Science

There has been a lot of science in my life over the past couple of days.

On Wednesday and Thursday I was studying for my Amateur Radio Foundation Licence. I did the exam last night and got an indicative score of 25/26. That's a pass but I still need confirmation which I should get in the next couple of weeks.

This morning was the solar eclipse which I watched and photographed from my garden. All very exciting. I probably won't get to see anything as spectacular again in my lifetime but never say never.

It got me thinking that if as a race of people, the human race that is, that if we spent as much time and money on scientific pursuits as we do on war and conflict then we could be amazed every day. It seems very odd that as a fragile race on a fragile planet that we're hell bent on burning bridges instead of building them. We, as a collective, should rethink our aims.

That's one thing I really enjoy about amateur radio. It's about contact without borders, without prejudice and with the aim of bringing all people whoever they are together. That's one of the reasons I'm so glad I passed my exam and once I get my callsign it'll be one of the reasons I'll be chatting to people the world over.

It's science and it's good science.

The Finished Product

So here it is, my finished Morse key.
It started with the actual Morse key which was bought for me by my sister for my birthday this year. I was advised by a member of Leicester Radio Society to attach it to a heavy base to stop it moving around while keying. Once again my sister helped out a got hold of a decent piece of scrap from work which was luckily near perfect to the size I had asked for.
I then went to an engineering company I deliver to and asked for a favour which was for two holes to be drilled with larger holes underneath to accommodate a couple of nuts. This was done in return for a selection of biscuits that I was happy to hand over.
Today the sticky backed felt and rubber feet arrived. I finished the base so that it's now anti-scratch and anti-skid.
I'd like to thank everyone involved in getting this project finished. It's a solid bit of kit and will provide many hours of CW.
That's if I pass my Foundation Licence.

Life's A Buzz

I had my maker head on yesterday and made a small buzzer for my morse key.

It has to be the simplest circuit ever. Just a couple of AA cells running a 6v buzzer and both of the open ends terminating at a couple of banana plugs. The circuit is made by the morse key and it goes buzz. It's not quite a clean morse tone but it'll do as I get used to listening to the letters instead of decoding them in my head.
It's all housed in a little project box and is nicely portable so that I can practice anywhere that the mood takes me.

It's certainly not the best buzzer in the world but I made it so it's better than one I could have bought.

Make Me A Maker

Ahh, my lovely new Morse key.

I got it for my birthday last week but I can't use it yet because I have no buzzer. I saw one on the internet but it was pretty ugly and it made me want to make my own.

To be honest I don't know very much about electronic circuits but I thought that a buzzer box was about as simple as it gets and that I should have a go. So while I was out and about today I popped into Maplin and bought a few bits. It's going to be a quiet buzzer because I want to practice my Morse without driving my girlfriend mad.

I'm also waiting for a steel base for the key so that it doesn't move around. This is where I need ConcreteDog living around the corner because it'll need a couple of holes drilling in it.

I'm sure I'll work out a way.

Yet More Radio

It's been a while since I posted here and I've been fairly busy. Here's what I've been up to.

I've moved things around a bit to create a radio shack for myself. This is in preparation for me hopefully passing my Foundation Licence for Amateur Radio. I'm currently looking at a few radios, one of which I hope to add if and when I pass the licence exam. I have a small Baofeng GT-3 which I'm itching to broadcast on but all in good time. I'm into doing this properly and legally.

I've moved both my laptop and desktop PCs away from Windows. The laptop got virused and it was going to cost me to have Windows re-installed so I took the opportunity to try and install Ubuntu. It went so well that I did the same for my desktop which was running so slowly that it was almost unusable. I'm really happy with both of the Ubuntu Linux installations, I don't know why I didn't do it sooner.

I've also brought my Canon StarWriter 30 out of retirement. It's a lovely machine to work on, it's very tactile. I have a reasonably sensitive document to work on this year and I needed a word processor that is air-gapped from both of my Ubuntu machines. I'll do my final editing on one of them and disconnect it from the web until the document is ready for final release. By release time the document will be available to everyone on a Creative Commons licence.

I'll let you know how the exam goes and which radio I buy nearer the time. For now it's SWL only and a lot of revision for the exam.