Tuesday, 23 September 2014

First voice contact with Lebanon

Last weekend, on 28 MHz, I made a first (Es) QSO with Lebanon. Walid, OD5ZZ gave a 599 to my call in USB. Via eQSL I received the confirmation of the contact yesterday.


Tripoli, Lebanon

Monday, 22 September 2014

UV-5R dual band handheld

SInce last week, I am the owner of a UV-5R dual band transceiver.
On e-bay you find plenty of offers for this type of radio. I bought the rig for 25 euro's.
Amazing what you get these days for this price:

The Baofeng UV-5R is a compact handheld transceiver providing 4 Watts in the frequency range of 136-174 MHz and 400-480 MHz. 
It is a compact transceiver  that includes a special VHF receive band from 65 - 108 MHz which includes the regular FM broadcast band. 
Dual watch and dual reception is supported. You get up to 128 memory locations. 
Other features include:  selectable wide/narrow, battery save function, VOX, DCS/CTCSS encode, key lock and built in flashlight. 
Selectable frequency steps include:  2.5, 5, 6.25, 10, 12.5 and 25 kHz. 
RF power selectable at 4 or 1 Watts. 




This radio comes with ANT5 SMA-J flexible antenna, BL-5 Li-ion battery (7.4V 1800 mAh), belt clip, wrist strap, AC adapter (8.4V 600 mA) and drop-in charging tray. 
This radio has been provided with a male SMA antenna jack. 

I found the control of the radio rather straight forward (menu driven) though programming the memory channels was not that easy.
This weekend I have been able to contact some nearby repeaters (Zoetermeer 145.750 MHz, Rotterdam 430.300 MHz, Den Haag 430.350 MHz).
Allthough I enlarged the microphone opening in the housing, I received some complaints that the audio modulation on 70 cm is too weak. 

Saturday, 6 September 2014

Not much radio

During the holiday period, we are in Greece near the village of Parga. I decided not to take radio gear with me. I find myself now and then looking into the skies searching for satellite dishes, yagis and long wires :-) All the best from SV country (Epiros).



Parga, Valtos Beach


Meteora, September 8


Arta, September 9


Dodonis, September 7