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

C: I cleaned up this page massively as it was turning into a wall of text.

Antennas tested thus far:

• PAR endfedz(?): epic failure. Noise pickup like nothing else. Needs GOOD RF ground which we don't have on the roof.
• 40m inverted-V: works well.
• Magloop: Chris has tested RX at the lab (for 10/11m). Works OK, even indoors, but easy to detune. Great for RDF and/or nulling out QRM.

Coax drop options:

• LMR 600/400 - polythene dielectric
• Westflex 103 - air dielectric
• Andrews Heliax LDF-4 - often surplus available - lowest loss

Rig options/ideas:

HF

• Yaesu FT450
• C: Here's an idea: having built a Softrock RXTX myself, an option I have been considering is maybe doing something similar what is done with the SDR currently: feeding a Peaberry (basically a Softrock with integrated ADC/DAC) into a Raspberry Pi mounted amongst the existing SDR hardware and sticking a PA on the front of it. This has the advantage of being cheap - <£200 for the Peaberry, Pi and PA - and it would allow us to use existing network infrastructure since the actual RF hardware itself woud be on the roof. No messy coax runs: we coud just use the ethernet run that's already there. By using something like ghpsdr3-alex, we could remotely control the Peaberry/Softrock/whatever from the lab with DSPserver running on the Pi and QTradio on the computer(s) downstairs.

V/U

• ???

• 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.
• Not uncharted territory; see M0HSL W3HAC

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

Chris will throw out a call Weds evenings at 7PM UTC(TAI), so keep an ear out.

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
• RX/TX iGate - requires NoV - this is available for the time being for anyone who wants to mess about with APRS.
• Repeater research - GB3ED may or may not be back soon.
• WSPR/QRSS?