2E0BLF and South Yorkshire Repeater Group steal money just like a thief!

Yes! Is a thief! He and South Yorkshire Repeater Group.
How can you name one who takes your money for a radio gear and sends nothing?
"Thief", "cheater", "con".
Well, this is Andrew "Andy" Spaxman, 2E0BLF, ex: M2UXC, who lives in 12 Stanhope Gardens, Barnsley S752QB, England (or UK ).

Shame on you Mr. Andy "Thief" Spaxman!

How it's "operates"?
Simple!
He is web-admin at this site: http://www.southyorkshirerepeatergroup.co.uk/shop/
He had a TH-79 for spares to sell. The price was nice, around 50 UK Pound. I wrote a e-mail asking him if he can send the radio to Romania. His answer was "OK" and he said that the shipping will be 25 UKP, so I sent the money via PayPal!
A long time I get no answer from him to my regards about the expedition of the radio...
When I threat him with a complain to local police, he reacted and told me that he will send the money back.
After that, a looong silence but no radio nor money, of course!
So, instead of making that complain, I decided to publish everywhere I can this story! It is now more than a year...

Mr. Andy "Thief" Spaxman has a gang! Yeah, he need a team to steal!
What team? This one:

South Yorkshire Repeater Group

Why I said that? Because the money was sent to that gang and nobody seems to care about! I was trying to contact someone from that "gang" to complain but all the email was censored, I believe!
Also, beware of the other side of Mr. "Thief" Spaxman!
He is the registrant and, of course, web-admin of the www.hostyorkshire.com:

Domain Name: HOSTYORKSHIRE.COM
Created Date: 06-Jun-2003
Expiry Date: 06-Jun-2012
Nameserver: ns2.speedydns.net
Nameserver: ns1.speedydns.net
Registrant Name: Andrew Spaxman
Registrant Company: Host Yorkshire
Registrant Address: 12 Stanhope Gardens
Registrant Address: Off Queens Drive
Registrant Address:
Registrant Address: Barnsley
Registrant Address: South Yorkshire
Registrant Address: S75 2QB
Registrant Address: United Kingdom
Technical Name: Andrew Spaxman
Technical Company: Host Yorkshire
Technical Address: 12 Stanhope Gardens
Technical Address: Off Queens Drive
Technical Address:
Technical Address: Barnsley
Technical Address: South Yorkshire
Technical Address: S75 2QB
Technical Address: United Kingdom
Technical Email: hostmaster@hostyorkshire.com

Maybe I will call him in the middle of the night! Who knows?!? :-)))

Path loss calculator

Everyone knows how hard it is to read books and to apply formulas. No problem! Now you can put the known data (Tx power, Rx sensitivity, antenna height and distance) into a spreadsheet and read the results!
A quick method to check a LOS (Line Of Sight) condition for a radio communication between 1 Mhz and 3 Ghz.
Also, you can find some usefull transformations between Watt and dbm or uV to dbm etc.
The link points to our club's home page.
And, of course, the spreadsheet is in english, so there will be no problem with it!

Click on the picture and enjoy!

Any suggestions are welcome!

17m band mobile QSO with local stations

Saturday, while I was waiting on the road near Sinaia, I was surprised to hear a YO station in QSO with another one.
The surprise was the fact that I was in a valley and the frequency was too high to have a "local" QSO (18.144 MHz).
Of course, the real life often "beats" the theory, so I give a try and made the call for YO2MHJ...
Surprise! He answer back and we made QSY to 18.150 MHz where we had a beautiful QSO from mobile to fixed radio!
The approximative distance between the two stations was a little over 200 km and the path was over a 2k m mountain chain!!! (Sinaia to Deva)
The signal on my mobile setup was 59+20 in the clear with a very little QSB!
My mobile setup is a ICOM IC-7000 radio, followed by a LDG Z11 PRO antenna tuner and a Sirio Titan 4000 mobile CB antenna.
The interesting fact is that this antenna is a base load one with no ground connection wich made this antenna suitable for broadband HF operation.
In fact, I was able to work from 80m to 6m while mobile!

