wythall radio club

Wythall Radio Club’s delegates to the RSGB Convention are all safely back home, and full of Ham Radio goodness!

Chairman Mike G4VPD, Lee G0MTN, Tim M0URX and soon-to-be member Mack M0CUS enjoy a cuppa in between sessions

The five club members attended lectures on DXpeditions, Contesting, SDR Techniques and World War 1 Comms as well as a forum with the UK regulators OFCOM and sessions on using the Raspberry Pi in Ham Radio.

With the list of speakers reading like a “Who’s who” of Amateur Radio, it was a great place to be! And a few of those speakers have been already booked into Wythall Radio Club’s programme of talks for 2015 and you will be hearing more about that soon!

We are already looking forward to next year’s event. It would be great to meet you there!

Some of the members of Wythall Radio Club have been having fun today without RF! They have been enjoying the delights of the RSGB Convention in Milton Keynes.

Lee G0MTN about to give his presentation

About 250 enthusiasts from around the UK gather every year for a weekend of talks, demonstrations and presentations about our great hobby.

Dave G3YXM, Chairman Mike G4VPD, Tim M0URX and Chris G7DDN have been joined by Lee, G0MTN for a weekend of fun, learning and… …well, excess food and drink!

In fact, Lee opened up the convention in the Contest University stream first thing this morning, with his talk on Contest Hints.

Great that we at Wythall can provide a speaker for the UK’s most prestigious radio conference!

Is there room left on the park to turn this monster?

The new antenna build at Wythall Radio Club is close to completion!

Thanks to an intrepid group of constructors, the dream we had this year of replacing all the antennas on our club mast is almost there.

Chairman Mike G4VPD has masterminded the effort, which should see our antennas in place for a good few years to come. Aided and abetted by various stalwarts, he has done an excellent job of bringing the whole project together.

Kevin 2E0NCO, John M1JSS and Peter M5DUO probably deserve honourable mentions here, but there are plenty of others too, who have helped in this massive task.

Our mast now looks a little like an advert for our suppliers, Innovantennas and Martin Lynch & Sons!

And we suspect there may be a few beers downed in celebration once the feeders and rotator cables are finally connected up!

Kev 2E0NCO & John M1JSS grappling with metalwork

More news on the antenna rebuild at Wythall Radio Club. Chairman Mike has been leading by example on this project!

“That bit fits here look!”

The most recent days work involved him being joined by Kevin 2E0NCO and John M1JSS. Together they spent a few hours building the elements and the remaining boom assembly for our new Innovantennas five-element HF beam.

We are pleased to report that everything went well – the antenna is ready to be attached to the tower mast, once we have finally confirmed we have installed all the element sizes in the correct order – it’s a complex bit of metal to put together when you’ve never done it before!

Click the pictures for a larger view of things…

Members of Wythall Radio Club joined in with the members of most UK radio clubs this weekend in visiting the UK’s National Hamfest.

Ian M0IDR insists only the General Manager should serve him at the RSGB stand! Cruel!

Several folk from Wythall made the trip north to Newark in Nottinghamshire; Chairman Mike G4VPD & Treasurer Ian M0IDR headed the throng – others tagging along included Phil 2E0WTH, John M6FBO, David G7IBO, Jon M0JMM & Chris G7DDN.

It was great to see and meet so many friends and make new ones while we were there; and of course there were new goodies to tempt us all!

There was certainly a buzz around this year’s event. Maybe that was due to the presence of the TXFactor guys! When their next program comes out, we may well be playing a game of “Spot the Wythallian in the background!”

A fantastic day out, though one feels a little for David G7IBO, who was planning to go back on the Saturday(!) but had to stay at home to look after his poorly wife, Juliet M6RSC!

Bletchley Park – a place of pilgrimage for Radio enthusiasts?

You could be forgiven for thinking you are reading a different website, but you’re still tuned to Wythall Radio Club! “The Bletchley Park Story” is actually the title of our presentation this week!

