News

15.09.2010

It's been a long time since my last update, five years in fact. The main reason for this update is to add a newer version of UKW Tools which compiles under wxWidgets 2.8.x, the Windows version hasn't been updated as it is self contained. Personally a lot has happened, a divorce, change of countries, and re-marriage! I left Belgium in late 2008 and am now living in Leicester, studying at the Univerity here. My radio interests have shifted a little, I am involved with SDR work, particularly uWSDR and D-Star, particularly the infrastructure, aiming to inject some amateur radio and remove some of the politics in it. I hope to do more updates in the future.

14.07.2005

After being in Belgium since August last year, and having my main radio here since May, I finally got active under the callsign ON/G4KLX. I finally got inspiration after seeing Christof ON4IY making the first QSOs between Belgium and Sweden on 6 and 3cms. He very kindly lent me yagis for 2M, 70cms and 23cms as well as a small tripod, pole and co-ax. My first QSO was Christof to give him a new square on 23cms, his own! Since then I've had some nice QSOs on 23cms and even heard SM6AFV at a distance of close to 1000kms, but no QSO. I live in a fourth floor apartment, with no lift, and I am clear to the east but not to the west, north and south are completely impossible. I have uploaded logs for my operation and they are to be seen on the Logs page.

30.06.2005

Having played with the new Google maps, I found that I could zoom right into my old QTH in Pfaffhausen so I've added it to my pictures page. I've also added the .m file that was not copied over from qsl.net. This coming weekend I will be active with ON4SHF/P from the Ardennes near to the Luxembourg border.

27.03.2005

The new edition of DUBUS dropped through my door a few days ago with it was an update of the beacons list for 6m, 4m, 2m and 70cms. So I took the opportunity to update Baken and change the way that rain scatter points are calculated. So I recommend that you update to the latest version of Baken. I've also spent time to think about implementing JT65 for Linux, and one day I may even do it !

6.02.2005

A belated happy new year to you all. I've been busy with work and other things so no updates to my web pages, or any activity of the radio either. As you can see I have moved my pages to QSLNET.DE which offers a better service than QSL.NET. The only update is to change Christian HB9CAU's web address, it was he who got me onto QSLNET.DE in the first place. I will be active in the coming contests on microwaves with the ON4SHF team.

13.11.2004

This is just an update to tell people what I have been doing for the last three months. I am settled in Brussels and have just signed for another three month contract at my place of wotk, which will take me through until the end of February 2005, I intend to stay in Belgium even when this contract ends. Amateur radio has been on the back burner for a while, however I did operate in the October 70cms and up contest from ON4SHF and had a great time. I only got a home Internet connection about a month ago, although it is blindingly fast, certainly better than the speeds I'm seeing here in the UK (BTW I'm on holiday in the UK as I type this). I do intend to work on both WS Tools and UKW Tools although after spending a day staring at badly written Windows C++ code, working on more C++ code, no matter how well written is not high on my priorities. Please note that there is a bug in UKW Tools when plotting pseudo-3D maps with resolutions of less than 90 metres, they look a bit strange, its on my TODO list.

Before I went to Belgium I started playing with Octave a tool which is similar to the commercial Matlab that allows for visualising and prototyping of mathematical functions. This includes DSP work. It does not work in real time, but thats not the point, and it comes with great libraries and is mostly compatible with Matlab so Matlab add-ons can be added easily. A simple script I wrote plots a parabola in 3D and can be found here. I also did an analysis of the very clever 45 degree phase shifters written by Peter G3PLX and published in RadCom, but I can't find the source code at the moment.

12.08.2004

No real updates, just to inform people that I am moving to Belgium on the 15th August to start work. I hope to stay there for a considerable length of time and so I'll probably get an ON callsign and get active again as soon as possible. My e-mail address has changed and can be seen on the front page, and I've updated the logs page a little. At some point in the future I may have a powerful 9cms system for sale since it isn't available in Belgium. Its a pity since I was looking forward to trying the band out.

