wythall radio club

This Tuesday, the thoughts of Wythall Radio Club members are turning Digital! That’s because this week, our guest speaker will be taking the lid off one of the Amateur Digital modes, D-STAR.

D-STAR has been around for over 10 years now and is very popular with many hams, but more especially in Japan and the USA. It doesn’t help that it can seem like a complex world in which to get involved. 

So this Tuesday, in the newly refurbished club shack, club member Chris G7DDN will be attempting to encourage those who haven’t yet had a go with this aspect of Amateur Radio to get their feet wet and try it out!

Visitors are welcome as always. The talk starts at 2030 at Wythall House, Silver Street Wythall. B47 6LZ. See you there!

The shack at Wythall Radio Club is looking very different this evening!

Thanks to a team led by Kevin 2E0NCO, the whole of the club interior is a whole lot more tidy and fresh.

It has been a few years since the whole shack had a refurb and while not everything is yet complete, the pictures tell their own story.

Thanks Kevin for your hard work – we all appreciate it.

It’s been another great year for Wythall Radio Club. Just browsing through the posts on this website shows how busy members have been with all kinds of different projects.

As we prepare for our Annual General Meeting this evening. how good it is then, to see Wythall Radio Club appearing once more as one of the featured Amateur Radio Clubs in the latest edition of the RSGB Yearbook!

Since it is well-known that “all publicity is good publicity”(!), it can only be a good thing that so many Radio Amateurs and enthusiasts all around the world will read of the Club’s most recent achievements. Tonight we will hear about those once again, as well as looking towards another new year with newly elected Officers and a new Committee.

Visit the RSGB website to get more information about the yearbook and maybe even order your copy! And if you want to come along this evening, be in the Board Room at Wythall House before 2000!

Some of the members of Wythall Radio Club have literally been watching paint dry today!

A small team, headed up by Kevin 2E0NCO, ably supported by Chairman Mike G4VPD, Phil 2E0WTH, Ian M0IDR (have I missed anyone out lads?) have been hard at work on the mammoth task of painting the club rooms!

Starting with the upper staircase and walls and floor, they have been working their way slowly into the teaching room.  And by the evidence of these photos, they have been doing rather well too! Click the thumbnails for a closer view.

At this rate, we will have a really welcoming environment to meet and train in and it will also match our brand new antenna systems too! Nice work lads!

Wythall Radio Club are pleased to announce that we will be holding not one, but two Foundation License Courses starting in January next year!

One will be a traditional course at the club – this will take place on Monday evenings from 8pm onwards, beginning on 26^th January 2015 – it will last for 6 weeks with the exam on Monday 2nd March.

Simultaneously, for those who cannot make it along to a classroom course and are looking for home study, we will be running one of our innovative online Foundation courses culminating in the same examination, again on Monday 2nd March.

Further information on both courses is available by clicking here.

If you are interested in either course, just drop an email to our Training Coordinator Chris G0EYO – he doesn’t bite!

Contact him at g0eyo@blueyonder.co.uk and good luck with your studies!

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!