Greetings! Straight to it this time as we have a lot to get through . . .
Politiks:
Our new Greek Government are having such fun!
On their second day in office the Minister in charge of Tourism said that the new Government will ban all ‘all-inclusive’ hotels in Greece from next year as the country makes no money from them. The people, who go ‘all-inclusive’, tend to stay in the hotels, rarely venture outside and therefore spend no money in the local economy.
On the third day, the Under Minister in charge of Tourism says that they will not ban ‘all-inclusive’ hotels . . . All quiet since then while they make up their minds. However, while all this is going on, the new mob have decided to take ‘decisive’ action and save money. The following item is from a local paper:
“The new Greek government has decided to sell most ministerial cars in order to save money for the debt-stricken country.”
According to a press report, one of the first official cars to go under the hammer is the car, an expensive BMW, used by former Deputy PM and leader of PASOK Evangelos Venizelos.
Vima FM [An Athens radio station] quotes the Minister of Administrative Reform Giorgos Katrougalos as saying that the government “intends to collect money by selling the ministerial cars”. The report says that ministers do not require official cars, as most of them use private transport means.
Minister of Finance Yannis Varoufakis, for example, is using taxis or his own motorbike and PM Alexis Tsipras is using a black Audi with Thessaloniki plates.”
However, as I see it, there is one slight problem with selling the cars. The road tax on the BMW mentioned above would be in the order of 600 Euros per year and with the rich about to be hammered with extra taxes, I do not see them rushing out to buy a second-hand BMW that has had the rather corpulent Mr Venizelos previously riding about in.
Of course if this idea catches on you can expect to see Mr Cameron getting to work in a Reliant Robin while his Cabinet arrive on 50cc Honda Mopeds.
Also, VIPs in and around Athens are having their police protection withdrawn and the 2,000 officers who used to have these cushy postings are being put back on the beat. ‘On the beat’ here means driving round in cars all day or ridding two-up on Suzuki 900cc motorbikes.
Norse?
Checking the band condx the other afternoon, I heard some ‘odd’ data signals. Turns out they were Thor-16. I have never actually heard anyone on Thor before and so I called the DL who was calling CQ. After working him I was called by several others all wanting Crete on the mode. However, I learned that Thor users are very brief with their exchanges as the mode is 100% duty cycle, like RTTY, and so if I use the mode again, I must really change my Macros.
[Note – Fldigi and HRD (washes mouth out) come with Thor as standard]
Two weeks after this, one wet and windy afternoon around 4.00pm local, I just put out a few CQs on Thor-16 and was surprised to be called by VK6YM in Perth. Got a 559 with my 30 watts on 20m which can’t be bad especially as, on data that afternoon, there were nothing but Europeans.
WX Station Update:
Much to my surprise, after a couple of weeks of sitting on the desk just sulking, the little weather station thing actually started doing the stuff it should do!
First of all the humidity changed, both inside and out. This had been stuck on 90% for both readings since the unit was powered up a few weeks ago.
Then the clock changed time to GMT and the date, the day of the week and month were suddenly correct. We assume that the radio thing in it suddenly worked and after some thought, I think I know why.
A few days previous I entered a contest for a couple of hours. I had the linear fired up and was running about 800 watts peak on SSB (washes mouth out again). When the linear is working, I sometimes get a bit of RF in the shack. Nothing much and just on the odd occasion, and some external RF may have kicked some life into the little beast.
Mind you, it still says it will be sunny at 10.30 pm this evening, but I can live with that . . .
Kicking and screaming into the Digital Age:
I learned recently that there has been digital TV on Crete from two transmitters for about 12 months, one just outside Hania and the other to the West of Heraklion. These served most of the population of each city while the rest of us put up with analogue TV.
Since Christmas there has been an advert on all TV channels saying that from 6th February, digital TV was coming to the rest of Crete via a transmitter on Thira (Santorini) about 100 or so miles North of here. Somehow I didn’t think so but – come the day in question, 99% of all terrestrial TV just ceased on the island! No running both analogue and digital at the same time, no, just kill the analogue all in one go.
I retuned our TV and found that the transmitter we use, about 40 miles across the bay from us and on top of the Thripti Mountains had been switched over and that we also had a few more channels than we were used to. We now have 21 instead of the previous 11. Nothing we can understand of course, but at least we now have more of them!
While we were ok, there were loads of people, mostly old folk, who were not ready for the change over at all.
George, SV9GPV, who runs a repair shop over in Rethymnon, was inundated with people who came into his shop carrying their beloved TVs saying that it had just stopped showing their favourite soap! All of them had seen the recent TV adverts about digital and all thought “It does not apply to me” . . .
