Baofeng UV5R Cable - it works!

Baofeng Programming Cable for BAOFENG UV-5R/5RA/5R Plus/5RE, UV3R Plus, BF-888S (Newest Version, Support WIN7,64 Bit)

on Amazon - It works!

           

The Baofeng UV5R is a wonderful little handheld, I have had it now for a couple of years, but have not really got the hang of programming it!
I have bought two different programming cables and neither of them worked, the computer didn't even recognise them. I spent many an hour trying different drivers and trying to get the beast going using CHIRP, but to no avail. I gave up!

When the cable and other items arrived - very quickly and delivered on a Sunday afternoon.
I cautiously connected the cable to the computer with Windows 7 expecting the usual 'Cannot recognise' message...but it didn't...it simply loaded the existing driver and said that it was ready for use. Next, I connected the Baofeng and started CHIRP to clone the radio...IT WORKED!
Amazing...at last I could program the radio with my computer. I then set about programming some channels into the memory. This is fine, but there is a problem with repeaters.
It seems that when you program the channels for repeaters the frequency shift for transmit / receive will not program on the Baofeng. You have to do it manually...what a pain!

Still, I now have a Baofeng UV5R that will program, I put in the repeaters manually after watching a tutorial on YouTube. Now I have a complete set of local repeaters programmed into the UV5R at last.

Box of Valves

Last night I was looking for something on ebay when I came across something quite strange...a box of valves!

When I was working at Telefusion many years ago we had a central store and a valve store. They supplied all the sevice departments with components and valves (and semiconductors) In the early 80's they decided to get rid of some of the valves that were no longer required, so I got 4 or 5 boxes of valves. I put them in my loft and used some for projects, but others never got used. I remember that I sold a couple of boxes of them to someone locally. I also sold a couple more to a guy in Blackburn that ran a junk shop.

When I came across this last night I recognised that box of valves...i'm sure that they were once mine many years ago. Also, the seller is in BOLTON!  They MUST have been my old valves...strange!

1296Mhz 21 element Tonna

Having given some thought about building an antenna for 23cms I decided to splash out and buy a proper yagi. So I went for the 21 element Tonna and ordered one from Radioworld which came the next day.
Yesterday I set about constructing the kit. In the box is the aluminium booms, mounting bracket, plastic element mounts and bags of colour coded copper elements. The instructions are clear and concise. It was easy to put together, the element mounts just clip onto the boom and the driven element is screwed onto the boom.

The elements themselves are all colour coded so that they are mounted in the correct position. However, you have to push the elements through the holes in the plastic mounts and it is tricky getting the elements central. Would be much better if they were already mounted. It took some time fiddling about trying to centre and line up each element. On 23cms the position of each element is critical.

The driven element has a short length of coax and an 'N' Type plug comes with the kit. Not sure why an 'N'Type Plug, surely it would be better to have an 'N' Type in line socket? In fact I decided to use one that I already had. That makes it much easier to use an 'N' Type plug to connect.

The antenna looks quite nice when it is assembled...now the acid test...does it work well?
Well, now comes the problem. In North West England we are a long way from any amateur radio beacons. The nearest is GB3CL at Clee Hill in the midlands. I cannot receive it here, so unless there is a station on 23cms I can't really test the antenna until the 23cm Tuesday Activity Contest. The next one is in about 3 weeks time. So I have decided to wait until the next contest to try it out properly.

Stay tuned!

Bolton and District Amateur Radio Society Rec. Club Venue

Following on from the previous post. After the B&DARS met at the Clarence Hotel in 1975 we moved to another venue, Bolton Recreation Club on St. Georges Rd. George G3ZQS secured a room up on the top floor which was ideal for setting up a club station and storing resources and equipment. I remember spending a long time cleaning and painting the room to make it usable for meetings.
An antenna was installed on the roof of the building after taking ages to get permission from the Blind School on the left from the council.

As the Rec Club was a kind of youth club, the members also had access to the facilities such as table tennis, badminton and cafe.

The Rec Club building is still the same, but now is a dance school. The Bolton and District Amateur Radio Society later moved to Horwich Leisure Centre.

 
The Recreation Club on the right, now a School of Dancing the room that we used was the little window at the top. The antenna was a longwire which started at the far part of the old blind school building.

