intermediate Exam

Well I sat my exam today and I won’t lie I hate exams I’m not the paperwork kind of person, even at school I was never any good at exams. .

After the exam I was told I have provisionally passed my exam, I can’t tell you what a relief that was to pass it 1st time.

I was unsure as I could not sleep that night I sat up and studied and it didn’t seem to help. I tried the ham tests a few hours before my exam, I was getting a pass rate of 30% and less, this did not make me feel any better.

Compare the two

Ok I have had the baofeng for a while now and I have to say I'm very happy with it, it's a gt3tp so I have the maximum transmit power of 8watts and a long life battery on it and fully charged it happily lasts a week in my works van, I take it out on the weekend to charge it but it still has power to work and operate.

Good points:

Big battery

8watts of transmit power

Doesn't discharge when left off for weeks

Quite easy to operate 

Cheap to buy

Comes with 12volt car charger plug for the base

Bad points:

Feels cheap 

The charger pin bent 1st time I put it on charge

Not many optional accessories as the uv5-r or the wouxun has

Need to be careful with the programming cable as the socket is quite a way down

The audio gain is quite low and no way to adjust it

The packaging is a lot less

The operating manual is not all that good

The torch button didn't work (found the issue and fixed)

I haven't had the wouxun for as long but it has a lot of good points and some bad points

Good points:

Packaging is very good

Manual is very comprehensive 

It has a very rugged feel to it 

There are lots more accessories than the gt3

You have a tune dial that comes in handy doing things

The fm radio has presets 

It has a nice feel when you hold the radio 

Charger is a better fit 

Audio is better than the baofeng

Bad points:

The way you operate the menus is a little more complex 

The battery's discharge naturally when turned off

No charger socket for the base (optional extra)

Can't find a bigger battery so have to charge every other night

Not as much transmit power as the baofeng 

My opinion of the radios.

Ok I have used both radios fo a little while and I can't fault either of them and I think both are good radios for what they are and I feel if I had to buy another radio I don't think I could say I'd buy one over the other as each are unique.

Baofeng gt3 a good cheap radio, maybe next time I'll buy a uv5-r tp instead if the gt3 

Wouxun a more expensive radio when new but I can't fault it, maybe a bigger battery would help with using it

Summary: you get what you pay for, if you want a better quality more refined radio buy a wouxun, if you can't afford a wouxun then get a baofeng tp radio, I would recommend either as I'm more than happy with them.

Raspberry PI

what is a raspberry pi?

There are five raspberry pi boards out there, the model A, A+, B, B+ and the pi zero, 

This is a cheap but powerfull little computer that runs on a 2 amp micro usb card and an 8gb micro sd card, you will need a mouse and keyboard and a hdmi cable (an Ethernet cable or wifi dongle if you wish to connect to the Internet.

Why use this?

I got my 1st pi with the dv mega, it was set up and ready to go for the dv mega, after i got one i deiced i want to find out more about it and its quite a versatile little system for what you get and i hope to do more with one to understand it some time in the near future.

Power to the pi

Raspberry pi uses a 2amp micro usb plug to power it and over the space of a year it would cost approximately £4 to leave it on in the background all the time like i do with the dv mega

Back it up!

When you do things with your pi they can go one of two ways, it may work or it may not, before you do anything make a back up image of it as you may not like what its done or you may corrupt files and it wont work, some times the memory card may fail and then you will have to start over again, this ain't good if your running a dv mega as there is a lot of work involved to set it all up again

I want to find out more

Google raspberry pi and loads of information will come up on it or go to the main site pi official site

Where can i buy one

I found the cheapest  at the moment is Amazon

intermetiate exam help

OK I have ordered the intermediate book from eBay and will wait for it to arrive

Chelmsford Amateur Radio Society intermediate slides for download

videos link this is the 1st of the three videos about what you need to know about the intermediate exam (note there may have been some changes from the time the video's had been posted but the majority is correct)

ham tests remember to select the uk tests not the American ones, also keep in mind it is a lot of questions to help get you per paired for the exam there may be no relevance to what questions you get on the day of the test!

rsgb mock exam these are for the intermediate section, download and print them off and study this may help

My 1st radio

well now I have my ham licence its time to order my 1st radio, I have been searching for a good radio for a while but as a foundation licence i'm limited to a max power of 10 watts!

a lot of the people in the club have hand held radios made by baofeng so i did some research and a lot of them have a maximum transmuting power of 5watts but i found the GT£ mark3 TP has a Max wattage of 8watts and found them on eBay for around £40 with a long larger battery so i took the plunge, now I guess I need to wait for it.

I also found a wouxun going cheap on eBay so I had a cheeky little bid I guess ill see if I win it!

The begining

This evening i became sat my exam for my foundation licence to operate an armature radio in the UK.

after the exam the paper was marked by the examiners and they gave me the provisional agreement that I had passed, it needed to be confirmed by the RSGB and a certificate will be sent in the post.

I was informed this will take up to 8 working days to arrive possibly a little longer as its near Christmas, I was also told to register with Ofcom so once I receive my certificate I can apply for my licence number.

To register go to OFCOM UK then go to licensing and amateur radio, then go to the licensing system and then register.

remember your details you will need them once your certificate arrives through the post.