I am amazed at some of the stuff available on Ebay from overseas, I picked up a couple of RF power transistors for a 70cm linear a while ago, I put a bid in and was the only bidder, won it for just a few quid, and I had wondered about the description as it said 'lot 2' - and to my amazement quantity 2 arrived !.
Even with a few quid postage, you can't beat £6 each for a 60w UHF transistor !.
I have had a few things from China too, but they take an absolute age to come despite being in airmail jiffy bags, a couple of DDS units and some motor shaft couplers just arrived after a month long journey, just as well as it was free post, so can't complain too much. I was not in any particular hurry for them but can now have a play and see if I can hitch one of the DDS units as a vfo to a SDR receiver instead of being rock-bound on a quiet bit of band. It won't even compete with the absolutely amazing funcube dongle pro+ which will go from LF to nearly 2GHz (mine drops out at 1.855GHz) and so easy to get going. I seem to have been pretty early on the waiting list as I was in the first batch of dispatches, I think there are lots of people who will be lucky to have theirs by Christmas.
It is amazing to watch the trace appear on the waterfall when the weather sats come over the horizon as predicted by orbitron. Next just need to figure out how to port the audio into the WXtoimg program to see the pictures ! The recording method hasn't been successful so far, so more experimenting to do.
Meanwhile the back corner of the garage and workbench has had its annual tidy-up for the visit of the gas boiler man yesterday, all checked over and ready for the cold weather, although it is still remarkably mild so far, just 8 wet doggy feet coming in from the garden need lots of wipes.
below NOAA19 weather satellite overhead
Even with a few quid postage, you can't beat £6 each for a 60w UHF transistor !.
I have had a few things from China too, but they take an absolute age to come despite being in airmail jiffy bags, a couple of DDS units and some motor shaft couplers just arrived after a month long journey, just as well as it was free post, so can't complain too much. I was not in any particular hurry for them but can now have a play and see if I can hitch one of the DDS units as a vfo to a SDR receiver instead of being rock-bound on a quiet bit of band. It won't even compete with the absolutely amazing funcube dongle pro+ which will go from LF to nearly 2GHz (mine drops out at 1.855GHz) and so easy to get going. I seem to have been pretty early on the waiting list as I was in the first batch of dispatches, I think there are lots of people who will be lucky to have theirs by Christmas.
It is amazing to watch the trace appear on the waterfall when the weather sats come over the horizon as predicted by orbitron. Next just need to figure out how to port the audio into the WXtoimg program to see the pictures ! The recording method hasn't been successful so far, so more experimenting to do.
Meanwhile the back corner of the garage and workbench has had its annual tidy-up for the visit of the gas boiler man yesterday, all checked over and ready for the cold weather, although it is still remarkably mild so far, just 8 wet doggy feet coming in from the garden need lots of wipes.
below NOAA19 weather satellite overhead