Hello.
I wondered if activators have noticed these new kits for voice to red light transceivers developed by Bernie G4HJW? Summit to summit contacts would be intriguing. ‘Welsh Borders red light day’ sounds a bit dodgy but 4 of us on different hills in Shrophire could qualify each on 625 nm! I’ve ordered a pair for our Scout troop to use as they’re £20 per kit or £25 each with the SMA done. I need to find the £1 magnifying glass in a pound shop that fits into 110 mm dia. plastic pipe for the telescope, add a battery, camera tripod and mic / head phones.
Key information:-
*Operate transmit & receive at a nanowave frequency of 625 nm ( optical red light )
*No licence required to operate. The TX has an output of about 0.5 watt - QRP!
*Ideal for dark evening operation (but contacts in full daylight are possible) in the local area
*Another chance to develop your skills in using surface mount components. Help is at hand, if required
*Distances (line of sight!) have been achieved over 100 Km+ already
*There are numerous opportunities to experiment and even achieve “firsts” on this band, at very low cost.
I wonder who will log the first 625 nm SOTA contacts?
In 1974, a friend and I made a CW QSO between Brading Down on the Isle of Wight and Portsdown Hill near Portsmouth by flashing the headlights of our motorcycles. There was a “flash” button on the handlebars, so it was very easy to do. About 12 wpm was achievable.
Hardly QRP, though! I think the power of the headlamp bulb was 60 watts.
In reply to M0YDH:
Hi I’m going up the Wrekin tonight [all being well] with Martyn G3UKV to attempt some 2 way nanowave SSB QSO’s. Martyn has a couple of skeds - one with Bernie G4HJW whose equipment design we’re using.
480THz and SSB did not go into an acceptable form for an alert on SOTAWatch.
In reply to M0YDH:
Hi all…does Bernie have any more of these light txcvr kits available for sale? There is no direct e-mail adress for him on QRZ.com. I would be interested in building one (then I’d only have to find someone else around Edmonton to build another!!).
I built a modulation light Rx using a vacumn tube based on a schematic from a 60’s? Popular Electronics quite a few years back and a pen style laser pointer hooked to a speaker of an AM tube radio as the TX( original plans used a 6 volt flashlight and shaving mirror)…only played with it across a garage but it worked well as long as you could align the TX laser dot and RX tube target. Still have them somewhere.