The above does mean that development of my software will stop for at least a few weeks, in fact I am not taking any computers to Belgium initially. I will probably use Internet cafes to access my e-mail and such like. I suggest that if you have any questions that you wait until I put up an announcement on here that I am connected again as I can't really do justice to any enquiries until I am established.

27.07.2004

Another super Aurora. I seemed to spend the whole of Tuesday on the radio working DX, I thought it was a little better than the Sunday, and better (for me) than the big events in late 2003. I got three new squares (IN97, JN04, JN15) as well as lots of nice QSOs. I have updated my 2m log book and 2m map. During the opening I finally changed to a new log book, my previous one was started on 24 November 1985 and has lasted all this time, the previous log book had lasted only two years. Thats says something about my activity I think.

25.07.2004

UKW Tools 0.3.5 has been released. Not an earth shattering update but it does fix at least one and has a few small enhancements. I've also updated the Links page because the European Microwave News doesn't exist any more, and added a link to Marc N2UO for his 23cms EME activities. Also added a data file for UKW Tools of all the mainland UK UHF TV transmitters, I hope someone finds it useful. The Globe v2.0 files have been withdrawn, so I have changed the JavaScript calculator, the link on the Software page and of course UKW Tools to point/handle the v1.0 data. UKW Tools can handle both the v1.0 and v2.0 data. I have also made a note that Mandrake is not supported, it seems to have all sorts of problems with compiling wxGTK and WS Tools/UKW Tools and I have better things to do than sort out someone else's mess.

On a lighter note, logs have been updated for 2m, to take into account the large aurora that has happened today. No new squares, but it was very enjoyable anyway.

6.07.2004

A relatively small update. I removed the reference to digital voice on my Software page, some people have started modifying Dream to use less bandwidth and I think that represents the best path forward. I have added a small Palm PDA program that I modified to work with eight character locators and the UK only NGR system, its great for microwave work in the UK cumulatives contest. That is to be found on my Software page where the digital voice stuff used to be.

I have added 6 and 3 cms logs for 2004 to reflect my activity in the last cumulatives contest in June, yes, my first QSO in 2004 was on 6cms. I have also added a dummy entry for 9cms since I now have a transverter (DB6NT naturally) and an amplifier for that band. The next activity on 9cms in the UK is is October which gives me lots of time to do nothing about getting it ready.

The Links page has been updated to add a number of pages that I have bookmarked in FireFox and which I think other people may find interesting.

6.06.2004

Lots of changes this time. Added a list of EU VOR beacons for use with UKW Tools. Updated my For Sale page to reflect some selling. A new version of Baken has been released which has the completed beacon update based on the DUBUS beacon list, all bands are now up to date. A new version of WS Tools has been released, I still call it beta, but it includes many improvements over the previous release and it has come to the stage whereby I have removed LinWSJT and now only WS Tools exists. The biggest (invisible) change is a completely new FSK441 decoder which is much more sensitive than the one that was used in the previous releases.

15.05.2004

Released UKW Tools 0.3.4a which is a minor-ish upgrade to 0.3.4 (hence the name). If you are happy with UKW Tools 0.3.4 then don't bother to upgrade, 0.3.5 will be much more interesting, but if you have problems with 0.3.4 under Windows then try this version.

12.04.2004 - Evening

WS Tools 0.4.8c is released. There was a problem with the sound card handling which would cause WS Tools to die in FSK441 between two periods. It was one of those bugs that might not show itself for ten minutes but may happen in less then one. Anyway its been found and hopefully fixed. Please try WS Tools 0.4.8c, you'll like it.

12.04.2004 - Morning

WS Tools 0.4.8b is released. This is almost a release candidate for 0.4.8, apart from my wishing to finish JT6M for the final 0.4.8 release. This one is a much happier release than 0.4.8a which had problems, especially under Windows, but even Linux was affected. The PortAudio library that was supposed to make my life easier, didn't. So I had to do some native Windows programming for the sound card support, I borrowed the code from Dream, the open source DRM receiver, albeit much modified by me. I reverted back to the original sound handling for Linux which has been reliable for a long time. Please try this version out.

