There are a number of projects in the pipeline relating to amateur radio; these will be updated as they progress.

• We got a 40M inverted-V working, and it seems to tune alright 80-20.
• There is space for routing coax down the lift shaft alongside the SDR stuff. Possibly.
• Further research is being done on a boatanchor radio. CN may have enough spare cash after getting his HF rig to donate to the lab a FT101, but don't quote me on this.
• TK: In terms of equipment for a more permanent and higher powered radio, Jaycee are getting a lot of stock in second hand and we can ask them to keep an eye out. See http://www.jayceecoms.com/used-equipment.html Having recently visited, they mentioned that lots of secondhand stock doesn't make the site and we should provide them with a spec and budget. The other option might be a Yaesu FT450D. Stephanie and I are bought one of these for home – 100W, DSP, CW filters and TCXO clock as standard so ideal for digital modes too. It's really easy to use and fantastic for features - even has a built in ATU but that will only tune for SWR<3 so really for trimming resonant antenna. There is a cashback deal at the moment meaning you can be kited out for less than £550 new. See http://www.jayceecoms.com/yaesu-ft-450d.html
• TK: I have an antenna tuner now which we could temporarily site on the roof (it’s battery powered). That would allow us to try a doublet on a few different bands and see what the noise level is like without significant SWR losses in the cable drop. We could also rig a vertical up using the earthing and other metalwork as a ground mesh
• TK: We could build a linked dipole or fan dipole – I’ve got some dipole centres for this. I also now have a 1:1 current balun that should reduce the coax shield pickup. This may show whether the problem was using an endfed and/or pickup on the vertical cable drop. I’ve got a 6m fiberglass fishing pole for some more height to the centre (same sort as used for SOTA)
• TK: I was considering a longwire antenna may be a good solution as it run up to the roof with the balun on the bottom and a ground connection where the lightning rod connects to ground. That would minimise coax run and be smaller for visibility. It may need a counterpoise which could be snaked around outside the lab at ground level. I don’t have a suitable balun but we could build one and try with the tuner. I suspect it may be a noisy option though and may only be good for receive so not to interfere with other building users. However, with permission it may be ideal for the chimney.
• CN: I have discovered the lab has *no* VHF/UHF coverage outside Summerhall. GB3FF was lit up on the evening of the 19th, and we were oblivious to it! As dry runs for actually running antennas down Summerhall's guts goes, I think this might be a good initial candidate.

• Once three of us have Advanced licences, this opens up the possibility of the Hacklab obtaining a Full (Club) licence. Fee for this is £20 (club licences last 5 years) and a callsign of the form MM0xxx will be assigned to the Hacklab.
• This is not uncharted territory; see M0HSL W3HAC
• Clubs can then apply as a Registered Assessment centre and we would be able to administer exams/courses (possibly for a donation to the Hacklab) - this is probably a very distant-future thing though. Best we actually build up some kind of ARC membership first.
  • Cannot hold courses (but can hold exams) for u-18s unless DBS checks are done on all assessors. This probably won't be feasible primarily due to cost and/or privacy concerns. Tim K is registered through volunteering work with the Red Cross.
    • TH: The requirement for DBS checks depends on the nature and amount of time spent in the role. RSGB will pay for checks for their members where required.
  • TH: I don't think it's worth considering assessment or examination options in the foreseeable future. We can consider providing training when we have enough of a community around our ARC, and when we have enough commitment from suitable license holders. We don't have facilities to run exams in our current premises. Best to send people to existing exam centres.

If you are willing to volunteer yourself for inclusion on a potential future Hacklab ARC application please add yourself below.

The 18/2 net was a spectacular failure, with no responses to the net startup call, mainly because AFAIK nobody could hit the repeater. We're going to give it another shot on the 25th. 1900h again. I use http://time.is/ as a reference.

Chris 2M0FFY is happy to take radio checks (ask in IRC): I am in similar terrain and elevation to GB3FF so if you can hit me reliably it's likely you can hit FF as well.

There was a kerchunkfest going on before the Wednesday net-that-wasn't: if it was any of you folks, please don't do this. Always ID even if all you say after your call is “radio check”.

The 12/02 looked like a roaring success. The noise problems were more or less fixed, and Amir 4X6TT in Israel (a relatively rare station!) and Jan S52B in Slovenia were worked with 59s all round.

The next radio night, pending no objections, will be 26 February, with plans for having a play with ARDF.

It may be too soon for this year but a full license holder could apply for a special event callsign and we could show the station to the public or use it for talk in (providing directions and help to those visiting). Setting up an ardf challenge within Summerhall on very low power would also be interesting.

• SDR
• TX/RX APRS iGate (Raspberry Pi + DRA818V). Tx may require additional NoV. Rx only could use SDR
• CN: TX does require an NoV and details for 3 closedown operators, we can discuss this on Thu. I use an RTLSDR for RX-only igating on occasion at home and it works well (https://github.com/asdil12/pymultimonaprs).
• GB3ED is listed by ETCC as “non-operational”. While Edinburgh has good 2M coverage from GB3LB and GB3FF noises have been made about sticking a repeater on Summerhall down the line. SeeGB3ED Status for more info. Tim K contacted the owner on 4th Feb to offer help. Ellis apparently has a plan to get it back up and running and may come back to us for help if he runs into problems.
• CN: further to the above, the Tait T800 repeater (which IIRC runs GB3FE at SDARC) is pretty cheap at £150 used; although cavity filters &| duplexer would be required and CTCSS/DCS support is extra…
• Tim K has constructed a fairly efficient copper pipe Jpole using leftover materials at home. It would appreciate a VHF SWR meter or antenna analyser for tuning but got access to various local repeaters from home that weren't otherwise available. This would make an ideal lab project as the materials are easily sourced and only a blowtorch is needed to solder them.
• Tim K would be keen to look into ARDF. CPSARC run two foxhunt a a year and with a full license allowing further unattended beacons a multi transmitter on foot challenge would be possible. Beacons and antennas make great construction projects and non hams can participate too as those taking part are only receiving the signal.
• CN: I've wanted to do a foxhunt on the Meadows for a long time. I have an old Baofeng UV-B5 on which the RX doesn't work, but the TX does, and we could stick it on low power and use it play a short voice synthesized message or key the PTT in Morse using an arduino and an optoisolator (bridging PTT+ (blue) to ground (copper) in a standard BF audio cable, of which I have tons). Tape measure antennas are easy as cheese to make up and can be made for just a few quid.
• Elaborating on the above, this is a design I have already built with great success. I modelled it in MMANA-GAL and discovered if one moves the reflector back by 20cm, and adds a director to the front with the same spacing between DE-D1 and D1-D2, one gets an even narrower beam (from ~65 degress to less than 40), a +2.something dB increase in gain (7.3 to ~12dBi) at the cost of F/B ratio (+-55dB to ~30) and some small sidelobing. More elements could probably be added, but the 4-element TMY is already pretty big (human-sized) and more would probably be bordering on ridiculous (not to mention the law of diminishing returns).
• Regarding IDing the fox, the usual choice seems to be the http://www.hamgadgets.com/ID-O-MATIC-IV, although that does look *suspiciously* like an ATmega328 to me…