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G4AKC "HF BICYCLE & PEDESTRIAN MOBILE"

~ Blackpool Promenade ~

Licensed as G4AKC for 38 years.

Happily married for over 26 years to my wife "Tracy", we have two grown up children.

I work for BAE Systems (formerly British Aerospace) as an Air traffic control, Radio, Radar and Navigation Aids Engineer and have been working as a professional radio and communications engineer for 33 Years.

In my spare time, I enjoy designing and constructing HF mobile and portable type antennas.

My main passion is using my HF Bicycle mobile near to the sea shore in Blackpool on the North-West coast of England.

I also enjoy ballroom dancing.

News: I am giving a presentation and talk with my good friend G7LPW about "HF Bicycle and Pedestrian mobile" on 12th October 2009 at the Bolton Wireless Club and on the 17th November 2009 at the Stockport Radio society.

Some Mobile Pictures:

Click here for more and also larger mobile pictures

Voice Recordings:

Below are a few sample recordings of QSO's as recorded on my bikes digital voice recorder on 20M: Click on the call-signs below to hear the recordings.

Note: Some of the voice files take a couple of minutes to download

• EC8ADW     VK4SU     VK4CC     VP8LP     W8VS     W8ERN

Below are a few recordings made by the stations I was in QSO with whilst bicycle mobile:

• ZS6AVM     K3TW     PJ2LS     "DX SESSION" REC BY K3TW

Why Bicycle Mobile?

It all started about 5 years ago, when as an experiment, I put an old Yaesu FT- 817 on my bike, using a very short home-made centre loaded vertical for 14MHz, and with just 2.5 Watts, I managed to make a few DX QSO's on SSB whilst riding along near to the sea, even running QRP the performance when riding close to the sea was outstanding.

"I was now truly hooked on operating HF bike mobile close to the sea".

What I needed to do now was to improve the system to get better results!

So with new found enthusiasm the bike steadily developed over the last few years into a much more efficient full blown radio station on two wheels, with power output of up to 250 Watts when I pull the trailer along behind my bike.

The bike is now fitted with more efficient (and bigger) home-made mono-band antenna's for different HF bands, multiple 12V gel batteries, and a tuned "on-board" ground-plane, also computer logging, weather monitoring and digital voice recording.

It's now my "Shack-on-a-Bike" and when operating close to the sea it competes well against much bigger home stations. 

Best Contacts:

In November 2007 my good friend Keith, G7LPW went over to New Zealand and we had a 21,000 Km long-path Bicycle to Pedestrian mobile QSO (see: "New World Record" details further down this page)

Last year I had a 8000Km Bicycle to Bicycle mobile QSO with Budd W3FF from Buddipole Antennas in California and also a 6000Km Bicycle to Bicycle mobile with Ron W9XS from Illinois, both contacts were made on 20M SSB whilst on the move.

HF Bicycle mobile really is lots of fun especially when the weather is good, and it works really well too!.

I would encourage anyone who enjoys bike riding to give it a try, its amateur radio and it helps to keep you fit! and to tell the truth, I don’t think I’ve had as much fun playing radio since I first got licensed. Here’s the best part; lots of stations say “I’ve been a ham for 30 years or more and this is the first time I’ve talked to a guy on a bicycle.”.... Keep on saying that guys please!

Anyone who would like more information about bicycle or pedestrian mobile, please send me an e-mail, I am more than happy to pass on some of my experiences, both good and bad!

Latest Project: I am now operating a new totally "GREEN" sun powered "QRP HF SSB Bike Mobile"(Less than 1 Watt) transceiver using only "Solar Panels" for DC power (without using any batteries) only when the sun is shinning!

There are several groups available to keep in touch with other like minded bike mobile amateurs from all over the world. I am a member of the BMHA (Bike mobile hams of America) and I would recommend it as being a very friendly and resourceful group to join.

The bike is an inexpensive 16 speed mountain bike, but with the heavy trailer being pulled behind the bike I rarely get out of 2nd gear!

I operate on all HF bands "Pedal Bicycle Mobile" whilst on the move, and operate very close to the sea near to where I live.

The radio has now got continually variable power output from 10 mW to 50 Watts when using just the bike, or up to 250 Watts when I pull along the trailer behind the bike.

The radio I now use is a handlebar mounted Alinco DX70-TH in a zipped waterproof cover powered by two pairs of selectable 7Ah 12 Volt gel batteries, which give a total of about 4 hours of use at 50W output, two of the batteries are mounted on the rear pannier and the other two batteries mounted under the cross bar.

Lots of RF toroid filters are used to eliminate RF feedback problems, (especially when using the amplifier) this is because the antenna is only a short distance away from the transceiver. A band switchable quarter wave coiled up coax line is used between the radio and the input to the amplifier to achieve good RF stability.

The antenna's are home designed / home made "HI Q" mono-band top loaded verticals which are 3.5 Metres long, and have a dedicated 75mm diameter air spaced coil.

From time to time when feeling energetic I use a small trailer, which can be seen in the picture above (which is very difficult to pedal up the hills!) as it weighs 100Kg, as the on board batteries are very heavy.

The trailer contains two 12 Volt / 40Ah gel cells in parallel powering a modified solid state Italian "RM KL500 Linear Amplifier", which can run up to 250 Watts output, but I generally run it at about 150 Watts to conserve battery power, this gives about 4 to 5 hours operational use.

Location:

The location is perhaps the single most important factor in getting good results, and here in Blackpool on the "North-Western Coast" of England, I am very lucky to have a truly fabulous location when riding out on the bike on the HF bands.

