Sunday 28th January was the the first radio rally of the year. This was held at Market Rasen in Lincolnshire and was organized and run by the Lincoln Shortwave Club.
I was there representing the club but was also there representing the Repeater Group and running our Stand.
Attending these events is a great thing and allows you to meet and discuss with all those that you have spoken to on the air but also those from further afield. Having the Repeater Group stand there is also a great opportunity to speak to those that use them, raise funds for there maintenance and also make contacts with other who can help make the updates and improvements we have planned.
Myself and Alistair spoke to a number of people, including other local repeater keepers, people offering use of equipment to tune the filters but most of all the users of the repeaters who had there own suggestions of changes we can make.
The event was very well attended and I managed to get this quick snap from the stage looking over the main hall.
So what did I come home with. Well the main thing I was looking for was an upgrade to the 2/70 collinear on the mast. Currently I run the X50 and was wanting to upgrade to the X300. Unfortunately no one had one and the one stall I spoke to said they couldn’t order a large number of different antennas. So there must be an antenna shortage at the moment.
But a look online has found the major retailers do seam to have stock so will be a future purchase in the slightly better weather.
One thing I did acquire was a mini PC. In fact a Dell Optiplex with a 7th gen i5 processor. On this I have decided to install Proxmox. Proxmox is a Virtual Environment host where you can run ‘Virtual Machines’. These are basically PC’s that run inside a single machine all at the same time. They can all share the same hardware. Currently I have a number of RPi’s and other machines running. This will allow me condense then down into a single device saving space and energy.
I will provide more details on this as soon as I have got my own head round it.
I Hope to post a bit more this year and get some more activities completed this year. I recently posted one of the videos showing the Meteor Scatter recording I made in my previous post to TicTok which has got a number of views already. So to those who have found this page from there. Hello to you and welcome.
Also posted was a nice Night Antennas photo. It was a full moon and clear skies.
