Wythall Radio Club is one of the most active clubs in the Midlands. Meeting every Tuesday evening from 8pm onwards at the Wythall Community Association, Wythall Park, Silver Street, Random Club Photo Wythall where it has a permanent shack and an HF to UHF antenna system mounted on a 60ft Versatower. It has over 50 paid up members with a some overseas members in Italy, USA, Holland and Ireland.
The club takes part in special events such as Steam Fairs, Mills on Air, JOTA and other local events. We have Christmas parties and the club Christmas Contest which really gets many members in touch with each other.

Wythall Contest Group is part of Wythall Radio club, formed several years ago when contests began to be entered in earnest by several club members.
Membership is automatically granted to all members of Wythall Radio Club club itself, although only a die-hard group of individuals turn out to enter the contests!

The aims of Wythall Contest Group are:

To encourage amateur radio contesting amongst members the club.
To improve operating proficiency.
To have fun and finally : To do better than last year !
The contest group enters over 40 contests per year using all contest bands from 1.8 MHz to 1296 MHz, including SSB, CW, and RTTY. On HF, RSGB, CQ, BARTG, IARU and ARRL contests have been entered amongst others. Keep an ear out for our club call signs G1WAC G4WAC G7WAC G0WRC and M5W.

The club's mission statement is to have FUN in everything it does. To read more click here.

If you would like to visit us you would be made most welcome. To contact the club please click here.

Training

Wythall Radio Club, with the help of a grant from the National Lottery Awards for All programme, is able to offer training courses for those members of the local and wider community who wish to gain an amateur radio transmitting license. The Club run courses at Foundation level, Intermediate and Advanced for those wishing to gain their Full Amateur Radio Licence.
If you would like to know more about our training programme click here

Plug 'n' Play Radio Day

Over the weekend of the 8th and 9th of May the club is having the first Plug 'n' Play Radio Day.
So what's all this about then ? well the idea is to have a stress free fun weekend playing radio in the great outdoors. We have arranged to use the same field as we use for VHF NFD for the Saturday and Sunday with camping over night on the Saturday. The Club's Radio Van with push up mast and Gas Generator will also be on site for the whole weekend.

So this is your opportunity to come and familiarise yourself with the Radio Van, setting up a special event station, how is the best way to start the generator, what plugs go where etc..
We shall have some of the clubs HF wire antennas and a UHF/VHF vertical plus various feeders, PSU's and radios BUT bring your own radios, bits of wire, ATU's and anything you want to have a go at. May be we can put up a wire loop hanging from the trees or make a c-pole etc.. Basically there are no hard and fast rules we can put something up give it a go change its direction try again... try something else etc....
And to top all this off, this same weekend happens to be the 65th anniversary of VE day and Chris EYO has managed to get a special event call sign GB4VE. It is also Mills on the Air weekend so you sould make some nice contacts on HF and VHF.

Intermediate Course starts 29th May

Wythall Radio Club are running a six week course of nine sessions starting on Saturday 29th May with the practical work on Saturday mornings and lectures on Monday evenings (except for one Wednesday). Cost of the course is £60 to non club members, £50 if you are already member of Wythall Radio Club and £40 if you are under 18, over 65 or unemployed. This cost covers the exam fees, the instruction book, all practical materials and project kit, course materials and running costs. If you are interested in doing this course then please contact Chris G0EYO on 07710 412 819 or by Email Places on this course will be limited to 6 people so early booking is strongly advised. A course schedule can be downloaded here.

73s
Chris Pettitt

Dave G3YXM wins the RSGB Wortley – Talbot Trophy

One of Wythall Radio Club’s newer members has won one of the most prestigious trophies awarded by the RSGB. Dave Pick, G3YXM, was presented with the “Wortley-Talbot Trophy”, the largest of all RSGB trophies (first awarded in 1929 and annually thereafter for “Outstanding Experimental Work in Amateur Radio”) by RSGB President Dave Wilson, M0OBW, at the Society’s AGM in Bedford on April 17th 2010.
More about Dave in the May 2010 newsletter here.

RSGB Region 5 Club of the Year

Wythall Radio Club awarded Regional Club of the Year for 2009 for RSGB Region 5. Along with the winners of the other 13 regions, our entry will be considered for National Club of the Year 2009. This is the first time a Regional Club of the Year award has been made in region 5 and it follows from a successful introduction of the award in Region 4 (North East England). Region 5 covers Central England in which there are 30 radio clubs. All UK clubs were invited to enter the Club of the Year award and had to submit a resume of why they thought they ought to get the award. Our entry can be found on the RSGB Region 5 website .

The club are very proud to win this award and our success is down to the good spirit engendered by its members who look to have fun in the things that the club does. Well done everybody.

“Trevor Bailey M0KMB (centre), the RSGB Region 5 Manager, presented a certificate commemorating Wythall Radio Club award as RSGB Region 5 Club of the Year 2009 to club secretary Chris G0EYO (right) and the Shield, which was sponsored by LAM Communications, to club chairman Vaughan M0VRR(left). We get to keep the certificate for all time but the shield has to be handed back after one year. The 13 clubs who won their regional titles will go forward to RSGB HQ for one to be selected as RSGB National Club of the Year 2009 at a ceremony scheduled to take place at the RSGB AGM

Five pass the Intermediate Examination

The club had five candidates who took their Intermediate examinations with us recently following an 8 week training course. Congratulations go to Paul M3XWI, Terry M3XTV (now 2E0XTV), George M6GWS (now 2E0GWS), Malcolm M6MGR (now 2E0MGR), and Mark M6MSW (now 2E0MSW) Start saving up for that Advanced course starting in September chaps.

Reg Brown G7OJO Xmas Contest Results published

Congratulations to everyone who took part in last year’s Club Christmas Contest. There was a huge amount of activity, with the majority of the club’s membership on air some time over the Christmas week. The club officers have been very pleased to see a number of the newer club members, and those recently passed through the training courses getting stuck in. At the top of the table, it was very close between multiple past winner Jim 2E0BLP, and Chris G0MLY. Chris wins this year, just by a whisker ahead of Jim. Special mention also to Lynne M6FAB with a very creditable 3rd place. Chris was presented with the Reg Brown G7OJO Trophy at the February committee meeting.

Homebrew Evenings start off with a couple of great projects.

Tom G3PQP started his homebrew evenings again at the end of March and has got the year off to a great start with two projects, one a fairly simple speech processor which will improve the intelligibility of your SSB transmissions using a microphone equaliser circuits. A lot of members have signed up to build this project and the club is making up kits, (available at the princely sum of £2.50) comprising components and (thanks to Martin G7WXB) etched PCB’s. The club are also going to use this kit as their project in the Intermediate practical assessment part of the Intermediate Course. Tom’s second project is a very exciting an SSB receiver to cover 80m and 20m, but expandable to cover all bands. This is no simple set but a full spec job, a single conversion superhet with a homebrew 8.8MHz crystal filter. Tom brought his prototype to demonstrate against the club’s FT920 and its performance was excellent, being just as sensitive and selective as the FT920. It is modular in construction and very easy to build. Homebrew evenings are usually the third Tuesday but check the diary for the dates.