wythall radio club

Afghanistan (T6AA – see right), Madagascar (5R8AL ) and Trinidad were amongst the countries contacted by Wythall Radio Club members in their October DX Challenge.

The aim was to have two-way contacts with other radio amateurs in as many different countries as possible on the 20 and 40 meter short wave bands.

With 85 countries worked on 20 meters and 76 on 40 meters, Club members had lots of fun talking to people in other parts of the world.  They used digital, voice and Morse Code transmisions at all times of the day and night.

Here’s a list of countries we contacted.

And below you can see the way the contacts built up…  John 2E0XET (photo left) contacted the most countries, although he was using low power (50 watts or less from his KX3 and small power amplifier) to a simple wire antenna (a doublet) and Morse Code only.  Nice one, John!

Finally, the overall result….

November’s Challenge is on 160, 80 and 40 meters.

Wythall Radio Club members have been active contacting Scout groups around the world during JOTA/JOTI (Jamboree on the Air/Internet) 2020.

Les 2E0LRV spoke to Scouts from 2 JOTA stations last week end. 

“On Saturday I spoke to several groups of Scouts in Lillehammer, Norway. Their call was LA2L and was being run by Anders Forgen LA6UIA.

On Sunday I spoke to the Scouts from Crystal Lake Illinois, USA, who were using the call K9AT belonging to David J Holmgren, who sent this link about the event. 

Both Anders and David have passed on thanks from the Scouts.”

Les made both contacts through Hub Net using a Yeasu FT 8800 feeding a small colinear and back in to an All Star node connected to the wonderweb.

Both scout groups were trying various modes to make contacts and the feedback was that the contacts made using Allstar/Hubnet were by far the most popular and rewarding for the Scouts.

Meantime Tim M6OTN worked EA2KV in Spain on 40meters, leaving another happy group of Scouts!

This continues Wythall Radio Club’s support for Brownies, Beavers, Guides and Scouts – see our earlier posts, for example here.

Shields have now been awarded to Wythall Radio Club members for their achievements in the Easter Contest and Morse May, delayed due to the pandemic.

Over 40 members participated in the Club’s annual Easter Contest, and highpoints were QSOs with some of our more distant members in Scotland, Torquay and Derby. 

In the 2m/70cm FM section, the winner was Kev 2E0NCO (photo left), who was awarded the Colin Baker G6ZDQ Easter Contest VHF/UHF Shield, in memory of our former Club member.  Over the 5 days of the contest he achieved 124 QSOs with 37 different Club members  giving a total score of 3071 points!

There was very close competition for the top places in the all bands/all modes section.  David G7IBO came first (photo right) with 124 QSOs with 43 Club members over the five days, and a total score of 3655 points. 

He was awarded the David Dawkes G0ICJ Easter Contest all bands/all modes Shield, in memory of our former Club member.

Stuart M0SRZ (photo left) is the 2020 recipient of the Lew Williams Shield.  This annual award recognises a member’s progress with CW (Morse Code), and is in memory of Wythall Radio Club’s former CW tutor and President. 

The shields are shown in the order given above.

The RSGB has just launched today a series of videos to help the thousands of people who have taken their Foundation exam via remote invigilation whilst the Covid restrictions have prevented the practical assessments taking place.

The full 30-minute video highlights six practical tasks and each segment stands alone rather than being part of a single ‘story’ through the video. As well as this whole video we have published the different segments as separate short videos to make it easier to go back to just one or two parts again.

As the National Society, RSGB “wanted to create a video resource that people could use and return to whenever they needed some support.

We know that many clubs and individual radio amateurs have created online training courses and have been helping new licensees with these skills too and we’re really grateful for all the support being given by the amateur radio community.

With the launch of these videos we now want to add to the resources that new licensees have available to them.”

If you want to find the page quickly or share a link, this short url will be the easiest way: www.rsgb.org/foundation-practicals

Find out more about Wythall Club’s training courses on the ‘Training’ tab on our web site and for latest info click here

Yes, Wythall Radio Club members contacted exactly 100 different countries in their September DX Challenge!

Highlights included contacts with Western Sahara, the Falkland Islands and tiny Sant Marten island in the Caribbean.

The ‘ton up’ was reached using digital mode FT8 on the 40, 20 and 10 meter bands.  Not bad for this stage in the sunspot cycle and in late summer.

Lee G0MTN contacted 76 unique counties (each country counting only once across the three bands) while Ian M0LQY contacted 136 overall (the total of countries worked on each of the three bands).   

Lee and Ian shared the top 3 spots with Chris G0EYO.

As expected most contacts were on 40 and 20, although several countries were reached on 10 meters.

For a full list of countries worked, click here.

There was quite a race to the finish……

There are lots of counties to work on 30, 17 and 12 meters – as the results of the August DX Challenge at Wythall Radio Club show.

