NFD at Ashworth Valley

This was from 1970 (I think) of NFD at Ashworth Valley with the Bury Radio Club.
If you click the image you can see some classic cars including the one at the front which belonged to G3RSM with his topband mobile whip antenna. At the time I did not have a licence, so I filled in the log while George G3ZQS worked the stations with his broken hacksaw blade on Cw on the HF bands.
The antenna was a trapped 80m dipole and two 50ft masts.
Gosh...them were the days!

The Wilton Arms

Looks a bit different now, but here we are looking at the very room where so much happened on a Friday and Saturday night!
As it was 'The Wilton' was the place to be back in the 70's. The back room (as it was called) was simply a room with a Juke Box and no lights! The atmosphere was brilliant, probably the best juke box in the world...even had 'Riders on the Storm' by The Doors! The bar had a great choice Stella, Tetleys, Guiness, Carlsberg...and the barmaids...well...probably not the nicest in the world, but could always get served. Don't forget i'm talking about the 70's here!
Some of the lads from college came here, so one day we went there for lunch, piled into a van and away we went. For the first time we saw the 'back room' as it was in the light...not a pretty sight. Wallpaper falling off, paint flaking, seats ripped ... but who cares ... in the dark its great!!!
So one Friday night Neil (G3ZPL) decided to park outside the 'back room' next to the juke box to test if this analogue jewel could cope with 20watts of AM on 144mhz. I never did know the result!!

The Boat that Rocked!

Just had to order this one, but might buy 'The Boat that Rocked' later!

This film 'The Boat that Rocked' has just been released, I must go and watch it!

Ahhh...the days of Radio Caroline, Radio Nordsee International, Radio Veronica ... even Radio Luxemburg (although this was not a pirate station)

I used to have tapes of broadcasts of the final days of Radio Caroline, The Who 'Sell Out' album with the Pirate Radio jingles (Still have it on vinyl in the loft)

So now the record companies are releasing compilations of the good old days of the 60's and 70's. I saw this one on TV tonight, so promptly ordered it ... some great tracks on this album, lots of memories!

How did they manage to play records on a boat that rocks and sways on the ocean? I never heard records jump when I listened...whats the secret? None of this MP3 digital iPod and memory stick stuff. They really had to play old fashioned analogue vinyl records with a needle!

I wonder what happened to the guy that turned up at the Bolton Radio Society back in 1970 with a car brissling with aerials and stickers of pirate radio stations all over his windows. Knew everything you wanted to know about pirate stations. A great guy!

Windfarm

Here is our local ECO friendly WINDFARM. Photo taken from the Pack Horse Pub at Affetside.
I can see the tops of these 'windmills' from my window, so I went for a ride to find out where they are. Although they look quite close from my window, they are in fact on the hills on the other side of Ramsbottom and Haslingdon. I would love to see one of these close up...they must be enormous!
I still don't understand how the power generated from these windfarms link into the National Grid. Do they generate high voltages and low current or low voltage and high current?
Must be linked underground...but where too? (Unless of course they have a wireless link!!)
Sometimes I wonder if they are really windmills grinding wheat to make flour for our bread at Warburtons!
Maybe all these structures have weatherproof 13A sockets on the side for Radio Amateurs and Caravaners to plug into...i'm sure they have these windmills on Rooley Moor...great for VHF NFD!

April Fool?

Twitter switch for Guardian, after 188 years of ink

• Newspaper to be available only on messaging service

Consolidating its position at the cutting edge of new media technology, the Guardian today announces that it will become the first newspaper in the world to be published exclusively via Twitter, the sensationally popular social networking service that has transformed online communication.

The move, described as "epochal" by media commentators, will see all Guardian content tailored to fit the format of Twitter's brief text messages, known as "tweets", which are limited to 140 characters each. Boosted by the involvement of celebrity "twitterers", such as Madonna, Britney Spears and Stephen Fry, Twitter's profile has surged in recent months, attracting more than 5m users who send, read and reply to tweets via the web or their mobile phones.

As a Twitter-only publication, the Guardian will be able to harness the unprecedented newsgathering power of the service, demonstrated recently when a passenger on a plane that crashed outside Denver was able to send real-time updates on the story as it developed, as did those witnessing an emergency landing on New York's Hudson River. It has also radically democratised news publishing, enabling anyone with an internet connection to tell the world when they are feeling sad, or thinking about having a cup of tea.

"[Celebrated Guardian editor] CP Scott would have warmly endorsed this - his well-known observation 'Comment is free but facts are sacred' is only 36 characters long," a spokesman said in a tweet that was itself only 135 characters long.

A mammoth project is also under way to rewrite the whole of the newspaper's archive, stretching back to 1821, in the form of tweets. Major stories already completed include "1832 Reform Act gives voting rights to one in five adult males yay!!!"; "OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl.com/b5x6e for more"; and "JFK assassin8d @ Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?"

Sceptics have expressed concerns that 140 characters may be insufficient to capture the full breadth of meaningful human activity, but social media experts say the spread of Twitter encourages brevity, and that it ought to be possible to convey the gist of any message in a tweet.
For example, Martin Luther King's legendary 1963 speech on the steps of the Lincoln memorial appears in the Guardian's Twitterised archive as "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by", eliminating the waffle and bluster of the original.

At a time of unprecedented challenge for all print media, many publications have rushed to embrace social networking technologies. Most now offer Twitter feeds of major breaking news headlines, while the Daily Mail recently pioneered an iPhone application providing users with a one-click facility for reporting suspicious behaviour by migrants or gays. "In the new media environment, readers want short and punchy coverage, while the interactive possibilities of Twitter promise to transform th," the online media guru Jeff Jarvis said in a tweet yesterday, before reaching his 140-character limit, which includes spaces. According to subsequent reports, he is thinking about going to the theatre tonight, but it is raining :(.

