posts/amateur-radio-licence.md

@@ -5,74 +5,16 @@ date: 2026-03-12
 tags: ["radio"]
 ---
 
-In February I bit the bullet and booked the exam for the UK Amateur Radio
-Licence (Foundation Level).
+In February I finally bit the bullet and booked the exam for the UK Amateur
+Radio Licence (Foundation Level).
 
-Having the exam in the calendar helped me concentrate and remain focused, as my
-learning style is naturally quite slow and meandering. I really wanted to earn
-my licence so that I could get on the air and begin to advance my practical
-knowledge.
+My natural learning style is both meandering and thorough. I like to work at my
+own pace and pursue rabbit holes and tangents. I dislike exams and any aspect of
+competition injected into the learning process. At school my grades were always
+lower than my actual knowledge level because I never studied for the test, I
+pursued what was interesting to me to depths not required by the exams.
 
-I used the official Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) textbook and a
-simplified syllabus from [Essex Ham Train](https://www.essexham.co.uk/train/).
-
-![Flash cards from my studying](./img/flash-cards.jpg)
-
-In the mocks, I was averaging an 80% pass rate but in the exam itself I did
-particularly well and scored 92%, getting only two questions wrong (one of which
-didn't come up at all in the training materials). I completed the exam remotely
-but there was an RSGB invigilator observing my screen and environment to check I
-wasn't cheating! (Thank you Malcolm, G3ZNU.)
-
-Having received my certificate I was able to apply to Ofcom for my callsign. I
-chose **M7SYO**. The first two characters are mandatory and denote my
-qualification level ("Foundation") and the last three are your personal choice,
-based on what is available. Luckily I was able to choose letters reflecting
-"Systems Obscure". When appropriate to do so, I can add "E" as my regional
-secondary locator to indicate that I am operating from England (e.g. ME7SYO).
-
-The Foundation level is pretty generous given that it is the entry-level. I can
-transmit up to 25W and am permitted to use most of the amateur bands (10m, 12m,
-15m, 17m, 20m, 30m, 40m, 80m) at HF, apart from 60m, and many of the VHF/UHF
-bands.
-
-I am lucky that my uncle, Greg, is an experienced amateur operator and secretary
-of his local amateur radio club in Macclesfield. He has been helping me with my
-practical knowledge and advising on what gear to start with. For now, I have
-ordered the affordable and well-regarded
-[Baofeng UV-5RM Plus](https://www.baofengradio.com/products/uv-5rm-plus-8w-multi-band-radio)
-handheld along with a NA-771 antenna. This will enable me to connect to
-repeaters and hopefully make my first QSOs (contacts). I also plan to construct
-some home-made antennas that I can attach to the handheld and experiment with.
-
-![Monitoring over SDR](./img/monitoring-sdr.jpg)
-
-As I'm still waiting for the radio to arrive, I am currently limited to
-monitoring transmissions via my
-[SDR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software-defined_radio#Amateur_and_home_use)
-(RTL-SDR v.4). I've been able to pick up some Morse conversations and a faint
-read of the strange - possibly Iranian - number station that is currently
-[perplexing the amateur community](https://youtu.be/ErmbTpxAM7Q?si=auxTnY8HSSnu1xZ5).
-
-In order to access the HF band and reach contacts further afield by exploiting
-[ionospheric propagation](https://www.qsl.net/4x4xm/Propagation/Ionosphere-propagation-of-radio-waves.htm),
-I will need a better and more powerful tranceiver. I am looking into getting a
-second-hand portable Yaesu through one of Greg's contacts. My plan is to drive
-or cycle to good spots locally and work in the field. I also eventually want to
-communicate over CW using Morse code and experiment with some radio astronomy.
-The possibilities are pretty limitless with this hobby!
-
-![The new to me X1 and some light reading](./img/thinkpad-x1-carbon.jpg)
-
-To facilitate my field work I wanted a small and robust laptop so I bought a
-second hand ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Gen.9). It's very sleek compared to my T15 which
-I mainly use as a desktop device. I'm running Fedora Workstation for a
-hassle-free and easily maintainable Linux environment.
-
-Finally, I joined the RSGB. This gives me access to lots of useful radio
-resources, free access to the
-[National Radio Center](https://rsgb.org/main/about-us/national-radio-centre-gb3rs/)
-at Bletchley Park, and the print edition of the monthly _RadCom_ magazine which
-is a really good read.
-
-Once I start transmitting I will report here on my progress...
+I think all people who love learning for its own sake are like this but I did
+actually _need_ the licence in order to be able to transmit and start gaining
+practical knowledge. Having the test booked for the end of the month helped me
+concentrate and stay on target.

src/index.css

@@ -26,7 +26,18 @@
 }
 
 html {
-	font-family: "DejaVu Sans", sans-serif;
+  font-family:
+    system-ui,
+    -apple-system,
+    BlinkMacSystemFont,
+    "Segoe UI",
+    Roboto,
+    Oxygen,
+    Ubuntu,
+    Cantarell,
+    "Open Sans",
+    "Helvetica Neue",
+    sans-serif;
 }
 
 .header-links {
@@ -115,35 +126,3 @@ h1.post-title {
 .blog-meta {
   font-size: 14px;
 }
-
-@font-face {
-	font-family: "DejaVu Sans";
-	src: url("/fonts/DejaVuSans.woff2") format("woff2");
-	font-weight: 400;
-	font-style: normal;
-	font-display: swap;
-}
-
-@font-face {
-	font-family: "DejaVu Sans";
-	src: url("/fonts/DejaVuSans-Bold.woff2") format("woff2");
-	font-weight: 700;
-	font-style: normal;
-	font-display: swap;
-}
-
-@font-face {
-	font-family: "DejaVu Sans";
-	src: url("/fonts/DejaVuSans-Oblique.woff2") format("woff2");
-	font-weight: 400;
-	font-style: italic;
-	font-display: swap;
-}
-
-@font-face {
-	font-family: "DejaVu Sans";
-	src: url("/fonts/DejaVuSans-BoldOblique.woff2") format("woff2");
-	font-weight: 700;
-	font-style: italic;
-	font-display: swap;
-}

src/templates/MainTemplate.jsx

@@ -30,16 +30,6 @@ const Header = () => {
               Code
             </a>
           </li>
-					<li className="flex flex-col items-center justify-center">
-						<a
-							className=""
-							href="https://fosstodon.org/@systemsobscure"
-							rel="me"
-							target="blank"
-						>
-							Fosstodon
-						</a>
-					</li>
         </ul>
       </nav>
     </header>
@@ -79,3 +69,4 @@ const MainTemplate = ({ children }) => {
 export default MainTemplate
 //antialiased max-w-3xl mt-3 mx-auto bg-[#282828] no-scanlines wrapper
 //main: flex-auto min-w-0 mt-0 flex flex-col px-2 md:px-0
+