Tom’s Radio Exploits

As of February 2025, I am a licensed Foundation amateur in the UK. My callsign is M7XXI, and if you wish to QSL, see the contact me page. I am interested in the 2m and 70cm bands, and outside of amateur I do a lot of meshtastic (34cm) and PMR446 (67cm) working too.

Equipment

Amateur

I am using a Baofeng UV5RM currently, which seems to be doing a pretty good job (although I can feel the upgrade button itching to be pushed as RX is certainly not brilliant). I have also cobbled together a /P rig using a slim jim inside a casing up the top of a pole, which I find radiates particularly well!

I am also currently building an HF rig with the QRP Labs QMX+ kit - frequent updates given on Mastodon (may contain images of soldering masacres as a warning to those of a sensitive disposition).

PMR446

Since being licensed I’m less active on 446 now.

I’m using a standard PMR446 radio to remain within the power and type compliance of the 446 bands. I only have TX access to the first 8 channels, but by using the Baofeng radio in recieve only, I can RX on all 16 channels. Generally when making 446 contacts, I use the Baofeng in recieve as it has a much better reciever than my 446 radio. This, and a lot of height from whatever hill I happen to be standing on seems to make making contacts significantly easier.

Mesh and LoRa

I started experimenting with LoRa mesh networks and made some decent contacts when I was up in Edinburgh. I’m amazed with the range, I could hit Glasgow very easily using other people’s more powerful antennae thanks to the meshed nature of the network.

When I moved back to Newcastle, I tried the Mesh but couldn’t find anything, but a few months later and a much larger community seems to be forming on 868Mhz!

Recently, I’ve seen some things about the way the Meshtastic project is being run which worry me slightly - that and most of the UK seems to be jumping ship to Meshcore at the moment, so I’ve done the same. My ultimate aim will be to get to reticulum, although I can’t hear anyone on there at the moment.

You can find a list of my nodes in the table below. Send me a CQ if you can see my node, I might take a while to answer but I’m always listening on 868!

Tagged as: utility-pages radio