Le site de F8ARR

DISh - step 4 - one leg / 18

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 14:50:01 +0100

dish - step3 - let's go !

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 20:18:40 +0100

Once the jig finished i had to test it!

DISH - Step2 - preparation.

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 07:49:36 +0100

Yesterday I bought a Big wood plate in order to create a new JIG. I also bought some "L" aluminium in 15x15mm. More easier to curve. First step : preparation The reference line is drawn. The curve is set. The force Legs are cut. It's time to finish (others things to do) but I can't resist : The future situation ?

some aluminium curving tests

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 19:20:38 +0100

Today I started some tests in order to see how I could curve my "L" aluminium in order to make the front rib. I have been to the supplier and bought some aluminium. Some in 30x30mm and some others in 25x25mm. There was 20x20mm and I hesitated. First thing was to create a sort of Jig (a test one). Has I didn't had a suffisant wood plate, I used an old windows close (I don't know the name in english). FIrst, step : put some nails in order to physically create the curve (for a dish of 3,6m with a 0,356 F/D). Next, I cutted some woods in order to be able to have some hard part on whitch I can stress. And replaced the nails by my small woods. Then I started to stress my aluminium (here in place the 25x25mm in place) A focus. My conclusion : the 25x25mm is too big. I will not be able to stress the front rib like this. I have to use a 20x20mm. This will not be an issue because my back rib should force the position. I new a bigger Jig.

What do I need ?

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:06:28 +0100

Well ok. This is decided. Let's go on 1,2Ghz. So, what do I need to acheive my objective. I have : a decametric, 50Mhz, VHF transceiver IC7400 a crane of 9m up a good feeder between my station to antennas two pc a SDR up to 1,3Ghz capabilities A spid rotor with 1° of "granularity" -- my tower system give me around 3° of movement a system for doing elevation with 1° granularity a sequencer What do I need : An antenna -- parabolic A transverter A power amplifier a Source ok, let's go !

F8ARR - new life ?

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 12:50:11 +0100

Has you may be aware, I'm an EME anthousiast in 2m radioham band. Since small days, my city decided to change the lamp system in the street. Has they said on the small communication we received by mail, "this is a big improvment in our electricity consumption". The new system, based on LED, is increasing my reception level up to +10dB depending the directions of my antennas. Of course, in some direction I remain with +3dB of noise and this is quite good for a 144Mhz EME station in big city like Bordeaux. Anyway I have to realize that my SDR system is more and more occupied by birdies and other noises sources. To be honest, some of them are made my own house. Remote WII charger, CD player of childs, ADSL modem, my own pc... I finished to be in the paranoiac position each time I bought an electronic device. Plugin and unplugin and verifying my SDR band reeiver...arggg will I continu like this ? During christmas holidays my SDR was blinking on same rythm of the electronic Santa-Claus on my neighbour house... STOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP Change life, change interest! So for now, let's go on the 1,2Ghz band Next, many posts on my blog on my interogations, my tests, my constructions.... stay tuned !

protection TVI

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 11:02:50 +0100

En regardant mon catalogue conrad j'ai vu ça : ça devrait pouvoir arranger certains de nos soucis de tvi avec voisinage.... a tester.

RIP mister

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 19:38:17 +0100

So long time listenning to this wonderful man that change a part of my life. Dave Brubeck

BigBrother is watching you !

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 12:16:06 +0100

www.arrl.com (http://www.arrl.com) : http://www.cq-amateur-radio.com/ (http://www.cq-amateur-radio.com/) http://www.urc.asso.fr/ (http://www.urc.asso.fr/) http://www.cq-amateur-radio.com/ (http://www.cq-amateur-radio.com/)

Back !

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 06:05:46 +0100

After a big time out dur to antenna failure (my elevation system was broken and blocked to 43°) this is over now. New elevation system in place. this morning I made a small test with R9SL : good job this is my #60 dxcc.. F8ARR station is back !

