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

UHF/VHF

Radios and antennas

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). And indeed the upgrade button has been pushed, though it took the Baofeng dying to actually do it! I’m using the Yaesu FT-4X (I think it’s the 4XE to be precise - the difference being it is the European model). It’s a very very solid radio and despite being seen by some as a Baofeng in Yaesu clothing, I am finding notably better RX performance at least. It also feels significantly more physically solid, the Baofeng’s on/off switch failed and I don’t feel the 4X will succumb to the same fate. 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!

2m Yagi-Uda Project

UHF/VHF is an area I am continuing to enjoy as I get on with amateur radio, and I have recently embarked on building an enormous 5-element 2m Yagi-Uda antenna. I used the DL6WU design, helped by the use of this calculator, which made the process a doddle - well the design process at least, sawing through 5 bits of hardened steel by hand most definitely increased my upper arm definition! Construction-wise, I used earth rods of the type one might use to provide a mains earth connection to a house, five of which were required to be cut down to size in order to make the parasitics; one of them I then halved and soldered the ends of an RG58 line to in order to build the dipole. Physically, the antenna somewhat resembles the M0UKD 2m Yagi-Uda, by which I mean I am using a lightweight boom (in my case some plastic conduit), onto which are mounted some old square bits of wood, on top of which are glued and pinned some large clothes pegs, into which the elements can be inserted for quick installation. Because of this, and because the boom can be quickly split in half, the antenna can be folded into a form which can fit relatively comfortably in a medium-sized backpack and taken out portable. With two lightweight tripods which can also fit into my backpack, I can have a high-gain antenna for a SOTA or POTA deployment rather easily accessible. Additionally (and admittedly only after the antenna was built did I realise my genius in this regard, so naturally I take all the credit for this fantastic design), the antenna can in fact be deployed with only half the boom in place, turning it into a 3-element beam for slightly increased but not extreme gain.

HF

I have just completed my QMX+ kit too, so I am now getting started on the HF bands. I’m currently on 20m using a dipole made out of some old roughly cut Christmas light wire and an ice cream tub Ugly Balun which is all pegged to the washing line. It has an SWR of below 2:1 somehow!

PMR446

Since being licensed I’m a lot 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