Here is a small movie about my mobile QSO:

I believe that two factors was involved:
-A high F0F2 and
-A high angle of radiation at both stations!

To be further investigated...

73!

Homemade USB Digimodes Interface

I am a big fan of Digimodes as you maybe know already!
Therefore, I am always in the search of the “perfect” Digi Interface which also has to allow me to control the radio via Ham Radio Deluxe, one of the best of it’s kind…
I already have a RiGExpert Standard interface but this is assigned to a Kenwood TS2000 radio at YO3KSR, our club station and this made a big “gap” in my shack.
My “ideal” interface has to be wired to a PC only with one cable.
I want to have a “hardline” PTT and a Carrier Detect (for Echolink use) and a CAT port.
Of course, a sounboard because want to be able to use the interface with some digital voice software which requires two sound boards (one in the laptop).
I made a lot of interfaces in the past; most of them was “the simple” type; only providing isolation between PC and transceiver with two little transformers and a optocoupler for PTT but these ones required a external USB2COM adapter and a lot of wires…
So, my “dream” was still in the “cloud”.

A few days ago, while I was inspecting the junk box, I found a lot of unused “components”…
A USB sound card from Behringer (UC202), some USB2COM adapters and a very little USB hub…
Hmmm… I wonder if I can use those to homebrew a nice versatile Digimodes interface!
I often see fellow hams that build things from scrap! I admire them because this need a lot of time and commitement! I have the last "thing" but I don't have the time so, I think I do not "cheat" by using demo boards or some finished "scrap" in my junk box.


Here is the plan (click to see the "big pictures"):

I choose a USB 2.0 HUB with four outputs as a simple math will show that we need 3 of them in our setup and we can use one for further "developments".
A short trip to a local DIY store provided all the necessary components; the case, the board and some LED’s because I didn’t have the green ones!



I agree with “one picture made a thousand words”, therefore I let you see what is the result.
So, I made a "motherboard" where I put the USB plug, the LED's, and the I/O volume potentiometers. There is some pads left for external DC input regulation with a 7805 circuit (not populated yet) and for isolation transformers (in the eventuality of 50 Hz hum).
I also provided some common ground because I choose not to use isolation. Hmmm, the "isolation" story seems to be a humbug of sime sort because, from what I seen in the market, the CAT port is not isolated so, despite the isolation of the audio and PTT, the PC IS connected to the transceiver! So, why try to complicate my life?
In the upper

The audio USB board UCA-202 from Behringer:
This board has a Stereo Line input and a Stereo Line Output. There is also a "monitor" headphones output, but this is not used. Maybe I will put a little speaker inside the box but is not yet necessary!
The USB2COM adapters:

The USB2COM adapters was tested before te see how they works!

If you can see them here it's a proof that they passed the test, HI!
Like I said, I used one for CAT control. This one was left "in one piece" to provide some mechanical fixing. The one for PTT and CD (Carrier Detect - Open Squelch) was removed from the DB9 connector. This was necessary because all the signals (including Audio I/O) will be sent to the transceiver via one cable).
The PTT was set on COM's RTS and the CD on the COM'S CD (to be clear, HI). Here I use two K817 optocouplers. The PTT port can whitstand about 50 mA at 70V.

The LEDs

I like to have some visual information about the working state of the interface, so I desoldered the original LED from every board and reroute them on the front panel.

From left to right:

-Blue: Power on USB HUB;

-Green: Power on CAT COM1;

-Green: Audio Board recognised by the OS;

-Red: PTT on COM2

-Yellow: CD on COM2.

-Blue: not connected.

The "look":



After closing the case, the HM Interface looked fantastic, especially in the dim light!
On the rear panel, I provided 3 RCA for Audio I/O and for PTT/ They are not wired yet.

Further development may include a second USB audio board for digital voice...