RFHF1 and map65

Sun, 27 May 2012 20:26:28 +0100

This night I had a look on 5X1EME expedition. I saw nothing from them. But my map65 interfaced with my RFHAM FOX1 (TRANSFOX) is doing a real great job. Many people on air !! goooooooddd. As you can see, i'm linked to LiveCQ (http://www.livecq.eu/) website on which I upload the CQ my station hear..

F1TE and F8ARR on TV !!

Thu, 03 May 2012 20:48:19 +0100

Last week end there was the meeting of the national french association. On this occasion the local TV made a video of 1,3 minutes on radioham. On this video you can see Lucien, F1TE speacking and more later my station, my face and my antennas ;-) The lines of RRR that you can see come from I2FAK station via the moon of course ! Be carreful, the video is heavy : 12Mbits and it is on FLV format. http://www.f8arr.org/video/TV_show_FR3.flv (video/TV_show_FR3.flv) It can be read with vlc programm.

RFHAMFOX1 and map65 V2

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 18:52:34 +0100

This is a long time ago I didn't made any radio on the moon. The first reason is I suspected a problem of water inside my feeder that inpacted my return loss. I opened a connector on the bottom of the tower, found nothing and closed it. Many month passed working for the REF and others personal stuffs. At least, the next week-end I started again the station decided to resolve my problem. No error on the SWR ... ??!! Well, I set the antenna up and downloaded directly the map65 V2 from this link : http://www.physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/MAP65_2.0_Beta_Release.html (http://www.physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/MAP65_2.0_Beta_Release.html) Once downloaded and installed, tuned my RF HAm FOx on 144.130Mhz and set map65V2 on freq... how to say? incredible ? Yes may be. I have the same sensibility on all the bandwidth than with my transceiver. Has my RFham Fox is also a TX I/Q I start wondering If i'll keep my IC7400 ;-) All this to say that I never received J52EME ;-)

Liberté...

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:29:09 +0100

Les différents gouvernement de nombreux pays essayent de restreindre l'accès à la ressource internet. Cet espace communautaire d'échange, de partage et d'une certaine conception des libertés n'est évidement pas en adéquation avec la phylosophie de consomation actuelle basée sur le tout payant. Les différents projest de lois qui naissent ici en France ou ailleurs, (Etats-unis d'amérique par exemple) sont fortement poussés par les multinationales de l'industrie du disque. Effectivement, celles-ci n'ont rien vu venir et ont fait preuve d'une pauvresses d'imagination, d'innovation et de fougue sur les moyens de diffuser la musique, les films, et établir une économie viable pour leur avenir. Pourtant les idées existaient déjà en 1983 ! Franck Zappa, un vrai créateur, avait déjà prévu l'évolution et envisagée des solutions en place de nos jours ( http://www.newwavehooker.com/2009/04/frank-zappa-t-il-invente-itunes-et.html (http://www.newwavehooker.com/2009/04/frank-zappa-t-il-invente-itunes-et.html)). Si elles avaient été mise en oeuvre en amont, les consomateurs auraient emboités le pas. Malheureusement, ces système sont apparus comme des rustines aux problèmes rencontrés. Wikipédia lutte également de son coté contre les projets en cours et ferme son site Imaginez un monde sans savoir partagé ? Diderot aurait été émerveillé par Internet, par wikipédia qui reprend en quelque sorte son idée d'encyclopédie universelle et son envie de partager et de capitaliser comme on le dit actuellement. Même Google et Facebook envisagent de faire un blackout pour protester... c'est dire.. http://www.lemondeinformatique.fr/actualites/lire-pour-protester-contre-la-loi-sopa-google-amazon-et-facebook-envisage-un-blackout-47340.html (http://www.lemondeinformatique.fr/actualites/lire-pour-protester-contre-la-loi-sopa-google-amazon-et-facebook-envisage-un-blackout-47340.html)

HDSDR under Linux ? YES !

