugoslav ELTING 8000 radio for 40 MHz

If I come across any radio that will operate on the 40 MHz band, I like to keep a record of it here on the blog. One such radio is the ELTING 8000 which was a 1980's vintage radio that was built in Yugoslavia. It was also manufactured by RIZ.

This low-band VHF radio used FM modulation and had a maximum of ten crystal-controlled operating channels.

In the example shown above which is the base version, it is set up for simplex operation on 40.775 MHz, 41.220 MHz, 41.775 MHz and 42.200 MHz. The specified range of the radios was from 40.7 MHz to 42.4 MHz.

This is an internal view of the radio. The mains power supply can be seen quite clearly on the right. You can also make out the crystals just left of centre.

This is the view from the other side and as you can see, there is a second PCB.

The frequency chart below shows how the crystal frequencies were selected...

The transmit frequency is a 12th multiple of a crystal operating at about 3.5 MHz. Possibly something like X3 first, select the third harmonic and then multiply that by 4.

For this radio to operate on say 40.680 MHz (which is the centre of the 40 MHz ISM band - Industrial, Scientific, Medical), a crystal of 3.390 MHz is required for transmit.

To receive on 40.680 MHz, then a 51.380 MHz crystal is required (receive frequency plus 10.7 MHz IF).

There were several versions of the 8000 series... 1) 8000F for fixed operation, 2) 8000M for mobile and 3) 8000P for portable.

The RF output power of each one was 10 watts. There was also a hand portable version called the 8000/1.5P with a 1.5 watt output.

Some of these radios are available on the second hand market and might be a way to get going on just one select frequency on the 40 MHz band.

Links...
1) Crowave Blog

Example of Italian CB signals heard at 43 MHz...

The video clip above shows an example of a signal heard on the south-east coast of England of  a 43.3 MHz signal from Italy.

The CB band at 43 MHz in Italy is more of a 'working band' as opposed to the hobbyist nature of the band at say 27 MHz.

There is a short discussion about Italian 43 MHz radio on this forum.

It would also seem that the band is used is used to relay church services in Italy to elderly members of the public at home. Video of 43.575 MHz signal below. In Ireland, this is usually done on the 27 MHz CB band although some churches have been known to use 88-108 MHz!

A quick look at network radios...

What is radio? As time goes by, the fine line between what can be called 'radio' and what is the internet is becoming increasing blurred.

I was on the 70cms band today using the Echolink gateway about 10 miles to the north in Watergrasshill and I spoke to Brian GM7JDS in Scotland who was using an Inrico TM-7...a so called 'Network Radio'.

A network radio is essentially a mobile phone that is made to look and behave like a radio. It can have the same appearance and some like the Inrico TM-7 have a traditional microphone which might be found on a mobile rig. It uses the Android operating system, behaves like any smartphone and can be used through wi-fi as well.

But is it 'radio' as opposed to 'a radio'? Is it 'radio' if someone at the other end is actually using a real radio with RF going out over the airwaves? What if someone is using say a DMR radio into a local hotspot in their own house, is that any more 'real radio' than this?

At first glance, a network radio isn't a radio... or at least not a traditional radio. But if it allows you access to various repeaters around the world, is it not just a remote access for a radio? If it looks like a radio and behaves like a radio, is it a radio? Many people will have different opinions.

Some of the purists may well dismiss this as not real radio but it could be the perfect solution for someone with antenna restrictions or living in an apartment complex.

From my own point of view, anything that results in some activity on an amateur band somewhere can only be a positive thing.

There is an explanation on network radios below...

EI55WAW in the log

From 1st January to 31st December 2017 Irish Radio Amateurs will be on air with nine special calls – EI11WAW through to EI99WAW.  Each call will be associated with one of the counties making up the Wild Atlantic Way.  Each call will have its own distinctive QSL card depicting a highlight of the county linked to the call.

Following hot on the heels of EI66WAW and EI88WAW on Friday, I worked EI55WAW on 20m cw on Saturday the 4th of February 2017. Like the other times that I have worked WAW stations on 20m, the signals were weak but I was lucky enough to just get in early before the pile up started.

EI55WAW was number eight of nine on cw so that just leaves EI11WAW (Donegal) to go. There hasn't been much activity with that call so far on cw so the most difficult one will probably be the last. Still, I have just under 11 months left to find them though! :o)

More info about the Wild Atlantic Way award in this previous post.

Low Power Devices on 433 MHz

At the moment, I scan the 70cms band on a pretty regular basis and every so often, the radio will stop on  433.475 and 433.525 MHz. The signal sounds like a weak digital transmission and it's only there occasionally.

I thought perhaps it was due to an out of band signal and the receiver was being overloaded. Having said that, the Alinco 605E seems like a reasonable radio and the front end doesn't seem to be wide open like some of the handhelds.

After a bit of digging, I discovered that there is an allocation for low power device on the 70cms band. It's called LPD433... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LPD433

This is the frequency chart which as you can see goes from 433 to 435 MHz.

I knew that some car key fobs and remote devices were using the band but I hadn't realised it was so extensive. Perhaps that is the reason behind the mystery signals?

What I didn't know was that in Europe, this allows licence free voice communications on 70cms.

"LPD hand-held radios are authorized for license-free voice communications use in most of Europe using analog frequency modulation (FM) as part of short range device regulations, with 25 kHz channel spacing, for a total of 69 channels."...from Wikipedia.

I noticed that Amazon are selling a dual 446 / 433 MHz radio as well...

Considering how easy it is to buy a radio, I wonder will there be more unlicenced operation on the 70cms band in future?

Links to Radio QRP, Homebrew, Parts and Kits

QRP (Low Power) Clubs...
G QRP Club.....Lots of useful info. Website......http://www.interalia.plus.com/index.htm
American QRP Club.......Loads of info. Website........http://www.amqrp.org/


Homebrew websites........
KD1JV........qrp rigs and some nice ideas........http://kd1jv.qrpradio.com/

Kits......
K1EL........cw keyers.......http://k1el.tripod.com/index.html
Hendricks qrp kits...http://www.qrpkits.com/index.html


Parts.......


Scratchpad.......some sites to check out and examine
W7ZOI...........http://w7zoi.net/
VU2ESE...........http://www.phonestack.com/farhan/
Electronic Parts........Digikey.........http://www.digikey.com/
Oceanstate Electronics.........http://www.oselectronics.com/
Hans Summers..........homebrew projects.........http://www.hanssummers.com/
Oak Hills Research........qrp rigs.........http://www.ohr.com/
Small Wonder Labs........qrp rigs...........http://www.smallwonderlabs.com/
QRP Project........German based.........http://www.qrpproject.de/UK/indexuk.html
JF1OZL.................homebrew..........http://www.intio.or.jp/jf10zl/
Ham Universe........http://www.hamuniverse.com/

http://www.w8ji.com/
http://web.telia.com/~u85920178/index.htm
http://www.wm7d.net/hamradio/solar/index.shtml
http://www.w0ch.net/qrss/qrss.htm