I've also done some work with plotting map images on UKW Tools instead of the terrain images. The results have been mixed, the mechanics of it have been done, it works, but the problem is getting suitable maps. I have been using maps from Expedia but the scale of the maps that are most suitable for the scales that UKW Tools uses, don't show enough detail to be usable. My next plan is to download a larger, more detailed map and then reduce it in size to be correct in UKW Tools, thereby keeping the detail. I only hope that it doesn't look too cluttered.

10.04.2004

I've uploaded another towns.dat for UKW Tools that covers SCG. The reason I am writing an entry here is to explain the naming of UKW Tools. The UKW in the name is from the German word(s) "Ultra-Kurzewelle" which directly translated means Ultra Short Wave, but more correctly translates to VHF. It does not mean "UK Wireless", and never has. I know that we Brits tend to be monoglot, but this is ridiculous. The person who came up with the supposed meaning of UKW didn't (a) do any research or (b) contact me. You should be ashamed of yourself ! For further reference Baken means Beacons in German, and is pronounced Baa-k-n.

8.04.2004

So, UKW Tools 0.3.4 has been released. Its a relatively minor upgrade but I am sure its worth it, especially if you live in the Pacific near New Zealand. In the meantime I have seen UKW Tools running on a Mac OS X laptop unmodified and it also runs on an AMD 64-bit CPU running Linux. Thanks to Charles M0DMF for those. Zoli HA5CQZ has provided a list of Hungarian cities which has been added to my list of downloadable files for UKW Tools. In other news I have received my Septum Plate feed for my 23cms EME system which means that the last piece of the jigsaw is the construction of the dish. My problem. However due to unexpected circumstances I will have a lot of free time in the near future which will be good for my software development, but not my bank balance. I'll probably spend time on WS Tools over the easter holiday, so expect a new (working ?) release some time next week.

28.03.2004

The response from the DUBUS article has been excellent, a number of people have started using UKW Tools around Europe (so far) and I've had feedback from people using both Windows and Linux. A bug has been found in 0.3.3 when going from 180 deg W to 180 deg E or vice versa, this will be fixed in 0.3.4. In the meantime I have extracted the latest beacon data out of Baken 0.5.2 and made that available as a separate download, as well as a list of the major cities of the world. Wolf DF5AI has supplied a file containing the cities of Germany. If you have any data that you would like to share with other people then please send it to me.

Could the people who contacted me about UKW Tools from the Czech Republic and Hungary please do so again as I have lost your e-mail addresses, thanks.

I have made the first release of WS Tools (LinWSJT as it used to be called) for both Linux and Windows. It is a test release, and can be found on my Software page. Please download it and have a play, the GUI doesn't look very good at the moment though. I also need a decent icon (as an .ico and a .png file please) for it too. I'm afraid testing has not been so thorough with this release, especially under Windows so I am sure it has bugs. Please report them to me using the e-mail address on my front page.

24.03.2004

Added a Javascript calculator to indicate which SRTM, GTOPO30 and/or Globe files will be needed with UKW Tools to cover the areas that you are interested in.

21.03.2004

Updated the articles page to link correctly to the article about my visit to Arnold HB9AMH. I am not sure what happened, but the actual HTML file for the report was missing, so technically nothing was changed (i.e. edited) but the page now exists. Many other pages have had minor changes made to them which have been long overdue, the last updated date at the bottom of the pages is your best bet for finding which ones.

UKW Tools had a two page spread in DUBUS in the latest issue. The article was taken from the text from my Software page at the time of the release of 0.3.0, the number of hits on my pages has increased considerably since it was published. I've had a lot of useful feedback from various people using the package and many of the suggestions have been used in the various updates. It's possible that the number of Windows users who use it may be greater than Linux users.

