A short trip to Iceland was taken last weekend to celebrate(??) Adrian’s forth coming wedding. Seeing as what happens on tour stays on tour I can’t even really comment on this either. Although I’m sure Adrian won’t mind me publishing this lovely picture of him as Pamela Anderson taken at The Blue Lagoon. We all felt incredibly safe knowing we had an on the call life guard available should our beer run out
I finally ordered a UBC800XLT and I am now happy with it. When I say now I mean I wasn’t when it first arrived and it nearly found its way back to Nevada Radio, but a bit of perseverance paid off and I am pretty well up to speed with how to operate it. It’s not easy that’s for sure. I also built a Yagi antenna with bits of old wiring, a choc block and some co-ax that I had lying around. This is currently connected to the 800 and it’s working a treat, especially in the UHF bands when I’m scanning. I almost feel sorry for the Icom as its not been played with as much recently, but that’s mainly because there’s not much been happening out there. That is until the last week or so.
With all the trouble in North Africa I decided to listen in on Libya and have been receiving a few things on HF 11300. It’s not always clear but there’s been a few things moving around.
And finally, after a few months delay, Space Shuttle Discovery launched on the 24th Feb. I watched the event live on the Internet and 15 minutes later was able to catch a quick 15 to 20 seconds of the crew contacting Houston on both the Icom and the 800. I had set up the freqs in both just in case my homebuilt antenna wasn’t up to much but it picked them up nice and clearly.
I’ve got to say I’m quite chuffed to, first of all, hear them in the first place; but secondly to pick them up on my homebuilt antenna. Later in the week I was able to pick up ISS on a few passes, although this is generally in Russian; and on a very clear night I was also able to see the ISS with Discovery attached to it pass over head. It really is hard to believe that the Space Shuttle is nearing the end of its service, I’m glad I managed to see a couple of them and I’m glad I was able to pick this one up. there’s another launch due soon hopefully, but that’s 1 of 2 that’s left
Lastly for this blog is that I have a new project arriving next week. I won’t say anything yet, but once it’s arrived I’ll get some pictures and my plans on here
planesandstuff 