Summertime 2023 Catchup And A Quick Project.

 

It is hard to believe my last blog post was in February 2023 and we are now in the month of August so almost six months have past between blog posts, shame on me 😉.

During the summer months I do not tend to spend a lot of time on hobbies but now the summer is nearing the end it is time to knuckle down and make a much needed return to the blog and my Irwell HF Transceiver project.

Before I do that allow me to whaffle a little about what I have been upto in the last few months.

A considerable amount of my spare time in the last few months has been spent relocating my radio/hobby room to a smaller room within our house. 

Many years ago I installed networking points throughout our house aswell as TV and Radio outlets and a CCTV system. The cables for these facilities ran to a central point in the house and a room I previously used to work from and use for my hobbies. Whilst it was neccessary to re-locate the vast majority of these cables it was also an ideal opportunity to update some of the cables whilst re-running them to my new hobby and radio room.

The move turned out to be a bigger and longer job than I had originaly considered and involved re-routing and installing hundreds of meters of various cables through every single room in the house and relocating the various appliances to control everything. 

Much to my delight the work has now been completed and I have a new shack that is freshly decorated and furnished.

My radio operating desk in the new shack.

Another view of my radio operating desk.

Whilst running all of the aforementioned cables I also ran eight coax cables for my amateur radio antennas four of which can be seen hanging over the left hand side of my desk, these have yet to be connected and two are actually spare runs for future use.

My main HF antenna is a modest Western HF10 multiband dipole that is 67ft in length and has a couple of loading coils near the dipole ends for the 80 Mtr band.

On the top shelf are three of my homebrew radios, two sdr transceivers and an SDR receiver, they are easily identified by my signature two tone front panels.

In order that I can easily hook up my various HF radios I decided to build an Antenna switch which is the only radio related project I have completed in recent months. 

 

Some time ago I purchased a PCB and component kit for a 4 way antenna switch designed by OK2ZI.  Here's what I received in the kit:

The kit requires a suitable enclosure and I opted for a Hammond 1590WU Diecast Aluminium type measuring 120 X 120 X 59mm purchased from RS Components in the UK.

I drilled the main body of the enclosure with suitable holes to mount five SO239 RF sockets, a pair of wing nut fixings for grounding points, PCB mounting points and a DC power cable inlet.

Rear View Of My 4 Way Antenna Switch.

 
Next I prepared the front panel and included a rotary selection switch and five LED's to indicate which port was active, finally I created a front panel label printed on my inkjet printer and protected it with several coats of satin finish inkjet fixative spray purchased from Amazon in the UK.

Front View Of My 4 Way Antenna Switch.

Finally here is an internal view of the completed switch to illustrate the PCB and wiring.

So that is what I have been upto during the last few months, for the next blog post I will be returning to the Irwell HF Transceiver project.
 

Until next time...