I am working on moving LinWSJT (to be renamed WS Tools) to Windows using the Portaudio library which will allow porting to OS X as well in due course. I am planning on starting a new project for Digital Voice, however this is a new area for me so I will only put a placeholder up for now.

If that weren't enough I am playing with DRM using my Icom IC-PCR1000 on short wave, and also with DAB using the Psion Wavefinder, unfortunately the latter only runs under Windows.

Finally, two software releases. The latest and greatest addition of UKW Tools, 0.3.3 is released for Linux and Windows. This is an enhancement release as no major (or even minor) bugs were found in 0.3.2. I've held the release back for a while in case anything nasty was found. Secondly, Baken 0.5.2 is released, this is a release which includes the latest 6m, 4m, 2m and 70cms beacons lists from DUBUS 1/2004. There is no code difference between 0.5.2 and 0.5.1 except for the version number and date. There will be another release just after the next edition of DUBUS which includes the 23cms and higher beacon lists. This is a Linux only program.

7.03.2004

Yet another release of UKW Tools. 0.3.1 included some silly errors that are hopefully gone in 0.3.2, along with some enhancements that will probably make the upgrade worthwhile for most people. Have a look at the CHANGES file at least. It is completely compatible with 0.3.0 and 0.3.1 so just drop the executable into the required directory and it should be fine. For Windows users there is a proper Windows installer based version to download, it represents a few hours with NSIS and could probably be improved, but it does the job which is the main point of doing it.

Please note the new e-mail address on my front page, we now have ADSL at home.

29.02.2004

A new release of UKW Tools ! This one fixes a few bugs, adds support for the Irregular Terrain Model so that non LOS paths can be modelled, and is generally a rather nice upgrade over 0.3.0. I've even done a Windows binary release for it which will work on Windows 2000 and XP and may work on Windows 98 and ME. Thank you to those people who are using UKW Tools and have provided feedback, it is always a good feeling to receive reports about software being used and what people think about it. Thanks guys.

In other news, I have a new job. This may mean moving away from my beloved Derbyshire, but the job sounds exciting and the money's good. Back to amateur radio, I now have my GS15B cavity amplifier from Mats KD5FZX and its a beauty, my second Septum Plate feed seems to have gone missing between Zdenek OK1DFC and here :-( I'm not sure what to do about it. Finally my friend Tobias HB3YEV is now DG3YEV and is looking forward to life as a real radio amateur.

09.02.2004

Finished the 2m and 70cms logs with the completion of 1987, a pretty good year, but not as good as I remembered it. It was my last full year in my super QTH at Wirksworth Moor. I have also completed the logs for my 4m operation in 1992/93, a band I hope to return to one day when I get my equipment back from the contest group. A lot of my time now is dedicated to finding a house to buy, prices in the UK have gone up enormously in the past two years and I can no longer afford the sort of house I would really like to live, its all rather sad really.

02.02.2004

Entered the 2m logs for 1984, 1985, and 1986, and the 70cms logs for 1985, 1986, and 1988. There was an exceptionally late sporadic E opening on 2m in 1986 to the former Yugoslavia. The 70cms log for 1985 includes my best DX to UP1BWR in KO24OQ in the September opening. I have a tape recording of it somewhere. The tropo opening in October 1986 was also very good, and my best work was mostly on 23cms but 70cms wasn't bad either. At one time in 1986 I had a 4CX250B amplifier for 70cms which had a big impact, but it was a rather scary device and I got rid of it after a short while. I have long term plans to import my log data into a database (MySQL ?) and then after some cleaning up, to export them again as web pages and also be able to query them on "Top 10 DX QSOs by distance on 23cms" and similar requests. It should be fun.

Also entered the last part of the HB9DRD logs, satellite QSOs for 2002. During the past week I have re-uploaded all of the .gz files as I think that they all got corrupted somehow, maybe I did an upload as ASCII or something.

