VHF Antennae

3B8FO has successfully built and tested the following two vhf antennae .They are easy & quick built antennae which can be made from available "matierre de bord" materials.

The plans for the building of these can be downloaded from the following links.


VHF pocket antenna

This one is built directly and fixed using electrical insulating tape at the top end of a vertically erected  fishing pole some 15 flt long .

Normally with his  1/4 monopole he  cannot access DM at Le hochet with his 5W radioditty HT ,but with this one he  can easily access his station with a very good signal report.

BAN at B.Du Tombeau also gave  him a very favourable report compared to the monopole.

4 element vhf yagi

The antenna is some 20 ft on a manually rotable pole.

Direct line of sight with BAN did not give any result.However,to his  surprise  beaming the antenna towards DU got him a satisfactory report from BAN and of course a very good one from DU.The BAN reception is most probably due to reflection from a 10 storey building some 300 ft from 3b8FO's  antenna.

3B8FO  intends to do direct line of sight tests with St Denis in the coming days after  doing link budget  calculations  using a software whose downloadable link has  been kindly given to him by DU.

Please let us know in case you have built anyone of these and any changes /improvements you have made.

BAN is experimenting on J-Pole antennae and is having encouraging results.

Rms Email Relay with Winmore

Very happy this morning as my station was used for the first time for email relay by station KB3VCF  some 300 km away on bearing 253 somewhere in the indian ocean at location Grid  LG77IS on 40 m ..

Bring and Share meeting to celebrate our first VHF tests as AREG group on 23092018

As you will all recall we had a Group test on 230192018 to map the direct VHF communication links between OM's QTH.

That was a successful attempt and now we have a better picture about the  reachability of VHF stations directly without using any infrastructure based relay system.

At the same time we have identified difficult to reach areas and areas where we do not have VHF stations.Together we are working on solutions to address these issues.

Maps of the direct links mapped so far can be seen and  downloaded from the link

VHF direct links maps

The Saturday meeting on 21101028 at Flic-En-Flac was also a success with the following attending

DM,BAL,BAN,BAM,FO,FP,BAK and few other guests

We had a demo of a simple VHF repeater which can easily be installed at one's QTH.

We also had a fruitful discussion about the VHF tests carried out on 23092018 and the way forward.

Succulent Briyani home made by BAN was served and others present shared their goodies.

One incident worth noting and worth remembering  is the  manifestation of  team spirit that exists within AREG group .

FO had a car breakdown due to battery charger malfunctioning and everybody helped to push the car to make it start.At one point the battery had to be replaced and BAL provided his spare battery to do so with everyone giving a helpful hand.

FO thanks everybody for this  fraternal  gesture.

Some pictures of the meeting can be seen at the following address

Pics at F-en-F

FSQ working in French/Comment travailler avec le mode FSQ.

Please download tutorial in french  from below link on how to use FSQ .

FSQ Tutorial/Tutoriel FSQ 


Telecharger le document en franc,ais sur le mode  FSQ  en cliquant  le lien ci-dessus

NVIS File transfer from reunion using THOR 16,22,micro

Successful file transfer from FR1GZ to 3B8FO  and 3B8DM yesterday night at 20.00 hrs L for one hour. 

File and image transfer using thor of FLDIGI underf  NVIS setup and VHF/UHF  has been proven to work superbly well at all frequencies.

MT63 using VHF/UHF has also been proven to be a superb mode for file and image transfer using audio coupling without using an audio interface such as signalink.

I  encourage OMs to get familiar with these modes as they are crucial for emcom.

I shall be publishing videos on these in the near future.

A sample file transferred is shown below

==================================================================

<flmsg>4.0.7
:hdr_fm:21 
FR1GZ 20181810170025
:hdr_ed:21 
FR1GZ 20181810170025
<plaintext>
:tt:18 General Message06 
:to:5 RASEC
:fm:5 FR1GZ
:dt:8 18/10/18
:tm:6 21:00L
:sb:8 EXERCICE
:mg:538 EXERCICE EXERCICE EXERCICE

        AGIR APRES ACTIVITE VOLCANIQUE
  
- RESTEZ A L’ECOUTE DES CONSIGNES SUR LA CONDUITE A TENIR, EMISES PAR LES RADIOS ET STATIONS DE TELEVISION.
- ÉVITEZ DE VOUS ELOIGNER DE VOTRE DOMICILE, SAUF EN CAS DE CONSIGNES CONTRAIRES DES AUTORITES.

- ENVISAGEZ L’EVACUATION DES MALADES OU BLESSES ET DES PERSONNES A MOBILITE REDUITE.
- ENLEVEZ, DES QUE POSSIBLE, LES DEPOTS DE CENDRE VOLCANIQUE SUR LES TOITS DES MAISONS.
- ÉVITEZ DE TELEPHONER POUR NE PAS ENCOMBRER LES LIGNES.


EXERCICE EXERCICE EXERCICE

=================================================

NVIS tests using THOR data protocol with Reunion and 3B8DM

Yesterday and the day before 3B8FO conducted highly successful NVIS tests  on 40m and 80 m with FR1GZ using Thor 11,22 and Thor micro .

Time of tests 17.00 L to 21.00 L

Decoded signal from Reunion on 40 m using THOR micro under very adverse conditions even when no audio signal is heard on the receiver and only noise is heard.

File  and picture  successfully transferred from 3B8FO to 3B8DM yesterday night on all frequencies 80m,40m,30m,20m,15m,10m,6m,2m using thor 5,11,16,22,micro under NVIS conditions.

Useful sites

Real time propagation info.

http://www.idahoares.info/current_propagation.shtml

Simple high gain 2m/70cm colinear antenna.

http://www.m0zpk.co.uk/2m-144mhz-70cm-430-mhz-coax-collinear/

Coming GEO satellite

https://amsat-uk.org/satellites/geosynchronous/eshail-2/

Load of info about practical antennae

http://www.pg1n.nl/articles.php?lng=en&pg=367