Month: August 2007

Peter (M3PHP) and myself have spent a few days putting together an interactive Ham Radio Calendar.

Not sure how useful or popular it will be but is live over at http://www.cal.prettygoodprojects.com

At this moment in time there aren’t many contests on it, but we hope that will change soon. Also new events currently need manual approving, but this is to prevent spam.

If you wish to actively help you can sign up and we could let you approve your own events.

Enough of my typing, go check it out now, and see you in the pile-ups!

I am using this post as a test for the WordPress Twitter posting tool, but also a few updates on some other stuff.

Normally I ignore Gimmick Special offers, but this one sounded too good to pass. Superdrug in various areas on Fri/Sat 17/18 Aug were offering what they called a Razor Amnesty. Basically you took your old razor (couldn’t be a disposable) to Superdrug and they would give you a new Gillette Fusion Stealth razor.

Luckily my mum was going to nearest town offering this Amnesty, so she took my razor. And was not a joke nor was there anything else to pay. And yes it works perfectly. The Fusion Stealth model is a battery powered model and this certainly helps the shave.

Also the new phone is coming along well. Although I sometimes miss my old Nokia 6600. Maybe one day will get the N95 or better. The O2 XDA Orbit is now running Windows Mobile 6 (WM6) offical O2 update, and I am finding much better. Also added some themes. Running a nice black theme at the model called “XDA Live”.

At some point I will update site to contain some links and info regarding O2 XDA Orbit.

Twitter Tool stopped a K2 Theme function, so disabled for now!

On Saturday 4th August 07 James MØBOV and myself went out to operate for few hours of portable/mobile operation.

We headed up to East Clandon near Guildford.

I setup on a picnic table and put up my SotaBeam on my 9m pole for 2m operation. James operated from his car after setting up his 5m pole with a di-pole on HF.

The external battery pack even with a full charge over last few days it was losing power fast. The internal FT-897 power pack had only 30mins of what should have been 4 hour charge as forgot to charge during week. Still was enough to give me a short contact with Wimbledon and District Amateur Radio Society (GX3WIM) Annual Club Camp. Locator was IO91SF.

As bands were poor (and my batteries were flattening fast) we decided to move on. Headed over to National Trust’s Newlands Corner (IO91RF) and Ranmore Common (IO91TF). Newlands Corner looks good. As well as a free car park, also has shop and amenities, and loads of space to operate.

Lessons Learned

• Make Sure ALL Batteries are Charged
• Try to pick a day when others are not likely to be out as well
  • Contacts may have been increased if we hadn’t picked the sunniest day for a long while
• Make a list of possible contests. If we had known, there was actually one starting later that day
• Take Handheld Radios
  • Forgot last time and this time (although not really needed this time, could have been useful)

Some Photos of the Day