Mali (TZ4AM – QSL card left), the Falkland Islands and Trinidad and Tobago were amongst the more exotic countries reached by Club members.  For a full list, click here.

Tim M6OTN contacted 95 unique counties (each country counting only once across the three bands) and 152 countries overall (the total of the countries worked on each of the bands).   Chris G0EYO had 71 uniques and Neil M0LUH was close behind at 66. 

These three station were all using FT8, a digital mode of communication, and modest power with simple wire antennas.

This graphic shows how Club members’ unique countries increased over the month… 

FT8 is well suited to poor propogation conditions – which may be why the CW-only stations of Chris G3YHF and John 2E0XET were not as successful. 

However it is rumoured that some FT8 ops monitored the bands while they were doing other things – which is harder for CW ops to do!

The September DX Challenge is a FT8/FT4-only event on 40, 20 and 10 meters.  

Good luck and we hope for some excellent DX results!

STOP PRESS – THE INTERMEDIATE COURSE IS NOW FULL.  FOUNDATION COURSE STILL AVAILABLE.

Wythall Radio Club will be running ONE online courses in September.

The 8 week Foundation course starts on the 13^th September .

The examinations for both these courses will be done under the RSGB’s new remotely invigilated on-line examination scheme in the candidate’s own home.

Practical Assessments for the Foundation course have been suspended until such time as the COVID lockdown makes it safe for them to be re-introduced and the Practical Assessments for the Intermediate have been taken out of the syllabus altogether.

There is no charge for doing these courses and we do provide individual tuition via quizzes etc.  Please note that there are specific IT requirements which have to be met for the online examinations.

If anyone is interested in doing these courses with us please contact Chris G0EYO g0eyo@blueyonder.co.uk  ASAP.

The fine weather has encouraged Wythall Radio Club members to operate portable.

Kev G4XLO, based in Torquay, has been out on Dartmoor:

“For the last 2 weeks I’ve been on leave from work, not had too much time for the radio apart from an hour in the evening for HF and also re-erected the wire that the seagulls keep attacking (the bloke in the house behind me is convinced it’s a seagull trip wire – I’ll let him continue with that theory!).

The trip gave me an idea for next year though, as I spotted some places for a portable HF antenna, so I’m thinking about QRP portable for next year.  All I need is an FT817 and I’ll be away!”

The antenna has a TX gain of 46.2db so quite some eirp and is fed via 2 x TWTA at 750W linearised amplifiers.  But sadly the TX is 13750 to 14500 GHZ, so no chance for Moonbounce qsos!

Join the world-wide amateur radio community with our FREE successful online course!

If you, or anyone you know, is looking to get into amateur radio then the Wythall Radio Club Online Foundation course could be just what you are looking for.

With amateur radio, you could be chatting to someone in the next street – or another continent!

With the need for practical assessments currently suspended due to the Coronavirus, together with the RSGB’s ability to offer remotely invigilated online examinations which candidates can do in their own home, we can take students from anywhere in the country.

Our courses are done through a Virtual Learning Experience called Edmodo and comprise a number of video lessons (via YouTube) plus lesson notes and lesson quizzes and other supporting information.

We mark the quizzes and provide individual feedback.  As a consequence,  we limit our courses to a maximum of 20 students.

There is no charge for doing the course.  You will need to book and pay for your examination direct with the RSGB through the exam booking website. You can also purchase the course book “The Foundation Licence Manual” through the RSGB online shop.

You also do not have to be a member of Wythall Radio Club to do this course although many of our Midlands based student do join us.

We will probably start this course in early September and it will run for 7 weeks. If interested please contact our Training Coordinator, Chris G0EYO on g0eyo@blueyonder.co.uk “ 

A variety of antennas are being used for this month’s Wythall Radio Club DX Challenge on the WARC bands, any modes.

Tim M6OTN, at his caravan in Somerset, made an inverted vee sloper cut for 18MHz with a counterpoise out of spare wire he had to hand (photo left).  He was shocked how well it worked – “it’s the fun of antennas!”  Tim now has 48 countries worked on this band using FT8 – and the challenge is only one-quarter way through!

Meanwhile John 2E0XET used his trusty 90 feet-long dog-leg doublet to great effect, working ZD7GB on 18078 CW  with 12 watts.  Nice!!

Using spare ladder-line, a coupled-resonator antenna was put into service by Chris G3YHF.

One side is cut as a dipole for 10mhz and fed with coax.  The other side is a single section half-wave for 18mhz with the middle above the dipole feed point but not connected to it.  The 18mhz conductor placed close to the dipole is imposed on the 10mhz dipole and means that the antenna happily resonates on both frequencies.

And at G0MTN, Lee is using a fan dipole for 10, 18 and 24 Mhz and 50Mhz – carefully disguised in a tree!  This has proved very successful in increasing Lee’s DXCC count.