On Tuesday (23rd September) we are looking forward to welcoming a very special guest, Ray Goff G4FON. Ray is known to many radio amateurs as the writer & programmer of the G4FON Morse Tutor software for Windows. However many folk are not aware that Ray has an “alter ego”, in that he is a Bletchley Park Volunteer Tour Guide! This makes him the ideal person to visit us to talk about Bletchley Park and its place in radio history.

Ray G4FON

Ray particularly expressed an interest in talking about this part of his radio life when the invitation to him was first mooted. Since many members of Wythall Radio Club have visited Bletchley Park, we know that his talk will be very popular! As a result, we are expecting a large turnout for this evening, so early arrival is highly advised.

The talk takes place in the Darts Room at Wythall House, Silver Street, Wythall B47 6LZ and starts at 20:30. Visitors are always welcome but be advised that we do have a whip round of 50p each to help pay for the room hire, so make sure you have a few pennies left after you’ve bought your pint from the Wythall House bar!

See you there!

The UK has been enjoying an Indian Summer over the last couple of weeks. And that has meant more news on the antenna front at Wythall Radio Club!

23cms, 70cms, 2m and a dual 4m/6m set of beams sit atop the Wythall Radio Club mast!

Members have been been busy preparing our tower, replacing luffing cables and starting to construct our new antenna arrays. Thanks to our friends at Innovantennas and Martin Lynch & Sons, we have been able to put together a great set of aerials to cover all bands from 20m to 23cms.

Putting them together and getting them up in the air has been no mean task but we are almost there! The VHF and UHF arrays now proudly sit atop the mast and the last antenna to go on, the 5 band HF beam, is currently being constructed. We now just await one more kind weather day so we can finish the job.

Enjoy a look at some of the recent developments – we will let you know when it is finished!

There have been yet more successes today in a recent Foundation Licence Course held at Wythall Radio Club.

John, Les, Carl, and Dave proudly showing their pass certificates earlier today

Four students, all of whom have been working on our innovative Online Foundation Course, visited us in person yesterday to complete their Practical Assessments.

As part of this they had to learn how to connect up equipment, make basic measurements and then operate real radios, making real contacts. They also had a bit of fun using Morse Code, sending and receiving under guidance.

Under the instruction of WRC’s Training Coordinator Chris G0EYO, ably assisted by Peter G4LWF and Barry M0DGQ, students John Borthwick, Les Emmanuel, Carl Jenkins and Dave Cull all completed the required tasks. As a result, they were all able to sit their Foundation Examination earlier today at Wythall Radio Club.

We are extremely pleased to announce that all four passed the exam and are now awaiting their new M6 callsigns. Well done to you from all the members of Wythall Radio Club!

Further to the previous post, Wythall Radio Club members have been busy again on the antenna front!

The club antenna project continues apace – this week it’s been Chairman Mike G4VPD, Stu M0NYP, Rob 2E0MEX and Kevin 2E0NCO getting their hands dirty! 

The fab four managed to get onto the roof at Wythall House and build the first of our replacement antennas.  The VHF and above stack was tackled as a priority. Click on the photos for a better view!

So now we have beams ready to put up for 23cms, 70cms, 2m, and 4m/6m. The 5 band HF yagi is to follow.

We are sure our friends at Innovantennas will be watching this carefully – we don’t want to be having to order replacement parts before we even get the metal in the sky!

More developments on this project soon – there is a Bank Holiday weekend coming up here in the UK, so if the weather is kind, there may be more news and photos for you next week!

Wythall Radio Club’s main antennas are down! Not because of adverse weather conditions or such like – this was actually planned!

Recently we have purchased a whole new raft of antennas for our club mast, thanks to our friends at Innovantennas and Martin Lynch & Sons. But before anything can go up, the old has to come down!

So it was, that a few days ago, a working party, which consisted of Chairman Mike G4VPD, Dave G3YXM, Pete M5DUO, and John M1JSS, went up to our clubhouse to make a start on the big job.

We are pleased to report that all went very well and subject to some maintenance, it shouldn’t be too long before the new antennas are seen above the Wythall skyline. Of course, you will hear about it first here on www.wythallradioclub.co.uk.

Proof of the hard work of the guys involved can be seen below!