26.01.2004

Re-uploaded UKW Tools 0.3.0 which was corrupt. I think I transferred as ASCII instead of Binary, sorry. Also added more log book entries, 2m for 1982 and 1983, and 70cms for 1983, 1984 and a little of 1985. The 2m log book for 1982 is particularly good as it includes excellent tropo, good Au and reasonable Es. My best tropo DX on 2m was made on 14 September 1982 and can be seen on the new page, there are over 800 QSOs to be seen.

18.01.2004

UKW Tools 0.3.0 has been released. This is a minor update on the Beta 2 release and is currently not available as a Windows binary. The Windows binaries that I did release were only usable on Windows 2000 and Windows XP, such are the joys of developing for Windows it seems. I did a lot of work in bolting APRS vector maps into UKW Tools but the results were disappointing and I haven't released that work, still I did learn something from it, and I now have a rather nice APRS map viewer (unreleased).

Next job, after a while, will be to return to LinWSJT and finish JT6M and start work on the JT65[ABC] modes. I am still waiting for Joe Taylor to announce that they are better than JT44 before I start work on them. Theoretically they should be, but I want his opinion on it based on real life experience. Speaking of EME, I should be receiving my Septum Plate feed for 23cms soon, as well as a 350W amplifier and a WD5AGO pre-amp. I can already generate 100W on 23cms so that should be enough for initial tests with a 3m or so dish. I hope that one of my dreams will come true this year, EME from home.

11.01.2004

Ah, to be back in England. After being freeze dried in Switzerland, its good to be back in a warm country. Its been positively tropical since I returned, and work has not been too stressful this week either. I suppose I could tell you the story about how British Rail managed to screw up my return home, so I got back at 0300 instead of 2330, but that would be boring, and predictable if you know anything about our train system.

I've been hard at work with UKW Tools implementing some of the ideas that I had in Switzerland and I'm starting to get really happy with it. Today I release 0.3.0-Beta2 which is a release candidate, it has many changes over Beta1, it looks nicer, does a few extra tricks and best of all, it has documentation ! It even works under Windows, I used MinGW, MSYS and wxMSW to port it, a description of what is needed is included with UKW Tools and is viewable on the Software page also. I've updated the Software page to include the new release and some spiffing screen shots of it. Next project is to go back to LinWSJT and get JT6M finished and add JT65[ABC]. I've been reading about DL3OCH's achievements with 100W and a very long yagi on 23cms with JT44, very impressive.

1.01.2004

So begins 2004. I have further plans for UKW Tools, mostly GUI changes and also work to ensure that it compiles and works on Windows correctly. Tobias (DO/)HB3YEV has started a port and provided many helpful suggestions for future changes. The next release of UKW Tools will be 0.3.0 Beta 2 and will be the basis for the true 0.3.0 release. I will also upgrade my Software page to give more information about the new UKW Tools to show off its new capabilities. I will do these once I return to the UK in a few days. The other software job for me is to add JT65 to LinWSJT once Joe Taylor is happy with his implementation, this goes some way towards the ideas that I had and outlined in my old JT44TNG article. There are some minor updates on the Software page, the Logs page, as well as a new page for my articles which have been moved from the Links page.

Radio wise, I hope to get EME going on 23cms, VLF operating and a new QTH. I plan to buy a house in the coming year and of course getting a reasonable site is high on my list of priorities. I am still not sure what to do with respect to being active on many bands, is it better to be active on a few bands but with high power and good antennas or be active on many bands but with lower power and smaller antennas ? Life is full of difficult decisions. 2004 promises to be a busy year for me.

21.12.2003

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all and I hope that 2004 is as good a year as 2003 has been for DX work. It has been an exceptional year for most of us radio-wise and a browse through my on-line log books will show some remarkable DX being worked from this wretched location of mine.

