Another good month on 2m, not quite as high-scoring as last month (also fewer QSOs and fewer bonus squares) but I did have some good sustained runs. 70cm was interesting, I kept a really good rate up for the first 30 minutes, with pile-ups at times, but then conditions suddenly turned dire with long stretches of no contacts. In fact I got bored of calling CQ at one point and so tried an AO-92 pass, to no avail - I didn't even hear the satellite!

This was my best month to date, 2m felt fantastic and I kept up a good rate so even though others worked more bonus squares than me I'm still confident for a good result. 70cm was also good but felt frustrating - others were clearly taking advantage of tropo openings that I couldn't seem to get in to.

This was my best month to date, 2m felt fantastic and I kept up a good rate so even though others worked more bonus squares than me I'm still confident for a good result. 70cm was also good but felt frustrating - others were clearly taking advantage of tropo openings that I couldn't seem to get in to.

Satellite Reception using RTL-SDR, GQRX and GPredict

This is mostly sourced from http://teslaintheether.blogspot.com/2018/02/setting-up-gqrx-and-gpredict-for.html, all credit goes to Jacen Solo and it's only reproduced here in case the original disappears. All images come from his original blog post.

1. Install and start both GQRX and GPredict

2. In GPredict, click Edit > Preferences

3. Click...

A number of years ago I bought a neat little LCD/Button add-on module for my 1st Gen Raspberry Pi. The company that produced these (Emsystech Engineering, Germany) no longer produce them and they no longer host information about them on their website. This is a mirror of the info that I've managed to collate from a number of sources, primarily the Wayback Machine.

The following is text that has been copied from Emsystech's website after being...