A unique collaboration between The Guardian and Twitter will also see the launch of Gutter, an experimental service designed to filter noteworthy liberal opinion from the cacophony of Twitter updates. Gutter members will be able to use the service to comment on liberal blogs around the web via a new tool, specially developed with the blogging platform WordPress, entitled GutterPress.

Currently, 17.8% of all Twitter traffic in the United Kingdom consists of status updates from Stephen Fry, whose reliably jolly tone, whether trapped in a lift or eating a scrumptious tart, has won him thousands of fans. A further 11% is made up of his 363,000 followers replying "@stephenfry LOL!", "@stephenfry EXACTLY the same thing happened to me", and "@stephenfry Meanwhile, I am making myself an omelette! Delicious!"
According to unconfirmed rumours, Jim Buckmaster, the chief executive of Craigslist, will next month announce plans for a new system of telepathy-based social networking that is expected to render Twitter obsolete within weeks.

Highlights from the Guardian's Twitterised news archive:

1927OMG first successful transatlantic air flight wow, pretty cool! Boring dayotherwise *sigh*

1940W Churchill giving speech NOW - "we shall fight on the beaches ... we shall never surrender" check YouTube later for the rest

1961Listening 2 new band "The Beatles"

1989 Berlin Wall falls! Majority view of Twitterers = it's a historic moment! What do you think??? Have your say

1997RT@mohammedalfayed: FYI NeilHamilton, Harrods boss offering £££ 4 questions in House of Commons! Check it out.

This one from todays Guardian Newspaper!

Back in the 70's I remember two classic April Fool jokes...
The one when the newspapers had a full page cut out of a concentrated pint of Guiness, you cut it out put in a glass and add water for a free pint of Guiness.
The one when Noel Edmonds in his breakfast show flew over the country in an airplane with a live show as he played records and flew over different towns and cities. That one had me fooled as Brian and me listened on the way to work in Heywood on lovely sunny morning. As Noel was flying low over North Manchester we stopped the car to look up to see the plane!

Satelite Communication

Well after years of cable (Cable and Wireless, NTL and now Virgin Media) I decided that enough is enough! The cable companies have never quite got it right, so I decided that satelite is the way forward at the moment at least.

Now we have SKY to deliver our telly programmes and I must admit, quite impressive.

Cable TV and broadband with it's fibre optics should be state of the art technology, but something is going wrong. Seems to be all lip service, I pay (a lot of money) for 10Mb and get 2Mb. My e mail address vanished without trace, I can only speak to people in India. Global communications but I can't have what I pay for.

Customer service very poor particularly technical.My standrcp@ntlworld.com email was turned off (or 'lost') last June and despite several attempts to explain the situation I got absolutely nowhere with tech guys in India!! Kept being 'fobbed off' with pathetic excuses and assured that my e mail problem would be solved in the 'next few weeks' and they were aware of the problem. As my e mail address disappeared I was unable to log in to my customer account, in fact the message on screen said that my account had been suspended.I pay £24.99 for a 10Mb broadband and only receive 3Mb even though my area has been upgraded to 10Mb. I was told that I need a new box as mine is an old NTL box, an engineer arrived and fitted a router, which made no difference at all to the download speed.The NTL box also had to be constantly re booted when changing TV channels as it would 'lock up' and become very annoying.I have been with cable for many years, starting with Cable and Wireless, NTL and now Virgin, why can new customers get 'large' broadband at half the price that I pay? When I rang about this I spoke to a guy in India and was told that "new customers don't receive the same service that I get!!" What rubbish! I still have to pay £24.99 for broadband and can't downgrade to something more reasonable.I think that as a loyal customer for many years I deserve a refund for the poor broadband service and lack of e mail and on-line customer access.

Some of my suggestions for VM to get better..

Sort out your Customer Service.
Think about your loyal customers instead of just new customers.
Give customers the opportunity to downgrade services if required, particularly in the present atmosphere.
Get the tech team to listen to the customers problem instead of following a script ("please re boot your router" I was told when all I wanted to do was order a new box!)

Virgin Media are very apologetic but still don't deliver!

Roll out SKY...lets see what they can do!

G8AMU Multimode Receiver

My home built VHF / UHF Receiver (Click image to see full size)

This was one of my most ambitious projects back in the 1980's. Built entirely from scratch, including making the printed circuit boards and all the the metalwork!

Basically the circuit has a 28Mhz front end which is then converted by adding 70Mhz, 144Mhz, 432Mhz and 1296Mhz Converters. Modes of SSB and FM meant having two descrete I.F. strips, one for FM with a TBA120A discriminator and squelch and the other with SL1600 series chips with AGC and narrowband filter. The 28Mhz R.F. strip was mixed down using the state of the art (at the time) diode mixer.

The dial is the famous Eddystone 898 dial, what a wonderful piece of engineering, smooth and lovely to operate, cost me £8 at the time!

The SL1600 series of chips were amazing at the time, I had experimented before using the older SL600 series when I built my 160m / 80m Tranceiver. You could buy these from Birketts at any rally at three for a pound! The SL1600's where a bit more stable and easier to handle, so I bought the ones in my receiver new.

Still think that these Plessey SL chips revolutionised the analogue way of building!

I've got to say that the hardest part of building the receiver was the metalwork. It was built with just a drill, file and hacksaw and took me ages to put together while constructing the circuits at the same time.

The receiver worked well, biggest problem was the audio stage, never could get it right! The receiver is still working and sits in my loft without a power supply at the moment.

I'm really pleased with this project, made me a true Analogue Native!