OK, it is not perfect, but the tests showed that this "box" performs well... I have only one complain: the Input level is often too small for the sound board. Despite this, the excellent S/N ratio of the Behringer board made me think twice before adding a small input preamplifier!
The two potentiometers are unused...
The cost is much under a commercial interface... Much!

And, for the final, what will be a CAT-Digimodes interface without a Tom-CAT?

73 de YO3HJV

LATER EDIT:

I added a small preamplifier (around 6 db) on the audio input of the interface. The signal goes into one of the two potentiometers (reserved on the motherboard) to fine tune the input volume. A small Switch on the front panel allow me to bypass the preamplifier because the signal from ICOM IC7000 is loud enough to drive irectly the soundboard.
I also put a 4 GB flash memory for various purposes (the HRD Logbook, audio recording of my QSO's and a small collection of digimodes software-around 300 Mb).

Asa nu!

Acum cateva seri testam o interfata pentru moduri digitale si am ajuns in banda de 20m unde, am avut placuta surpriza sa intalnesc o statie YO, YO3FOP care chema in PSK31.
Imediat i-am raspuns, bucurandu-ma ca voi avea posibilitatea de a schimba cateva cuvinte cu un "vecin".
Iata cum a decurs "dialogul":

CQ CQ de YO3FOP YO3FOP
PSE K
02:54:04> Main
YO3FOP de YO3HJV YO3HJV pse kn

Your Call de YO3FOP

YO3FOP de YO3HJV
nu ati incarcat in program indicativul si statia chemata nu stie cui faceti apelul
Buna dimineata.
Numele Adrian, QTH Bucuresti.
Semnalul este f puternic, merge OK.
Eu tocmai am terminat si testez, o interfata pe USB pentru moduri digitale, care are placa de sunet, com pentru CAT samd..
TU YO3FOP de YO3HJV YO3HJV pse kn


YO3HJV de YO3FOP
Hi OM,
Report : 599 599
Name : ILIE ILIE qth BUCHAREST BUCHAREST loc KN34CK [90.0° 6.6km] KN34CK
Member EPC #2937 ROØ5
Info : QRZ.COM
How copy? BTU OM, YO3HJV de YO3FOP pse kn

YO3FOP de YO3HJV
Copiez f bine, dupa cum am spus, doar ca speram sa vb cu un om, nu cu un calculator...
Multam de legatura, succes si mny DX
YO3FOP de YO3HJV YO3HJV pse kn

YO3HJV de YO3FOP 73 OM and thanks for this BPSK-31 QSO on 2Øm, good DX in 2Ø11.
YO3HJV de YO3FOP sk

Trecem de faza I, in care dl. YO3FOP nu a introdus indicativul in MACRO-urile din HRD (cel putin asa suna predefinitele din DM780 si ajungem la adevarata problema:
Dezinteresul operatorului uman pentru realizarea unei legaturi!
Imi pare ca, folosind exclusiv mesajele predefinite devenim, cumva, sclavii calculatoarelor, negandu-ne tocmai placerea acestui hobby: comunicarea si puntile intre oameni!

Modurile digitale sunt un mijloc de realizare a legaturii si nu un scop in sine; se pare ca am uitat de asta! Este de inteles asa ceva intr-un concurs sau intr-un pile-up atunci cand timpul corespondentului este pretios. In rest, folositi comenzile "macro" cu parcimonie; nu este deloc greu sa adaugi cateva cuvinte, chiar daca tastatura QWERTY nu iti este cel mai bun prieten!
Am intalnit deseori corespondenti cu care am purtat conversatii in moduri digitale. Tocmai acestia au fost motivul pentru care acum sunt atat de atras de ele iar unii chiar mi-au spus ca evita sa intre in dialog cu statiile care shimba doar controalele de rigoare. Adica exact cum puteti observa in "dialogul" de mai sus!
Incercati sa evitati acest tip de legatura! Asa nu!

73 de yo3hjv