QSL Cards

In my last post I mentioned being an associate member of the RSGB when I was 15 years old and I had my own receiving station number - A6412.
Well, tonight I sifted through my hundreds of old QSL cards to find my one and only A6412 QSL card!

I spent an hour looking at some of my old cards which I keep in a special box that I have collected since 1969. Some I received for sending a report as an SWL, while others are my pride and joy confirmed contacts on VHF and UHF for DX. Looking back, I am just amazed at some of the QSL cards and the effort that operators put in including personal greetings and messages from all over the world.

I guess nowadays we rely on e-QSLs I have not received a written QSL card for years...such a pity! I loved to collect QSLs and sometimes went knocking on doors of amateurs when I was young to ask for a card for my collection.

Radcom Archives

I first joined the RSGB 45 years ago when I was 15 years old in 1969 as an associate member - A6412
Every month I received a copy of 'Radio Communication' the RSGB's magazine, often waiting for the postman to arrive. I kept every copy up until about 1990 when I lost interest in the hobby and concentrated on my new teaching career. I kept all the magazines in the attic, but in a moment of madness I decided to throw them away, thinking that I would never use them again. I remember taking them all to the recycling centre and putting them one by one into the metal skip.

Years later, when I renewed my interest in amateur radio and re-joined the RSGB, I regretted throwing those magazines away. Many of the projects that I built were in those magazines and now as I think back to those constructing days I feel at a loss.

A couple of weeks ago I bought myself a CD Rom version of the first years of my RadCom magazines from the RSGB bookstore and am now enjoying browsing through five years (1970 -75) of mags. Brings back lots of memories looking at the circuits, articles and advertisements. I remember 'sending off' orders to places like Bambers, Birkitts, Garex and Amateur Radio Bulk Buying Group. Posting the orders and waiting sometimes weeks for the goods to return! How things have changed.

I may buy the next five years of RadCom, only problem is that each CD costs around £27 and I feel a bit niffed that I have to pay all over again for the magazines. The CD's are also as old as some of the magazines in them quoting Windows 95 and Windows 2000 to run. Includes a heavily outdated copy of  Adobe reader. I wonder if the RSGB would consider offering these CD archives at a discount (or free) to amateurs like myself and others who once had a complete set of magazines, but were foolish enough to throw them away!

I sent the above text as a letter to the RSGB and received a reply:

Steve

Thanks for getting in touch and expressing your views. I am responsible for the RSGB CDs and so thought I would get back to you to outline our current plans here. Essentially as of the 1^st Oct (tomorrow) we are planning to open the 10 year archive of RadCom articles. This is an online resource for members (only) that will allow you to search RadCom articles from the last 10 years in a variety of ways. This builds on the work of recent years where we have been holding a rolling year of complete RadCom magazines on our website. We will continue to offer the CDs as a more convenient way to keep the archives. As you have already surmised these are not being updated and once the existing stock is exhausted there is no plan to continue them although we may do the annual CDs for a while yet. In time we may eventually reach the point of having the entire RadCom archive available online but that is a major task with a large number of difficulties. However it is the plan to offer it all in time – free to members.

Hopefully that clarifies the situation for you and again thanks for taking the time to write to us.

Best Regards

Mark Allgar, M1MPA

Commercial & Membership Manager

Radio Society of Great Britain

 

A section from 1975 Radio Communication showing the Club News. At the time I was secretary of the Bolton and District Amateur Radio Society (B&DARS)

Matchmoor Lane

This has always been my haven for peace and tranquility!

When I used to be a field service engineer I would often go up Winter Hill to the top of Matchmoor Lane and enjoy time to finish my paperwork and listen on 144Mhz with my mobile set up. We often came here for contests and VHF NFD back in the 70's and 80's with the Bolton and District Amateur Radio Society.

Now that I am partially retired it is nice to take my handheld and listen around on 144Mhz and 432Mhz FM and just enjoy the tranquility and view from here.

The view from here is stunning on a sunny day in Autumn!

1296Mhz transverter revived

Many years ago I built a 1296Mhz transverter using the DF8QK design from VHF/UHF Communications magazine. It took me quite a while to build and setting up and aligning was very tricky. After lots of patience, I managed to get the main part of the transverter working with an output of only about 100mw. Later, I built a three stage receive pre-amp with three BFR34 transistors and also added a single transistor BFQ34 power amplifier to increase the output to around 1watt.
The whole of the transverter was enclosed in fibre glass copper clad boards and as they were all built in separate modules, I assembled them all together, with the pre-amp and P.A. mounted separately inside a box.

