{"id":5394,"date":"2026-10-25T10:58:20","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T10:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/?p=5394"},"modified":"2026-10-25T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T11:00:00","slug":"mb7ibw-gateway-closed-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/?p=5394","title":{"rendered":"MB7IBW Gateway Closed Down"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since June 2026 I&#8217;ve been running an <a href=\"https:\/\/allstarlink.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">AllStarLink<\/a> Gateway on the 2m band with the callsign of MB7IBW. The gateway has been on 24\/7 for this period of time but sadly, it gets no use whatsoever apart from the occasional use by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.qrz.com\/db\/G1SQB\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alan, G1SQB<\/a> who lives locally (who I chat with daily) or if I use the node to talk to others in the Matrix HAM Radio community located elsewhere in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The VHF\/UHF bands in this part of Suffolk are hardly used at all and I was hoping that bringing up a gateway that was connected to the world would bring back some interest locally but, sadly not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With it using 23kw of electricity per month and the extortionate energy costs in the UK at the moment, I&#8217;ve decided it&#8217;s not worth the effort and money to keep it on air and so I&#8217;ve decided to close down the service permanently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I remember the days back when I was a G1 how active both the 2m and 70cm bands were and the huge enjoyment I used to get from chatting with people on the two bands on a daily basis, especially when out mobile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Today both the 2m and 70cm bands are full of nothing but <em>RF Tumbleweed<\/em>, it&#8217;s such a shame as it&#8217;s a huge amount of bandwidth that isn&#8217;t being used, I&#8217;m amazed we still have the allocations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anyway, looking forward I will use the equipment for other projects in the very near future so, it won&#8217;t go to waste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">More soon &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since June 2026 I&#8217;ve been running an AllStarLink Gateway on the 2m band with the callsign of MB7IBW. The gateway has been on 24\/7 for this period of time but sadly, it gets no use whatsoever apart from the occasional use by Alan, G1SQB who lives locally (who I chat with daily) or if I &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/?p=5394\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;MB7IBW Gateway Closed Down&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,200,645,332,644,136,641,640,4,646,647,134,642,643,143,142],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2m-band","category-2mband","category-allocation","category-allstarlink","category-closedown","category-community","category-energycosts","category-gateway","category-ham-radio","category-hambands","category-lackofuse","category-projects","category-suffolk","category-tumbleweed","category-uhf","category-vhf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5394"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5404,"href":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5394\/revisions\/5404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/m0aws.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}