UK Officialdom:
Going abroad this year? Passport up to date? If your passport runs out within the next 12 months – now is the time to apply for a new one. But why so early I hear you cry – well the passport people are playing “god”.
The XYLs passport runs out later this year and she was advised to apply for her new one at least 3 months in advance. She completes all the forms, she signs the forms and she sends off all the forms and her money.
She waits. She waits some more.
A letter arrives from the passport office complete with all her forms and saying that her signature is not inside the box where she is meant to sign. Also, the form will not scan on their machine.
We look at the signature. It is within the box. As it is their original form, we do not know why it will not scan into their own machine. She re-signs the new form and returns everything.
She waits. She waits some more.
Some weeks later, an email arrives with an attachment saying exactly the same as the last letter they sent and also asking for all the documentation she sent originally! What a bunch of ***kers.
She telephones them and asks what the hell is going on but they don’t seem to know. The promise of a phone call back within 48 hours to give an exact update did not happen. But then again, when did any Government department keep its promises?
Out here, when driving you must keep your passport (or ID card if a Greek Citizen) with you at all times. So far she has not been stopped by The Plod but it will happen and then she will be in the ****. . . .
When my passport runs out in a couple of years, I think I will apply for a Greek one – it has got to be easier . . .
What’s in a name?
I see the ‘new’ Watson W-SDRX1 little SDR receiver currently being advertised, at £99.95, is just a re-badged DX-Patrol unit that has been kicking around Portugal and Brazil for some time. Differing reports on how easy it is to get going I hear . . .
[WiMo advert for the DX-Patrol here – €89]
Still, I am tempted to see what it can do . . .
SK.
The old XP laptop up’d and died the other day. Just got it all set up to use in the CQ WPX RTTY shindig when it showed a lot of white gobbledegook writing on a blue background, smiled politely and passed away.
I had the old gal for some nine years so can’t really complain but XP is so much better than all the other Microsoft crap that has come after it. I will miss it . . .
March RadComic:
Good? Some. Bad? Some. That about sums it up this time, about half and half.
On Page 7 there is a piece about Annick Morris who, although blind, reads the RSGB news on 2 and 4m up in the North West. What an amazing lady. Pity then that the Editor of RadComic could not even bother to check the article otherwise she would have noticed that her call-sign was missing. How unforgivable is that from an organisation that keeps saying that it does not do enough to recognise its volunteers?
“Emerging Technology Committee”? What a posh title when all they seem to do is renew NOVs for Ofcom! Sounds like another ‘jobs for the boys’ outfit to me.
The ‘Open Letter’ from Andy Russell, G0VRM was excellent, pity then that the non-answers were bland and typical of Steve Hartley. We have been told that there is a new person at the RSGB who is a ‘Communications Officer’. Obviously they are not doing their job then if they missed such a great opportunity to promote the hobby.
I see again that the Editor Lady is still keeping her extended family income up again with two incomprehensible reviews from Mike Richards. I ask you, who, in their right mind, would pay 900 quid for a QRP radio with only three knobs on that all do up to twenty functions each? By the time you have worked out which knob to press and turn to alter a setting, like CW speed, the station you are trying to work with your flea-power would probably have packed up and gone home – and you still need a computer to use it fully on the data modes. Eight separate screens to show different modes on any band at one time? Get real . . .
. . . and I do not understand all this hype about something called a Raspberry Pie. Yes, it may be a simple pc but did we not go through all this with the ZX Spectrum some years ago? Give it a couple of years and these Raspberry people will come up with something like Windows . . .
The look at the ‘new’ TS-590SG was ok but not really detailed enough and the Making a Mini-Quad article failed to point out that to make it all worthwhile, you really need a 100ft tower to put it on . . .
Konfusing Kenwood:
My main rig is the Kenwood TS-590S. It is great for what I want to do, be it CW or data. I read in RadComic that there is an update for it – I do not really understand why as it seems fine to me, but I look at the Kenwood web site that is mentioned.
After reading several pages I decide that I will not even think about updating the rig as, once again, it is assumed that all of us are ruddy computer experts. The instructions say that you should have some Microsoft net thing on your laptop and that you know all about ‘virtual com ports’. The actual instructions on how to ruin a decent rig are long and confusing.
It would appear that there have been a number of updates to the rig over the past couple of years but very few people have bothered to do them. I am not surprised as it is so complicated. If the updates were really important and I lived back in the UK, I would take the rig back to the dealer and have them do it all.
Now we are heading into March, our WX has decided to get better. The days are getting longer and as I type this we have a pleasant 18c this morning. We will still get a few unsettled days but when the locals start casting off several layers of coats, jacket, jumpers and suchlike, you know that Summer is not too far away.
I’ll drink to that!
Yammas.
Dick. SV0XBN/9.