I built a 10 over 10 slot fed yagi as per Radio Communication handbook (P13.25) using plumbing pipe and brass rods. This together with the transverter worked well. Unfortunately, back in the early 1980's there was little activity on 1296Mhz, so I hardly heard anything! When I took my shack apart and kind of 'gave up' amateur radio the transverter has stayed in the attic. The antenna gradually fell apart.

Since I have returned to amateur radio again I have taken part in the Tuesday evening activity contests. In fact, I have operated on all the contest bands, except 1296Mhz and above. I felt a bit left out with 23cms, surely there must be activity on these nights?  Several times I have brought down my old transverter and connected it to my Yaesu FT101E, but heard nothing and have not even been sure whether the transverter even works any more. It got to the stage where I was about to throw it out because it I really couldn't be bothered trying to fix and align it all again after all the problems that I had initially.

Then earlier this year I got a SDR receiver which works happily on 1296Mhz. So on the contest nights I tried it out to see if I could hear anything on 1296Mhz. I was quite amazed to find that I could hear several stations with just my 70cm antenna connected!
On Tuesday this week I decided to try just once more to see if I could hear anything on my old transverter. I put in all the plugs and checked all the connections then switched on - nothing! I stood staring at the little beast scatching my head. Then suddenly I had a thought...I wonder if the oscillator crystal is working? I flicked the crystal a few times then with my fingers turned the core of the coil a turn.

OMG! It burst into life! I tuned and heard several stations in the contest...I was amazed! I listened for a while and wondered if the transmit part works. I found a strong station and called him...I works!!
The station I called was G4NTY/P and he came back with a 5-3 report although he was 5-9 with me.
I was so pleased that after all these years the transverter still works! I carried on working some more stations with the transverter connected to the 70cm antenna (No antenna for 1296Mhz)

My log now shows:

G4NTY/P, G8XUJ/P, G4HGI, G3TDH, G4CFP. 

Not bad for a home made transverter built back in 1980!

Now I need an antenna...do I build another 10 over 10 or should I splash out and buy myself a 1296Mhz Tonna?  Watch this space!

R109 Receiver

The other night I watched a programme on TV about the taking of the Arnhem Bridge during the war. It was interesting to watch and also why the mission became a bridge too far. It seems that one of the problems was the radio equipment which failed to function correctly. That meant that there was a breakdown in communication between the different troops. In the film showed one of the radio operators at Arnhem using an R109 receiver. I took some photos from my screen.

I was amazed to see this because I had one for years when I first got my Radio Amateur licence. It cost me £1.50p from a surplus shop on Folds Road in Bolton. It worked perfectly and ran from two 6 volt motorcycle batteries that I had permanently charging. The R109 had a vibrator pack to increase the voltage and also had a spare set of valves held inside the case of the receiver. The first thing that I did was to the metal guard on the front, it must have been hard for the radio operator to use this receiver with the guard fitted. I also removed some of the other things like the antenna terminals and big knob on the left that didn't seem to do anything. I fitted a coax socket for the antenna. 

Here I am operating the receiver when I was 17 years old, note the two 6v batteries under the bench and old WWII headphones.

As I watched the programme I could remember what all the switches and knobs did on the R109, it was a fine receiver and I modified it inside to make it better. I added a BFO so that I could listen to SSB signals and also an S-Meter connected to the AGC line, it worked well! You can see the BFO adjustment knob just above the microphone.
I would love to play around with some of these old receivers again!

I'm not sure what the transmitter is on the right of the R109, I don't recognise it at all.

Sporadic E on 70Mhz

For the first time ever I managed to work a DX station outside of the UK on 70Mhz!
I have always liked to use 4m, back in the 70's I operated the 70Mhz contest station during VHF NFDs. A great band, but not much activity. On Sunday I listened to 4m out of curiosity because there was a contest sometime during the day. When I switched on my FT101E and home built transverter I heard a couple of local stations calling CQ. Then I tuned down a little and nearly fell off my chair when I heard CT1HZE in Portugal calling CQ!

This was obviously Sporadic E and his signal was fading in and out from S3 up to S7. I gave him several calls, but to no avail. After tuning up and down the band there he was again S9+ this time. I called again and he heard me! Amazing...we exchanged reports he got me at 5-7 and he is located at IM57NH.