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:31:22 +0100

Today at the office I set up my funcube dongle on my Fedora. Hamlib and Grig for pilot and quisk for listening. Well, ok this is working has usual : WELL. Now, let geek a bit. I have setup wine and the sound with winecfg. Then I made an installation of the last HDSDR program with wine. Once the installation has been completed with no issue, I ran it. and it work like usual : WELL ;-) For thoses that are not aware, HDSDR is a windows program ;-)

Transfox + win + HDSDR + VAC + QRSS_VD

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 09:29:44 +0100

Today I made some tests under windows XP system. TRansfox + HDSDR + VAC + QRSS_VD. Transfox set on 10130.0 MHz. HDSDR set on 10.1396MHz, bandwidth set to 40kHz USB (free - http://www.hdsdr.de/ (http://www.hdsdr.de/)) VAC (virtual audio cable to link HDSDR output to QRSS_VD input (26€ - http://software.muzychenko.net/eng/vac.htm (http://software.muzychenko.net/eng/vac.htm)) QRSS_VD, software of QRSS (free - http://www.swharden.com/blog/qrss_vd/ (http://www.swharden.com/blog/qrss_vd/)) ftp://ftp2.rfham.com/rfham/Premier%20contact%20avec%20le%20VAC.pdf (ftp://ftp2.rfham.com/rfham/Premier%20contact%20avec%20le%20VAC.pdf)

Linux + Transfox + quisk + ALSA + fldigi

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:59:41 +0100

Has for now I'm able to contol my Transfox with hamlibs and listenning radio with Quisk, i needed to interface with digital tools. But on SDR, how do we redirect BF output of quisk to digital software ? This is quite frustrating to not be able to redirect easily this bf output to a virtual port. I had to do many tests with Jack, pulseaudio and others stuff... finally, the solution seem to be the natural ALSA package. But ! (the is always a BUT) you need to recompile your alsa tools in order to obtain the magic module snd-aloop. (look to you distro before if you don't have it). How it works ? Easily. The Aloop module provide two loopback devices. When something enter in one of the both, the sound goes out to the other. For more information, I will not write more about it. Others have already done the Job better than I could : http://alsa.opensrc.org/Jack_and_Loopback_device_as_Alsa-to-Jack_bridge (http://alsa.opensrc.org/Jack_and_Loopback_device_as_Alsa-to-Jack_bridge) (on this tuto, don't install the jack bridge, we will not use it) So the idear is the following TRANSFOX --(I/Q)--> Soundcard microphone (hw:0,0) --> QUISK --(BF output to loopback (hw:1,0) --> ALOOP MODULE --> BF goes out to hw:1,1 --> Mic in in fldigi. Transfox, Grig, quisk and fldigi on debian 6 (64bits) (i did not set quisk frequency properly) So now ? When a big signal is received on the bandwidth of fldigi, other signals decrease. (software or hardware?) Decode are not so good has if i was directly connected to my ic7400 transceiver (certainly some tunes to be done on .asoundrc : rates, buffers...) to be continued...

Transfox and hamlibs !

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 14:06:01 +0100

Hello, great news for this last days of the year. Hamlibs are working with the Transfox. In the git release, hamlibs version 1.2.15-git (http://n0nb.users.sourceforge.net/ (http://n0nb.users.sourceforge.net/)) the transfox communication has been corrected. This post is really fast and I have just made some small and fast tests but anyway, on the small I have done, this is working ! I used grig (http://groundstation.sourceforge.net/grig/ (http://groundstation.sourceforge.net/grig/)) to use a graphical interface with my hamlibs and quisk (http://james.ahlstrom.name/quisk/ (http://james.ahlstrom.name/quisk/)) for SDR receiving. Here is the screenshot : Grig permit me to control the transceiver, Quisk to receive. let continue the tests... Merry Christmas to all.

Transfox (RfHamFoxOne = RHFO) news.