I am lucky enough to have a perfect take-off over the sea to the North, South and Westerly directions but screened by sand hills to the East and hence I can only work long-path into VK, ZL, and Pacific area, but I have excellent short path into the USA, South and North America.

The sea provides the perfect ground-plane for the vertical antenna to work against, it creates what we have nicknamed "Gods Linear amplifier" on both transmit and receive.

Bike Frame Tuning:

In order to couple in to the perfect ground-plane of the sea with the bike, and also to provide good RF ground current, "The Frame of the Bike is Tuned to Resonance" ...... on the operating frequency, this effectively connects the bike frame into the ground-plane of the sea, by capacitive coupling.

This is achieved by breaking the braid of the coax cable where it would normally connect directly to the frame of the bicycle. The braid is then connected via a roller coaster and switchable capacitor ground tuning unit and then re-connecting the return side back to the bike frame. This ground tuning unit is adjusted for maximum ground current; this current can be high when operating near to the sea, especially when using the amplifier.

The ground tuning unit (GTU) is the green box on the back of the bike (which can be seen in the pictures) and it ensures that the bicycle is effectively coupled to the surrounding sea water by the capacitance of the bike to the ground regardless of the motion of the bike.

The ground tuning unit (GTU) has to be manually adjusted to obtain maximum ground current when the ground conductivity changes, this is dependant upon high or low tide or different types of ground, the ground tuning unit has an "RF current meter" built in.

The performance of the whole system is "Greatly Improved" when using the ground tuning, especially when operating close to the sea.

Latest Bike "Add-Ons"

• Olympus digital voice recorder.
• Weather monitoring equipment, so I know when it is going to rain!
• Small Libretto laptop computer with a logging program installed as my memory is not what it used to be.

World Record:

During November 2007, my good friend G7LPW made a DX-pedition with HF backpack to Christchurch in New Zealand.

One of the reasons that the trip was made to try to make a contact between the UK and New Zealand using backpack and bicycle at each end this culminated into a "New World Record" whilst operating: HF backpack to both backpack and bicycle mobile on 20M SSB between New Zealand and with me here in Blackpool England.

After lots of antenna development and with the help of propagation program "VOAprop" we achieved this record on the 15th November 2007 at 08:00z on the "grey-line" over a "long path" distance of about 21,000Km.

World Record Links and Video:

• 20M SSB bicycle to backpack UK to ZL longpath "CONFIRMED WORLD RECORD"

• 20M SSB "Backpack to Backpack" UK to New Zealand both stations running QRP

• 20M SSB QSO with WM2Z as recorded in USA

•  ARRL News article

• "World Record Academy" Record Listing

Pedestrian Mobile:

I also enjoy "Pedestrian Mobile" on 15,17, 20 and 40M SSB and get really close to the sea using a small 2-wheel lightweight easy to pull along trolley or cart this can be seen with me in the pictures above.

The radio can quickly be removed from the cart when I can't pull the trolley on the beach and is then carried in a "backpack" as seen in the picture above; the RF power output is continually adjustable between 100mW and 50 Watts maximum.

The transceiver is another modified Alinco DX70 powered by a single 38Ah gel battery fixed to the bottom of the trolley, or a smaller and lighter 7Ah battery when in the back-pack.

A recent addition is a modified KL500 linear amplifier to the pull along pedestrian mobile trolley, with power levels continually adjustable down to 100 mW on low power to a maximum of 250 Watts on high power, however the battery life is limited when running maximum power output so I usually run it at 150 Watts maximum output power this provides me with around 1 hours use with the amplifier switched on.

The antenna is a very lightweight home-made top loaded vertical about 3.5 metres long, this is tuned against the frame of the backpack or trolley, (whichever is in use) using a similar, but physically smaller ground tuning system as on the bicycle, and can be seen in the picture above on the right, it is the small yellow box below the antenna.

I have also added digital voice recording to the pull along pedestrian mobile trolley, which enables me to playback the QSO's and manually enter them into my computer log when I get home.

Car Mobile:

Also operational mobile from the car using 50 Watts output power from yet another Alinco DX70TH, I am active on 6, 10, 15, 17, 20, 40, 80 and 160 Metres using home made aerials; either centre loaded 2.5 metre long mono-band antennas (for high speed) or top loaded 3.5 metre long mono-band vertical aerials for 10,15,17 or 20 Metres mounted on a triple magnetic mount.

I also have a modified 7 metre fibreglass pole which locks onto the back of the car for use on 40 and 80 Metres when static mobile as seen in the picture above.

The car body is tuned in a similar way to the bicycle to enhance the ground-plane.

This is done by an Alinco EDX-2 auto ATU which is mounted in the boot of the car, this has been modified to "Automatically Resonate the Chassis" this significantly improves the performance of the mobile antenna by maximising the ground current over different mobile ground conductivity conditions.

Home / Portable and Holiday:

I rarely operate HF from home, but use the home station to monitor band activity before going out mobile, I use a Yaesu FT840 running 100 Watts into a full wave horizontal quad loop for 20 Metres at about 10M high.

On 2 Metres I have a Yaesu 2800 running up to 65 Watts into a home made vertical antenna.

On 70CM I use an AOR transceiver into a collinear at 10 Metres above ground.

During the summer when the weather is calm I occasionally use a 200-foot vertical wire supported by a helium filled balloon, usually operating from portable beach locations.

For Holiday use, I have a Yaesu FT- 817ND plus an Italian KL203 amplifier running up to 50 Watts into several home-made mono-band compact wire top loaded verticals for 15, 17, and 20 Metres.

I am a member of Echolink on node number: 275475

QSL Information:

QSL > ** Either Direct, via the Bureau, or e-QSL **

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If required please exchange electronic QSL cards via e-QSL using the call signs below: