Group:Amateur Radio
| Amateur Radio | |
|---|---|
| |
| When | First Saturday of the Month, from 14:00 |
| Members | |
Welcome to the London Hackspace Radio Club, established in 2013.
We're proud to be a part of the London Hackspace: the world's largest co-operative workshop (by membership).
In 2015, we won the prestigious Radio Society of Great Britain National Club of the Year
The call sign of London Hackspace is M0HSL.
The shack's Maidenhead locator is IO91UN.
What is Amateur Radio, Why Do it
It's the original 'nerd' hobby- building and playing with all sorts of communication over the airwaves! For those that are curious, more info available here.
Amateur radio complements many other interest groups in the space by providing a basis for the electronic and communications technologies that allow us to effectively explore and create cool stuff.
Radio Society of Great Britain Club Affiliation
London Hackspace are an RSGB affiliated club. This means we can enter RSGB contests, get news coverage in RadCom and GB2RS easily and probably get some general promotion for the space, generally good things.
Meetings, Events & Radio Shack Availability
Meetings are monthly and normally held on the first Saturday, at 14:00.
The radio shack is available to members of the amateur radio club (and supervised guests) 24 hours a day. Use of transmission facilities is restricted to licensed UK/CEPT/HAREC amateurs only. Access is restricted to those who have completed an induction to the shack.
We have created some guidelines for shack operation - please study if you intend to transmit.
Study Courses & Exams
There are three levels of licensing in the United Kingdom: Foundation, Intermediate, and Advanced. One new radio enthusiast's testimonial of acquiring all three licenses at another club is here.
As the London Hackspace community tends to be familiar with the basic concepts of electronics involved in the amateur radio qualifications, our courses are self-study for the theoretical portions of these exams. There are usually assessors around during meetings who can handle practical assessments on an ad-hoc basis. London Hackspace is a RSGB registered exam centre. Exams are run as needed, based on demand and on the availability of invigilators (who have to give up several hours of their undivided attention).
If you're interested in doing your amateur radio qualification at London Hackspace, let us know on our mailing list.
Our training team consists of:
...and anyone we've forgotten please add yourself or consider volunteering in the future!
Projects and Goals for the Club
- Activities Master Spreadsheet via Google Docs - contact another member for edit access
- Hacktenna
- Morse Code
- Clark Trailer Mast – 30M Clark Trailer Mast
- Clark SCAM-12 Mast – 12M Clark SCAM-12 Mast
- Encourage more active licensing of atypical amateur radio enthusiasts (younger demographics, women, minorities) - it's a multicultural world, after all.
- Build a complementary bridge between other group efforts - encourage other regional radio clubs to link up with other hackspaces
- Antennas - Mount and install a variety of antennas on the shack (Rebuild the Yagi, install the 2 m Diamond antenna, rearrange cables in shack)
- Participate as a club/team in some contests and possibly field activities like SOTA
- Explore more digital HF modes - digital data as well as newer digital modes like FreeDV/Codec2
- More Intermediate (second-level) licensing activities
- Club Wish List - an equipment wish-list for the club - please consider donating / loaning equipment to the space!
- BaofengUV5R-TRRS
- APRS iGate/Digipeater - because APRS coverage in London sucks
- Packet Radio is cool again.
Informative
- Repeaters that everyone can get to (even if it's RX only).
- Getting Started. So you've got your Foundation licence and callsign, what now?
- Heavens Above Amateur Radio Satellites passing above the Hackspace
Slightly out of date
Useful links
There are many places on the web for news about amateur radio, but one of the risks is that a lot of the information is outdated and incorrect. Here are some recommended sites for various bits:
UK Specific Discussion Boards, Exam Prep, and Official Info
- Transmission1 Amateur Radio Web Forum
- Code Plug Central - program your DMR/VHF/UHF radios with these UK-specific codeplugs
- OpenDMR/PHOENIX digital amateur repeater network
- BrandMeister DMR UK Network Dashboard
- HamTests - practice your knowledge with the various tests available
- Ofcom WTR Spectrum Info
- Ofcom Amateur Radio
- UKrepeaters - find UK repeaters in your neighbourhood and elsewhere
- Radio Society of Great Britain - our national association protecting the interests of radio enthusiasts
- RSGB Document Highlight: Protective Multiple Earthing and the Radio Amateur
General News, Info & Discussion
Current
- Southgate ARC Amateur Radio News
- Hackaday Amateur Radio Highlights
- Reddit /r/amateurradio forum or aggregated 'hamradiomulti' filter
- DMR-MARC Worldwide Digital Amateur Radio Network
Historical
- N5DUX Ham Articles PDF Archive & N5DUX Ham Magazine PDF Archive
- 73 Magazine Archive 1960-2003
- CQ Magazine Archives (up to 24 months ago)
Rigs
- Manual for the Yaesu FT-450D
- Useful resource for the Baofeng/Pofung UV-5R and Miklor UV-5R (and derivatives) Documentation
- UK-built and designed SDRplay receiver capable of receiving from 100khz to 2Ghz
- Easy and cheap USB dongle receiver RTLSDR - cannot do much in LF/MF/HF but does very well in VHF and above
- Another popular SDR Transceiver HackRF One by Great Scott Gadgets. Lower cost 100% compatible variants at HackRF Blue
- Powerful SDR Tranceivers by Ettus Research can also be very interesting - often paired with OpenBTS cellular telephony software.
- CCCamp 2015 rad1o Software Defined Radio Badge given out to participants. Using similar API stack to the HackRF One.
Other Hackspace Radio Clubs
- brmlab - OK1RBM Prague, Czech Republic
- Amateurfunk Clubstation muCCC - DL0MUC Munich Germany
- Vancouver Hackspace Radio Club - Vancouver British Columbia, Canada
- HacDC W3HAC - Washington DC USA
- Hack Manhattan - Manhattan, NY USA
- NYC Resistor - Brooklyn, NY USA
- Dallas Makerspace KD5MS- Dallas TX USA
- Kraków Hackerspace - Radio Club "Ryjek" SP9KGP - Kraków, Poland
Available Resources
- Radio Programming Cable Library - Looking for an obscure radio programming cable? Maybe a member owns one.
- Packet Radio / TNC Pool - Looking to get into Packet Radio? We have some TNCs available to get you started.
Contact & Keeping in touch
Please get in contact with us! We have many active forms of communication.
- Mailing list - general inquiries and radio related chatter.
- Internet Relay Chat (IRC), [#lhs-radio on chat.freenode.net with link to web browser IRC client).
- Twitter, @M0HSL
- Member's Callsigns – Hackspace members' callsigns