I've done some development work on UKW-Tools leading to the initial release of 0.3.0-Beta1 which is a huge update on 0.2.3, it uses the SRTM data which covers most of the world at 90m intervals. The new UKW Tools also includes facilities to plot coverage as well as mutual coverage which can be useful for people planning mobile radio networks, or 802.11b networks for example. The documentation is a bit thin in this initial release but its moderately usable. Please give it a try and report any bugs or enhancements that you might like to see in it.

30.11.2003

I've been extremely busy at work so I've not had much chance to update either my site or my software. This update includes a lot of minor changes, but nothing major. The squares maps have been updated and converted to PNG graphics, but despite the big auroras recently and tropo I can only report two new squares on 2m (F6AQI/IN96 and F9IE/IN86). The company I work for now has a web page dedicated to what I am doing, take a look at W3Z. I have changed my e-mail address and all my e-mail addresses on my pages are images so that spammers can't get it so easily.

Almost every page has had some changes made to it, although some are so minor that they can't be seen without a magnifying glass. I intend to make copies of my complete log books onto my web pages over time and maybe even go as far as computerised logging one day. Work on LinWSJT has stopped until Joe releases details of his new JT65 mode that uses strong FEC (Reed-Solomon) and is potentially many dB better than JT44.

23.08.2003

A few changes. A new version of LinWSJT (0.4.7) which has numerous internal changes although operationally identical to the last release (0.4.6). A start has been made on JT6M but I haven't had the time recently to work too much on it, my new job has got in the way. Also in time since the last entry I've worked some nice tropo, SM and OZ from /P and a load of DLs from my home which is pretty amazing if you can see it. A big Aurora gave me two new squares (F9IE/IN86, F6AQI/IN96) and I worked OK2PMU in JN99 at over 1400kms. This was only my second Aurora in the UK since 29 December 1992 ! So I now have 219 squares on 2m, but they aren't shown on my map yet.

30.06.2003

Updated three of the maps on my maps page. Firstly I went back through my old logbooks in order to get my 2m map as accurate as possible, and added a number of "new" squares. Added to that two new squares via Es on Sunday (HA3HV/JN86 and HA6ZB/KN07), my first 2m Es since 2 June 1995 ! I can now report a total of 217 squares on 2m. Also updated the squares maps for 6cms and 3cms to reflect my last contest operation. The thumbnails are still for the old maps as Paint Shop Pro doesn't appear to do as good a job as MS Paint Shop in making nice thumbnails, hints ?

28.06.2003

So whats new ? A new release of LinWSJT thats what ! Not a major update, but particularly if you are using LinWSJT FSK441 then it is worth upgrading, a major big fix (L's and M's were being swapped). A moon tracker has been added to the JT44 part also. My logs for 6+3cms operation have been updated to include the June cumulatives contest and some new photographs of my microwave equipment also. My next update may include some information about my 23cms EME progress.

27.05.2003

A small update adding a couple of pictures. One of me /P on 6cms and 3cms in the UK, on the Pictures page. Another picture of my Baken program being used, on the Software page. There is a mistake on my maps page, I have IO80 coloured in for 6cms which I don't have, it should be IO81 which isn't coloured. It'll be fixed sometime in the near-ish future.

26.05.2003

I am now living in the UK :-) The journey was made much easier by the presence of Tobias HB3YEV who shared the driving with me. Unfortunately when we arrived the weather decided to be very unkind and spent most of the time raining.

I wrote and sent all of the HB9DRD QSL cards a couple of weeks ago and sent them to the USKA bureau. I will remain a member of USKA for a year or two in order to collect all of my outstanding cards. One day I may even get around to writing my G4KLX QSL cards to cover the period of 1991 to 1996 !

I am active in the UK on most bands, but each takes time to get ready on, as most of my equipment is in the garage and needs to be found and unpacked before use and then put back again. 2m and 70cms are permanently available but everything else requires notice. I even took part in a UK microwave contest, although my dish decided to fall over so a rethink on its mounting is needed. Next job is to try 23cms EME with a marginal system on the weekend 7/8th June. The weekend after I'll be at the Kochelsberg microwave meeting in JN48.

