Chris McMahon

I’ve been discussing HF packet radio with Alan, G0WDA, for a month or two. Alan would like to get active with it as an alternative route for bringing Packet BBS bulletins and messages into the UK via his BBS (GB7ESC). Neither of us have ever used HF packet before so we’ve had to do some research into how to set it up.

Alan has an Icom 7300 that he’d like to use, and I have one too. Having the same rig will make it easier to set up tests. I’ve just finished building two NinoTNC N9600A’s that have 300 baud capability. They still need to be boxed but we’ve already proven that boxes aren’t a technological necessity for packet to work ;-)

My next job is to make up cables from the TNC (9-pin D-plug) to the 7300’s (13-pin DIN plug). It’s a simple cable, TxAudio, RxAudio, PTT and ground and I’ve got all the required parts - I just need to sit down with the soldering iron and wiring diagram.

Alan has applied for, and been granted, a HF NoV for 20m, so that’s our target band for now. I’m not intending to be active on HF packet other than to help Alan setup and configure his station though. If we can get a 20m signal to cross the couple of km between us then Alan should be able to work other BBSs at a longer distance. At least that’s our current thoughts on the subject.

Watch this space for more news of how our experiments go.

On 30th June 2025 I worked CS2WWA on 20m FT8 and then noticed a number of other callsigns ending with WWA. I looked up CS2WWA on QRZ.com and saw it was a contest station. I followed a link to the HamAward site which looked to be a real-time update on progress for all the Activators and Hunters in the contest. I thought “I guess I might be a hunter too” and looked up my callsign. I had 2 points which obviously wasn’t going to win me any prizes ;-)

I’ve never taken part in any radio contest, other than as a bystander providing a 59 001 type report to a contest station I happened to work, but then I’d not tried since I retired and had more time on my hands. So I looked at the rules…contact any WWA activator on each band and each mode every day for 7 days. I decided to see how well I could do and started trying to contact all the WWA stations that I could find.

Many stations weren’t exotic, but two points from a station less than 1000km away is still 2 points. I picked up at least 2 new countries in the contest. UP7WWA added Kazhakstan on 4 bands and 2 modes (FT8/FT4). I’d been trying for Kazhakstan for months, but I could only hear stations there that couldn’t hear me. I also picked picked up East Malaysia (9M4WWA).

I wasn’t trying to work the contest 24 hours per day, or even spending every waking hour at it. I filled in gaps in my day trying to get more contacts. I found it frustrating at times with more hunters than activators and whilst my RF setup is OK it’s not competitive with stations running a lot of power or having fantastic rotatable beam antennas. A 7 day contest was OK, in that I knew I couldn’t operate for long hours to cover the entire contest, but it also seemed to drag a little towards the end, with the same stations being contacted over and over again.

Having said that, it was fun and I’m sure this won’t be my last contest. I finished with 217 contacts (434 points) which put me at position 1416 globally (out of over 66,000 stations who participated in some way) in the mixed mode section and 76th in England. As a digi mode only competitor I came 152nd globally and 9th in England. Not bad for a part-time effort!

This blog is as much about the present as the past. There will be more history eventually, but now something more current.

Having retired just as the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020 I’ve been catching up on years of neglected hobbies. I’ve long been wanting to get back into Amateur Radio and 2025 proved to be the year to do that. I’m finally in a location where I can put up a few antennas and when I talked about putting up an HF vertical my wife’s immediate response was “where can we put it - I’ll clear some space for it”! That gave me the big push to start over.

Things I wanted to do were/are:

AX.25/packet radio HF, probably data modes MMDVM and/or AllStar node

I’ve already made a start with some of these.

I made contact with the local packet BBS (GB7ESC) sysop (Alan - G0WDA) and with his help I’ve set up a LinBPQ node on a Raspberry Pi with a link on 2m into the BBS node. This is currently working with a USB sound card, Direwolf and a handheld, so not ideal.

Myself and Alan are interested in doing more, so we currently have a project underway to build a 9600 baud (or maybe 19200 baud) link between us on 70cm. This isn’t really essential, but we’re doing it to further our knowledge. I’ve built two NinoTNCs and had them connected back to back at the audio level and managed to send traffic through them. Alan and I both have 9600 baud capable 70cm transceivers so the next step is to put the TNCs on air.

I’ve made more progress with HF. I’ve got my 20+ year old Icom IC-7400 back in action and have an 80m-6m vertical antenna installed in the garden. So far I’ve been using FT8 and some FT4 and have made almost 900 contacts so far, with 89 (not all confirmed) DXCC countries so far. I’m enjoying myself immensely with data modes, but once the shack is properly sorted out I’m sure I’ll get back onto SSB too.

I’ve also made progress with digital and analogue nodes on VHF/UHF. I have a tiny MMDVM node which uses a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W and RF hat running WPSD, that allows me to have local access into the digital networks. I’m also nearly finished building an AllStar node, again using a Raspberry Pi and a USB interface to the RF and audio processing. I’m pretty sure it’s working so the next step is to connect into some talk groups to check if anyone can actually hear me.

I’ll use the blog to keep track of my progress with these, and other, radio projects.

