Radio Round-up

JUST IN FROM ICOM: The AL-705 is a new, versatile portable magnetic loop antenna from Alpha Antenna. As part of a special agreement with Icom, the AL-705 is now an official partner product for Icom’s new IC-705.

The AL-705 operates on the 10 to 40m bands. The antenna's compact design allows it to be stored in the lower section of the LC-192 backpack for easy storage and transportation. Once deployed, the antenna's maximum diameter of 26.5in or just over 67.3cm, means it is easy to manipulate and mount conveniently wherever needed.

Maximum power handling is 20W SSB, 10W CW & Digital. The AL-705 comes with 15ft/4.57m of feedline, with BNC and PL-259 connectors. The AL-705 will be available for sale from authorised Icom amateur radio dealers from November.

KING OF THAILAND LICENSED: The call sign HS10A was granted on September 24th to Thailand’s King Vajiralongkorn. National telecoms regulator NBTC and RAST, the national amateur radio society, presented the Advanced-class license and amateur radio equipment, including HF and VHF/UHF transceivers, antennas, and peripherals.

SPECTRE SPEECH INVERTER: Ron G4GXO reports, “I have finally got around to creating a GitHub account and have posted the schematics, PCB layouts and source code for the Spectre speech inverter, (described in PW January 2019). The files are found here”: https://github.com/G4GXO/Spectre

ATTENDED PROPAGATION BEACON: Geoff M1EDF reports that his new Propagation Beacon is complete and tested. The message is M1EDF space UK repeating every 10 seconds at a power of 25W daily, and attended in accordance with the rules. Transmission will be spasmodic but as a guide, the times of transmission and frequencies will be as follows: Monday and Tuesday 3.545kHz from 7am until 11am, Wed and Thursday 7.035kHz from 7am until 1100am, Friday and Sat 10.129kHz from 7am until 11am.

Note that the beacon will check that the frequency is clear before operating.