I've released a new version of Baken, 0.5.1. Also lots of changes to the pages ranging from new text to spelling corrections.

2.04.2003

Updated the front page with my new address and some information. Also added a page about my rain scatter column in DUBUS.

31.03.2003

The end is almost nigh at my QTH in Pfaffhausen, this time next week we'll be living in our new apartment in Dietikon which is both an RF and social nightmare of a place. Our present apartment has become a city of cardboard boxes and next weekend is going to be madness as we move it all to the new place. Sorry for the tone of this piece as I am rather unhappy to be leaving, I like it here. I also see a stupid and pointless war going on by my country. Anyway my plans are to move my "stuff" to England in late April and from then on HB9DRD will be QRT but G4KLX will be QRV.

I've added two pages about my trips to see Lorenz DL6NCI and Arnold HB9AMH which both happened over the last two weeks. I have also re-instated my 23cms Transceiver Project pages, now renamed to the DSP Transceiver Project, I am not actively developing this design, but I include it as a thought provoker. Read and enjoy. They are all accessed from my Links page.

18.03.2003

Sorry for the delay in updating these pages, I've been working hard on the next generation of data modes for EME work. Also I will be away for a few days to visit Lorenz DL6NCI and his family. In the meantime I've bought a digital camera and took some new photos from our flat, which we leave in less than a month :-( Have a look at the Pictures section.

22.02.2003

An update to both LinWSJT (0.4.5) and UKW Tools (0.2.3), I think these are worthwhile changes that have mostly been made at the request of users of the software.

HB9DRD is now effectively QRT. My equipment has been packed into boxes waiting to be moved back to the UK, although if conditions are good then a certain amount of unpacking will be done :-) The first HB9DRD QSO was on 8.10.2000 with HB9MIN/P on 23cms from JN47GJ (Höngg in Zürich city) and the last QSO was on 27.1.2003 with VK6NU via OSCAR 40.

Its all a bit sad really.

30.01.2003

A minor update of LinWSJT to version 0.4.4, if you are experiencing problems with FSK441 then try this version. If you are happy with LinWSJT 0.4.3 then there is no reason to upgrade. Details of the first JT44 QSO have been added to the Software page.

Later on the 30th, updated the UKW Tools version to 0.2.2.

19.01.2003

A paper describing the development of a successor to JT44 has now been added to the Software page, its link can be found in the text about LinWSJT, or here. [Note: this has since been removed]

17.01.2003

Released LinWSJT 0.4.3. This is wxGTK 2.4.0 compliant as well as having a much improved FSK441 decoder. Both JT44 and FSK441 have tunable parameters and a clock ! This is a worthwhile upgrade.

14.01.2003

Released LinWSJT 0.4.2, this fixes a bug in the FSK441 transmit section, JT44 has been fine since LinWSJT 0.4.1. Thanks to Alek YU1US for being my bug spotter. Is he the only person using LinWSJT ? Please send me an e-mail if you are using LinWSJT and tell me of your successes and/or failures with it.

Updated the entries for Baken and MTrack to match the format of LinWSJT and UKW Tools, and updated the equipment list to show off my new toys, a Kenwood TR-751E and TR-851E.

13.01.2003

Released LinWSJT 0.4.1, this fixes a major bug in the transmit routines in both JT44 and FSK441. If you have LinWSJT 0.4 then please update to 0.4.1 unless you are receiving only.

10.01.2003

Released UKW Tools 0.2.1 which is minor upgrade (read bug fix) of 0.02, nothing obvious has changed and there is no new functionality. Also released LinWSJT 0.4 which now includes the first version of the FSK441 program. Note that LinWSJT now needs a new library to work, this is fully documented on the Software page.

11.12.2002

Released UKW Tools 0.02, a few other very minor changes have been made to the site also. I released UKW Tools since I will not be able to work on any software for the next three weeks and I thought I'd make the current version available. UKW Tools 0.03 (January 2003 ?) should be functionally complete.

