Only one day after Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia, I noticed that radio amateurs from both regions started to yell at each other on 20 meters. The same was probably true for other bands too, but I haven’t been on other bands for a while. In only 10 minutes, my vocabulary expanded quite a bit.

Politics and our hobby should be seperated by a wall of at least a mile high, but that’s nearly impossible in this case, as both groups share the same prefix. Let’s hope they can figure things out, preferably in a peaceful manner.

Just a pic of my antennas. Simplicity all over the place. I have no other choice, really. I live in a rental house and landlords aren’t quite fond of antennas. I’m not complaining though.

I now have three verticals and a bunch of dipoles on my roof:

• Discone antenna (Diamond, stainless steel version, also usable for transmitting on 6 meter, 2 meter, 70 centimeter and 23 centimeter)
• Diamond X50 (2 meters, 70 centimeters)
• Sirtel GPE (5/8 wave for 10 meters)
• Multi-band dipole for 10, 15, 20 and 40 meters (all dipoles end up in one feed point)

It works, and it works even better than expected.

English has been my second language since elementary school. As far as I’m concerned, English is quite easy to master, although its rules not always consistent.

A slim chance and a fat chance turn out to be the same, but a wise guy and a wise man are definitely two different people. A house can burn up as it burns down, a form is filled in by filling it out and an alarm goes off by going on.

There’s no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither pine nor apple in pineapple, English muffins do not come from England and French fries do not come from France.

People recite at a play and play at a recital, they ship by truck, park on driveways, drive on parkways and people have noses that run and feet that smell.

Oh well.

Many Hams started out as a pirate. I’m no exception. I built my first medium wave transmitter in the sixties, at the age of eight. The range was only about 10 meters, but I was proud as one could be. Technology progressed quickly. I started to use tubes (EL84) and better antennas. We made many QSOs, my friends and I. Playing music wasn’t done much, if at all.

CB (still illegal at the time) replaced the medium wave band, the FM broadcast band replaced CB. It didn’t take long before I discovered the 2 meter and HF amateur bands. A number of old friends joined me. Most licensed Hams knew me personally and didn’t care much about my activities, neither did they report me to the authorities. The reason was probably that I built everything myself and blended into ‘the scene’ perfectly. Internet didn’t exist at the time, making it nearly impossible for listeners to find out whether a station was licensed or not. Call books were always out of date by at least a year.

Pirate stations still exist, but something has changed. They don’t care about technology and probably can’t tell the difference between a capacitor and a resistor. Jamming is now the main activity, especially on repeaters. We shut down PI2FLD (Almere) for a while and now PI3RTD (Rotterdam) has been switched off.

Sad, really sad.

Nice looks, small, wide band receive, good medium wave reception and powerful enough for every day work. What can go wrong?

One important thing. European amateurs expected the European version of the VX-3 to support 6.25 KHz channel steps. Channel steps of 6.25 KHz have been standard in Europe for a while now, and are (amongst other services) used for PMR, the EU equivalent of FRS.

The VX-3 doesn’t. Maybe a future model (VX-4?) will. Until that time, many radio amateurs will be better of by ignoring the VX-3 and wait until Yaesu does it right.

Last week, I sold my Yaesu FT-897D. Was there something wrong with it? No, absolutely not. I just didn’t use it much, at least not on HF. I have better, more sensitive and more selective transceivers at home for that job. As a result, the 897D was only used for VHF and UHF.

Then the worries started. I needed something to replace it, but what? I live in a highly RF polluted area, and the FT-897D was one of the few transceivers capable of receiving on VHF and UHF without intermod problems. There were a few options and I tried them all.

Yaesu FT-7800(E)
A nice dual band transceiver, small and reliable. Intermod problems? Some, but setting the squelch system to S9 solved most of the problems. However, the 7800 lacks a cross band repeater system, something I had on my wish list for some time.

Yaesu FT-8900R
Quad band (6 meters, 10 meters, 2 meters and 70 cm). About the same size and about the same perfomance as the FT-7800. Cross band repeater works very well, as long as you reduce the output power to ‘low’. If not, it runs hot, really hot. Intermod problems can be solved in the same way as with the FT-7800.

Still, both transceivers lack the superb selectivity and filtering of the FT-897D. I have another Ham in my neighborhood (distance +/- 100 meters). If he’s using our 70 cm repeater – regardless of his output power – both mobile transceivers give up. A hissing noise is all that’s left.

Kenwood TM-V71(E)
A new model from Kenwood. Cross band capable and delivering 50 Watts output on both bands. When left in default settings, intermod is as bad as it can get, much worse than both Yaesu’s and almost as bad as the Alinco DR-635 (the last transceiver on earth you want to buy when living in an RF polluted area).

However, the TM-V71 has a nice feature in the menu: AIP (Advanced Intercept Point). When I switched on AIP, all intermod disappeared and my neighboring station can squeeze as much power out of his station as he wants, without bothering me. You lose some sensitivity (about 6dB), but that’s a small price to pay and a non issue for its intended use (local QSOs).

The TMV-71 stays.

It has been a rumor for some time, but now there’s some evidence that Icom and Kenwood are joining forces. Take a look at then new Kenwood TMW-706 and the Icom IC-208H and you will see that it’s the same dual band transceiver.

Kenwood TMW-706

Icom IC-208H

Download product info here (Icom version): Icom IC-208H PDF

Will Kenwood disappear? Will Icom disappear? New brand names? IcWood? KenCom? Questions, questions, but no answers (yet).

This week, I received the 100 blank QSL cards I ordered from GlobalQSL. The printing quality is outstanding and surpasses all my expectations! A nice glossy finish makes makes these cards really stand out.

Any remarks? Yes. When you design the back of the card, you must leave a certain part of the card (right hand corner) free of images or text, as this is the part where QSL information will be printed. However, I expected blank cards to be pre-printed with “To station”, “Frequency”, “RST” and such, so I could take a pen and fill in the blanks. Unfortunately, the right hand corner of the card is completely empty.

I’ll have to use stickers, I’m afraid.

In case you’re thinking that this award actually exists: it doesn’t. Maybe it should. ‘HBH’ is an additional note I make in my log book. It stands for ‘Hi Bye Ham’, a special breed of radio amateurs. The typical HBH has only one line, which is something like “PD0AC, you’re 5/9, QRZ?”

Technically speaking I made a QSO, but after running into a Hi Bye Ham, I feel like I’m suffering from a very bad hangover. What’s the guy’s name? Where does he live? Is he married? What type of gear does he use? Has he ever been to Holland? Does he own a dog? Any subject would be nice! Any conversation with a duration exceeding three minutes would be great!

Most English HAMs don’t seem to suffer from the HBH disease, neither do American HAMs. I wish I knew why, but thankfully there are lots of them to talk to every day.

Pigeons are sensitive to electromagnetic fields, so they say. True or not? Time to put this to the test. I have a regular visitor, a turtle dove, who takes a daily nap on one of the radials of my 5/8 wave vertical for 10 meters. He/she must really like it there, almost every day, the bird is present.

I set my Yaesu FT-840 to 29.300 MHz, FM mode, and the initial power output to 5 Watts. No reaction. At 10 Watts, the bird raises its head and starts to look around a bit. At 15 Watts, my feathered fan becomes restless and starts to hop around. At 25 Watts, the turtle dove takes off.

I repeated the test a few times, just to be sure. On average, the turtle dove leaves my antenna when the power is around 25 Watts. Amazing, these animals.