My home built transverter from the 1980's still works perfectly...running about 4w into a 70Mhz HB9CV...I was so pleased with the contact!

Shortly after I went onto 50Mhz and worked another station with Sporadic E from Spain EA1AR in IN17PP.

Disco Native

The other night I set up my old disco equipment that I have had now for over 20 years! Until now, the equipment was stored in a cupboard at school gathering dust. It consists of a 100 watt MOSFET Amplifier that I built from a kit supplied my Maplin. It is mounted in the original aluminium case that I built back in 1970 that housed my stereo 'PW Partygram' amplifier.

The speakers also came from Maplin and the boxes I built myself from a design for the speakers that I used. The quality of these speakers are superb, even now after over 20 years of use.
The mixer was again supplied by Maplin and I built it into a case with jack sockets on the back for easy connection.

When my disco was in it's haydays the mixer was housed along with two Gerrard SP25 belt driven decks. Later, when CD's came along I stopped using the decks and just used two CD players.
Gosh...it seems so strange after all these years to think that I was once a DJ! I remember doing discos in all kinds of places. It started at school before I became a teacher, but then did discos for all kinds of events. I think the biggest was at the Pack Horse in Bolton with a huge number of people on a charity event. I also used it as a sound system for school plays.
Now I have a JVC LA-100 deck connected so that I can listen to my vinyl LPs and singles! The equipment works perfectly and the quality is brilliant....now that i'm a bit older, I don't whack up the volume like I used to!

Next job is to give the disco another coat of mattblack paint!

Analogue native - then and now!

 

 Here I was at 18 years old, shortly after passing my Radio Amateur Exam and Morse Test. Now I had a Class A licence and was building my own equipment. I was an apprentice TV Technician then, learning lots of electronics theory and analogue television. Video recorders had not yet appeared on the consumer market. I spent my 18th birthday working at Pontins at Camber Sands installing 900 black and white tv's in all the challets. It was great fun, I remember receiving a telegram from my parents at home at Camber Sands wishing me a happy birthday. (No e mails or text messages then)

Here I am now, 60 years old and wiser. Still an analogue native at heart but having embraced the digital technology. My 60th birthday was spent at St Annes-on-Sea on holiday. The hot weather was just the same as it was when I was 18 at Camber Sands. In fact, it occured to me how much the same it felt in the hot hotel at St Annes and the hot challet at Pontins. On my birthday I got text messages from my family and friends and many greetings on Facebook. How times of changed. Now I have semi-retired from teaching and look forward to some time on the air and maybe building some equipment again.

60 today!

 

Well today I finally turned 60 years old and joined the retired club!

Last day in the classroom

 

Every picture tells a story...this desk could tell lots of stories!

 

For 23 years I have been a teacher with my own class of children. Today I finally retired to work part-time. So now I have no classroom and no class of my own...sad :-(  In September I will still teach lots of children, but only the new COMPUTING curriculum :-)  I am really looking forward to this!

B.I.T. Rock Nights

Someone posted these photos on Facebook which shows the stage at B.I.T. (Bolton Institute of Technology) Saturday Rock Nights.

I started going there back in 1973 and it was here where I met Kathleen, my wife. I can remember the first time I saw her standing in the large queue waiting to go in. She wore a long black coat that went to the floor and had freaky hair! Sometimes she wore an Afghan coat and other freaky clothes!
Saw some great groups there, Judas Priest, Dr Feelgood, John Peel and loads of local groups like Black Cat Bone and Iron Maiden. A great atmosphere and I lived for Saturday nights at B.I.T. even more so when Kathleen and I got together.

The rock disco was super, played classic rock tracks and often missed the last bus home because we stayed to dance to the last songs. I can still visualise in my mind what it was like at B.I.T.with the chairs in a separate room where you sit and talk, the stage and dance floor and the bar area where you could buy Younger's Tartan Ale and Newcastle Browns and if you were hungry, lovely steak barms!

Airfix Therapy

 

My model Spitfire

When I was young I enjoyed making model planes. You could buy them from our local model shop on Ainsworth Lane in Bolton called Doreen Du-Rose. It was a model shop and knitting shop. (I guess we have Hobbycraft now)
At Christmas this year my daugher bought me some Airfix Models to keep me quiet on a cold Winre night. Well it took me to May to build the first one! When I built them years ago I attached fishing line in the models and hung them from my ceiling in my bedroom, I might do the same again!