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:25:46 +0100

Well, time consumed and I'm still playing with my toy. First impression is the connection and the box. The box is small, and quite heavy. The box is in steal and letters are well printed in the front (not stickers). My freind F1JKJ told me that on my photos, the knob look like not so good. This is just a photo problem because the knob permit a good contact and let a solidity feeling. Concerning the command they are really easy to manage ! Pushing "A" and "B" button permit to enter in menu, turning the knob permit to change values. Changing frequency is also easy. Dependig when pushing the button, you navigate on the Frequency (Khz, Mhz, Ghz). Easy, Easy, Easy !! I made an installation on my windows system (XP-SP2) with HDSDR and this is working like a charm. I made also a configuration with SDR-RADIO + map65iq and I had good results. My decode on map65iq was has good has my wsjt9 on my other PC. This is the first time I have a so good reception on my map65iq. For now, i'm working with hamlib team in order to permit a communication with the Transfox. I had a serial port problem under 2.6.35 kernel. (PTT goes up). I had to remove this functionnality from the transceiver menu in order to temporary resolving the issue. I'm now able to access via terminal 19200bauds, 8N1 to the Transceiver and manage it. I made a log to hamlib support and I'm expecting an implementation. Stay tuned !

Christmas before the date ! RFHAMFOXONE

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 12:52:36 +0100

Today this is christmas before the date ! I have the opportunity to test this wonderful RFHAMFOXONE transceiver. This TRX is a SDR one and it covers in RX and TX (yes !) from 1Mhz to 1450Mhz ! amazing ! You can have all details here : http://www.rfham.com/index.html?c77.html (http://www.rfham.com/index.html?c77.html) Front of the transceiver, small, clean and class! two buttons (what for ? I do not know... not read the doc for the moment.. héhé yes, i'm too excited..). A big button that must be a VFO. Rear panel. I/Q entry for TX, I/Q for RX, usb command, PTT, Key entry, power connector, and Antenna. Hue there is also a band decoder ! Well for now, let's try ! stay tuned !!

GlobalQSL next...

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 21:12:24 +0100

Has I said on my previous post, I made a command for 10 cards to globalQSL. First thing interesting: I have been able to track all steps of my commands on the site but also by email. For each step (payment, printing, sent) I received a notification by email. Really good workflow ! In global, in took 3 weeks to receive my ten cards. In fact I received 17 cards in the package :-) So I received a good packaging postal present ;-) Good package isnt-it ? Cards on the package Front side of the card. The photo is not explicit due to the flash. Black is a bright and strong black. Greys of the moon are really perfect and my callsign is has I designed throw the designer tool : lighter black than the background. Callsign is just sugested like I wanted. (like signals we decode from the moon that are included on the noise of the band) Back of the QSL. Also bright, good feeling on the hand. The card is good quality. (again bad flash !! for sure, i'm not a photographer) So for now, I'm a Global QSL customer ;-). I made a second design for my mobile contacts I made while driving to Job on 20m. On thing funny, you can add directly throw the web interface of GlobalQSL your QSO manually. When I arrive at job, I go on site, insert QSO, choose my "/m" design and run. My correspondant will receive my QSL via buro (it took me less than one minute to do it) I'm addict ? I think so yes!

Command to GlobaQSL

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 06:19:02 +0100

Hello I have registered an account to GlobalQSL and designed a card. I bought a sample of 10 shipped to home in order to see the quality... some news soon.. stay tuned.

Réveillez-vous !

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 06:09:18 +0100

http://www.laquadrature.net/fr/pas-de-censure-au-nom-des-consommateurs (http://www.laquadrature.net/fr/pas-de-censure-au-nom-des-consommateurs)

Interview of GLobal QSL !

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 12:09:29 +0100

With my freind F1JKJ we are making during our spare time a podcast dedicated to radio-ham. This podcast is in french language. On the last issue, we have an exception. Laurent, F1JKJ made an interview of 4X6UU of GlobalQSL that explain us his concept. This interview is in English (not translated). This is here : http://www.qtc.fr/emissions/qtc-n-9/ (http://www.qtc.fr/emissions/qtc-n-9/)

QSL received

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 11:59:03 +0100

Yesterday I have been to my Radio Club to see if I had some QSL cards. On some of them, three was quite interesting. Just for information, During the following QSO I was in IN94QS that represent QSO on distance around 1300km. I was running 50 watts on a Halo antenna.... on 2m. The car was simply stoped on the side of the road.. good no ? OE3FVU OE3OKS OE3WOG