2.12.2002

Released UKW Tools 0.01. It is not complete, but enough people have asked for it that I thought it would be a good idea to make it available. Please e-mail me if you have any problems with it.

29.11.2002

Changed the title of the pages from "The 6cms Resource Pages" to "The G4KLX/HB9DRD Pages" to reflect the more general nature of the pages. The biggest change so far is the Equipment page which is a review of the different radios that I have owned and used.

28.11.2002

Updated my LinWSJT document which is to be found on the Software page. This version is to be published in DUBUS 4/2002.

21.10.2002

Added a new version of LinWSJT (0.3.2) and some new screen shots of UKW Tools. All the changes are on the Software page.

10.10.2002

Started another (!!) software project. It is detailed on the Software page.

8.10.2002

Released LinWSJT 0.3.1, a small upgrade over 0.3. Also added some log entries from the October contest, nothing special though. Fixed a mistake on the HB9MPU page, the builder of HB9MPU is HB9CAU.

4.10.2002

Released LinWSJT 0.3, this is much improved over LinWSJT 0.2 in terms of speed at least. Also updated my logs to reflect the tropo openings that we had this week.

1.10.2002

Two items of news. The first is that LinWSJT 0.2 has been released, most of the changes are with the GUI, and I am quite happy with it. The other news is that I have been asked by the publisher of DUBUS to write an annual review of the Rain Scatter season, I hope my review of this years season will appear in DUBUS 3/2002. If the so-called Microwaves Europe column was actually that then I wouldn't have to do it.

Also added some tropo QSOs on 3cms to the logs section.

19.09.2002

LinWSJT 0.1 Alpha is released. Added information about the release to the Software page including a screenshot and the source code.

11.09.2002

Just a quick update of the status of JT44 for Linux.

6.09.2002

Updated the Software page to include the latest released versions of MTrack and Baken, as well as information about my implementation of JT44 and FSK441 for Linux. Added links to Christian HB9CAU's web pages for the HB9MPU transponder information in German.

27.08.2002

Small update to the logs for the RS opening of 26 August and some corrections to the HB9MPU beacon and transponder details.

25.08.2002

Updated my log book and maps to reflect the rain scatter opening of 19 August, I got 2 new squares on 3cms. Huge update on the HB9MPU Beacon/Transponder complex. Thanks to Christian HB9CAU for the information.

17.08.2002

Worked a new square on 23cms, JO33 (tnx Eene PA3CEG) and a new square on 6cms, JN47 (tnx Christian HB9CAU). Updated the log entries and maps to reflect these QSOs. Added a new menu entry about the transponder located in JN47HD, this is not documented anywhere on the web and deserves to be publicised, this has been built by Christian HB9CAU.

16.08.2002

Amazingly my web pages are two years old today. Anyway I have uploaded about ten photographs, most appear on the pictures page although one appears on the AO-40 operation page.

I am at present the official holder of the region 1 6cms RS record for my QSO with PA3CEG on 30.07.2002 (see logs), however Gerard PA0BAT has worked further on 6cms RS so that record will fall. But its fun to see my callsign at the top, even if only for a short while.

13.08.2002

Added seven pictures of DL3IAS's shack and antennas. Thanks Nino.

3.08.2002

Added new beacon on 6cms (HB9MPU JN47HD) and a new entry to my log book for 6cms, HB9MIO/P.

1.08.2002

Updated logs to reflect RS opening on 31-07-2002. Updated 6cms and 3cms maps and changed comments about ODX. It is now 654kms to Eene PA3CEG in JO33FB. Removed text about the region 1 6cms RS record, Gerard PA0BAT worked OK2DL on 6cms at 727kms, I have the 2nd best RS distance.

31.07.2002

Updated logs to reflect RS opening on 30-07-2002. The maps will be updated in due course. Added text about holding the region 1 RS record for 6cms.

15-18.07.2002

There has been a massive update of the web site over the last three days, almost every page has been changed.

Last modified on 15.09.2010