I love the Spitfire! Last year I watched as a Spitfire and Hurricane flew during a war day in Bury. It was amazing to watch them and also the speed and sounds as they performed mock battles over Bury.
Here I am at Ramsbottom where a Spitfire Exhibition was taking place as part of the East Lancs Railway 40's Weekend.

BBC2 50 years old!

I remember BBC2 first coming on the air, but it was on 625 lines, which meant that you had to have a modern telly at the time. Ours was only VHF 405 lines.
My grandma rented a new TV with 625 lines, I can remember turning the 'turret' tuner to 625 lines to watch someting on BBC2. Trouble was that when you turned the tuner to 625 lines it produced a really loud whistle, which was the 15625Khz line oscillator and line output transformer. At the time I was 10 years old, but as much as I complained about the noise, none of the adults could hear it.
I remember that the TV was a Philips and later when I was an apprentice TV engineer I spent lots of time reconditioning the awful tuner units in these beasts.
Inside the tuner were 'biscuits' which were long clip in pieces of bakelite with tuned circuits mounted on them.

BBC2 was ahead of it's time back in the 60's. They showed stuff that I really didn't understand called 'culture'. It was later when BBC2 became the first colour TV channel around 1967. I went to an open day at the BBC and ITV transmitters at Winter Hill and in the BBC room they had a real colour TV camera as used for the BBC2 programmes.

When I was an appentice I enjoyed watching the BBC2 Trade Test Films. As I worked in the tuner department at Telefusion, I watched them in black and white, but occasionally got to watched them in colour in the colour room at Telefusion. My favourite was 'Ride the White Horses'.

Yelloway

This photo appeared on one of the Bygone Bolton groups on Facebook. Taken at Bury Transport Museum. It brought back memories from the 1970's of the Yelloway coaches that you booked at Hargreaves on Moor Lane Bus Station.
I remember going to Torquay with Kathleen before we got married on the overnight coach. Set off at 10.00pm and arrived at Torquay at anout 7.00am. We then got a taxi to our hotel and left our luggage there before walking into Torquay for some breakfast.

Picture of myself at the hotel in Torquay when we arrived.

I also used Yelloway to go to Cambridge when my friend Neil was at university there. A bit of a drag on the coach as it went from Bolton to Clacton stopping at Derby, Northhampton and lots of other places along the way.

LEGO Therapy

I really need some LEGO therapy...helps me relax at the end of a stressful day!
I have to admit that this is the very first LEGO kit that I have ever bought for myself. I remember buying LEGO for my children, but couldn't find patience at the time to build anything of my own. Now i'm building the Mars Curiosity Rover, 295 tiny pieces, up to now has taken me three days and nearly finished!

Quite fancy having a go with LEGO Mindstorms robots!

My completed Mars Curiosity Rover!

Happy Birthday Radio Caroline - 50 years!

Time to wear the T-shirt and take a selfie.

Radio Caroline is an icon of the pirate radio days when you could listen to POP music on the radio. Alright, the reception was not brilliant on medium wave, but boy did we love it!
I remember listening to Radio Caroline on 199 with a tranny radio. If reception was bad you could stand it next to a mains power socket and the cables would act as an aerial and bring up the volume and less fading no end. At night it was difficult to receive with the interference from European stations so you just re-tuned to Radio Luxemburg.
There were two Radio Caroline stations...Radio Caroline North and Radio Caroline South. Caroline North was just off the the coast of Liverpool and Caroline South was close to London just off the coast in the North Sea.



In August 1967 the BBC launched Radio 1 and a law was passed to shut down the pirate stations. At midnight on that day Radio Caroline played 'We shall overcome' to fight the government and stay on the air. They eventually had to shut down.

Commercial radio was great back in 1967, but look at it now...what a mess! Hundreds of commercial radio stations playing one song followed by 10 minutes of crap talk and another 10 minutes of advertisments. Bring back the pirates...they got it right!

For the next month the Radio Caroline North ship is in Liverpool broadcasting live on the internet and FM.

Happy Birthday Radio Caroline...we shall overcome!

Rivington Pike in Red!

