Amateur Radio as a hobby
The absolute beauty of amateur radio is that it is not a single hobby it is virtually limitless in scope.

When I first set up DigitalHam I had recently discovered APRS and the entire focus of the site was devoted to that. I threw in a little PSK31 related info too because as that used computers it seemed to fit in with the digital part of the site name. Next up came the aquisition of a weather station which with a little bodging I was able to use to produce a weather feed through UIView to the worldwide amateur APRSserv network.

Well I still run UIView 24x7 and I've fitted my TMD700E into my latest car and fire it up most times I'm driving but my focus has now moved on to polar orbiting weather satellite reception. This is still radio related but doesn't need a Ham licence or indeed a licence of any sort to persue - no matter to me it is still a part of amateur radio. Having produced a turnstile for reception I was a little disappointed with the results and the next project was a Quadrifilar Helix or QHA constructed using 8mm microbore tubing from plans found on the web. I suppose once I am happy with the results my attention will move on again but where I currently have no idea.

The only real limit to Ham Radio is finding the time and having the imagination. Who knows - maybe next year I'll finally have set up a decent HF antenna system and actually be able to talk across the world. Maybe I'll have found the time to use that Morse Tutor I bought on eBay a few years back and return to the ultimate Digital communication system that hams have used since the hobby first began!!

False colour composite satellite image
Precipitation enhancement Wed, 27 Aug 2008

The 137MHz homebrew quadrifilar helix or QHA and turnstile pictured on the left feed NOAA satelite signals to a R2ZX specialised satellite receiver. The R2ZX output signal is fed to a normal PC soundard from which WXtoIMG software creates the sort of image you see above.