An early experiment with amateur radio data was using RTTY on 2m with the Newcastle group of friends. A couple of them decided to write a RTTY emulator for the Acorn Electron computers they owned. I had a Sharp MZ-80K and thought if they can do it on an Electron then surely I can do it on my Sharp. After a week or two I’d written what I thought was needed, but the only way to test it was to try it on air. I wired it up and put a call out. A station from Bishop Auckland replied and I explained that it was my first test. I was interested to know how it was working from his perspective. He replied to say that he wouldn’t have know it was the first test. The only thing he saw wrong was that every time I typed ‘T’ he saw ‘M’. That was an easy fix and I was on 2m RTTY regularly after that.

Some time around 1986 I heard about AX.25 aka packet radio. As a computer geek this intrigued me so it didn’t take long before I was able to use it. My first TNC was an AEA Pakratt 232. This was more than just an AX.25 TNC, it could also be used for RTTY and other modes. My main interest was AX.25 and I quickly started to explore the network of digipeaters and BBSs. I also dabbled with TCP/IP over AX.25 and at one point, probably in late 1986 I was allocated the IP address 44.131.1.6. This was many years before the WWW appeared so internet use was pretty rare back then.

I soon became interested in the non-IP network and decided that Blackpool needed a BBS of its own. I applied for a Notice of Variation (NOV) for my licence to allow me to run an unattended BBS. To get an NOV was fairly complex with approvals needed from various organisations (government and military). You also needed a group of named ‘keepers’ who could be called at any time of the day or night to shut the station down if requested by the DTI. In my case this entailed having a new electrical spur run up to the loft where the BBS and radio equipment was set up with a secure box on the exterior wall the the keepers could unlock to power everything off.

Over time user access on 2m and 70cm was set up, along with 70cm forwarding links. With the assistance of the North West Packet Users Group (NWPUG) I was loaned two 23cm transceivers and long yagis to implement more robust links to the south and north.

I’m sure I’ll return to these packet years in future posts. My packet years ended in around 1996/97 when my first son was born. Running a packet BBS wasn’t really something I had time for with, at first, one new baby, and in time a second one.

I’d got my Class B license! A Class A licence needed a morse code test pass for access to the HF (shortwave) bands and my morse wasn’t up to spec then (and it still isn’t). Class B allowed me to transmit on the amateur bands above 30MHz.

I bought a Yaesu FT290R (https://www.rigpix.com/yaesu/ft290r.htm) for 2m (144-146MHz) FM and SSB. It had a built in whip antenna which I used for most of my early contacts.

The first day that I was both licenced and had my FT290R, I walked to the top of Knowle Hill in Blackpool (not a big hill but the highest place in town apart from the Tower) to see who I could talk to. I’ll try to find my old log book to get the details, but I remember my first contact was with a trucker driving up the M6. Unfortunately I don’t recall his callsign. After breaking my duck, I went on to make many more contacts on 2m, often whilst walking on the beach at Norbreck near Blackpool.

I also became friends with John, G4ANJ, at this time. John was an amazing person. He was blind but didn’t let that get in his way. Apart from being a ham, he also worked as a computer programmer and even designed, built (using wire-wrap) and programmed his own talking computers. John passed away far too young and I miss my evenings spent with him learning about computer hardware!

Soon after my first contact I returned to university, in Newcastle upon Tyne, for my final year. I still found time for some radio though. I regularly chatted with a great group from the area. Unfortunately I only recall one callsign from the group - G8PWX (Pip Willy X-ray as he called himself) - Alec who later became G4PEC.

I made a Slim Jim antenna for 2m and tied it to the balcony of my student apartment which allowed me to reach further than just the built-in whip antenna. It also allowed me to listen in when Alec did some meteor scatter tests with a Swedish station and even with a simple antenna I was able to hear some brief intelligible pings. I could also go mobile with my Slim Jim and once I took it on the Metro to get to the Town Moor in the snow. There was a lift on and I worked Sweden with just 2.5W which I was amazed by at the time!

PS. I found my old logbook and some of the other Newcastle area callsigns:

G6EWD - Phil G3VYZ - Les G3ZXN - Ernie G6AUC - Harry G8VWG - Adrian

Back in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s my grandad gave me a MW/LW radio. I listened to the commercial stations, but when I tuned away to the emptier parts of the radio’s bands I heard scratchy voices. I asked what they were and someone told me about radio hams. I was probably listening to top band ragchews.

Having gained an interest in listening I bought a small SW radio with plug in coils (Codar?) to cover the various bands. This opened up the SW broadcast bands and with a bit of BFO tweaking I could listen to amateurs from around the world too, although only the strongest stations so I wasn’t really listening to the whole world.

When I could afford a little more money, I upgraded to a Trio JR310 receiver (https://www.rigpix.com/kenwood/jr310.htm). This really opened up the amateur bands for me and I spent many a long night huddled up with the radio logging stations near and far. I joined the RSGB as a listener (RS-station) some time around 1977.

During an industrial ‘year out’ from university in 1980/81 I was able to complete my RAE studies at Grimsby Technical College and passed it first time. It helped that from 1979 the RAE was based on multiple-choice questions rather than written answers ;-)

And so in the summer of 1981 I became licensed as G6FCI, which has been my callsign ever since.