Something quite unusual this week...Rivington Pike lit up in red along with a red Winter Hill TV mast.
This has caused a bit of a stir with Horwich and Chorley councillors. The Pike has been lit to promote business in Chorley (why??)  OK, so Chorley owns it, but really when you think of Rivington Pike you think of Horwich because it is so close.

Still, it is nice to look at if you have a good camera or binoculars. When I went to take some photos I was a bit disappointed, they should have lit up the whole hill as well along with lasers modulated by music!

Deane Grammar School

In April 1970 I moved to my new school, Deane Grammar School! I only had a term to complete my GCE's. The crazy thing was that Deane had a completely different uniform it was blue instead of Maroon. The Headmaster, Mr Atkinson insisted that everyone had the correct uniform, so had uniform inspections. During the exam period we only had to in for the exams, so it was pointless my mother buying a new uniform. Finally, after an assembly one day in June they had a uniform inspection, so my form got together and decided not to come in again apart from exams and that is what we did. A sad end really to my time at school. I missed some of my teachers Mr Eccles, (Spanish), Mr Worthington (Chemistry), Mr Worthington (English), Mr Bristow (Physics), Mr Fray (Metalwork) even Miss Barber!

This photo was taken after I left Deane, but some of my teachers are on the photo. 

I had some great fun with Mr Bristow in Physics. I started a Radio Club and at lunch times we came into the Physics lab to build stuff. I was building and oscilloscope (which I never finished) and brought some of my radio stuff in from home to solder. I remember one day playing with a green night viewer where we connected 800 volts onto it to make it work! Fun days!

Hayward Bilateral School

This is the only photo I have seen of my old school. It later became Bolton South Sixth Form College and both my children went there when they left school. lots of memories in the photo. The Sun Lounge on the ground floor where the entrance is, the Library on the top floor and Staff room on the first floor.
I remember playing 'knife stretch' on the lawn in front and getting caught and made to write an essay called 'Those who live by the sword will die by the sword'. I cycled to school sometimes (I can't believe I did that!) I left my bike on the right of the building where they had concrete blocks with groves to sit the wheel. On the left was the Tech Drawing Room (bottom), Miss Barber's English room (1st floor) and the Art room where this horrible woman teacher slapped me across the face for nothing at all! My form rooms where on the other side of the building. 

This photo is the other side of the building! Taken in the 1980's I only know one or two of the teachers. I can see Mr James and Mr Earp. I can see my first Form Room (B12) at the front on the first floor and B17 which is the top floor at the back. That was my Form Room for two years and also my Maths room.
In my 5th Year we moved to Deane Grammar School, there I took my GCE's. A crazy time, we had to walk between Hayward and Deane for different lessons because Deane was not finished.

A nice photo of Hayward Base in 1968, I am probably on this photo somewhere! 'B' Block is on the left along with the playground where we played football every dinner time.

Oscars

Gosh, this brings back memories from the 90's Oscars was downstairs in the Wellsprings building (now a gym) We went their almost every Saturday for a coffee and a bite to eat watching MTV and The Corrs on the TV screens. We sometimes went to watch  group during the week. I remember wathing 'Stax of Soul' they were really good! We also watched another group that were excellent and we booked them at the Pack Horse Hotel for a charity event organised by my friends Kate and Graham. I did the disco and remember the HUGE mixer and speakers. The guy on the mixer gave me a jack lead to plug into the disco which fed directly to the 2 Kw audio system and speakers! Awesome!!

We also did another event at Hawthornes on Spa Rd. It was a Caisson Music and there was a Caisson group and played Caisson music. I went with Kath to event which was around Christmas. Hawthornes was really nice, they put on a Caission food and we danced in Cassion style. This was in 1994, I can remember this because a few days later I ended up in hospital with Carbon Monoxide poisoning!

It is a shame that Oscars shut down, it was a really nice olace to go to when we were out shopping.

Tower FM

 

Jon and Vix, breakfast show hosts on Tower FM.with me!

Forgot to post this earlier...this is from 2012 when we were getting ready for the Olympics. Tower FM organised a sing-song about Bolton not being chosen for the Olympics. Schools in Bolton joined in singing a VERY catchy song with words about Bolton.
Jon and Vix came into my school to record the song, it was fun, we set up microphones linked to the Radio Broadcast Unit outside and recorded the song along with a video which was on the Tower FM site.

I really want one of these Radio Broadcast Units for myself!

Dream on Steve....