wythall radio club

Wythall Radio Club’s Christmas Contest is approaching fast!!  If you only have a basic 2 meter antenna or just a handheld, or you want to get out portable, here’s an easy-to-build 2 meter antenna to boost your signal – from Neil G1TZC. 

There is a link to a pdf version at the end.

Many years ago I read an article somewhere about the Slim Jim portable antenna.  It might have been in Practical Wireless, but was a very long time ago.

Thanks to the late Fred Judd (G2BCX) we have this great little antenna available to us.

I decided that now there is an antenna analyser in the workshop (see previuous post on the nanoVNA), it was time to revisit this old friend.  After a bit of digging around the internet, various measurements were found and duly scribbled on a sheet of A4 paper.

From my memories of the one that I built many years ago was made from choc-blok (electrical connector – 15A) and coat hangers.

Initial sketch

We had also better think about some sort of base as well, as this version will be a table top version.

Ingredients

4 wire coat hangers (10 for £1 from Poundland last time I looked)

3 choc blok electrical connectors (15A)

1 length 50ohm coax with suitable connector for your radio

1 bamboo kebab skewer (yes really)

Material to make a base and fixing screws.

Tools

Wire cutters

Pliers

Craft knife

Terminal screwdriver (small flathead)

Tape measure

Soldering iron (optional)

How we make it

Let’s start with the good bit.  Let me begin by apologising for the quality of photographs – they were done on the fly without a tripod or lighting and on a phone.

Take the choc blok.  Cut this so that there are three terminals per strip.  The ones used here were 6 way 15A, but you may be using something different.

Complete and cut connector block

Cut the hook section off the four wire coat hangers and straighten.  Remember if there is any coating this either needs removing or scraping to bare metal for joining areas.

You should now have four lengths of wire.  To absolutely maximise the available metal cut off two of the hooks from the twisted section and straighten.  These will make the two ends of the antenna.  Exact measurements for these can’t be given because your choc blok will vary in size.

Fold short lengths of wire with a pair of pliers

Loosen the screws and insert the wire as shown above.  Cutting these slightly long allows you to change the length of the antenna during testing.  Always handy to have a little bit of give, just in case.

Now take two of the long lengths of wire and cut them to 930mmin length.  In a perfect world these will slot through the choc block a bit like a trombone.  Take another two three way connectors and remove the metal terminal from both.  Do not throw these connectors or screws away as we will use them later.

Slide one of the three way connectors about half way along the two lengths of wire and tighten the screws.  This is simply used as a spacer.  Now use the other connector at the open end of the two wires and tighten slightly.  Again, we are going to leave the option to trombone the metal a little if needed.

Take one of the remaining lengths of straight wire and cut it to 580mm.

Now cut the last length of wire to a length of 497mm (500mm will be close enough).

Find the other end section that was made earlier and insert the two wires to make an unbalanced U shape.

More hunting.  Find the two metal inserts that you set aside earlier.  Here we have one of two choices.  If you don’t have a soldering iron to hand then simply slide one of the metal inserts on to each of the legs of the unbalanced U.

If you have a soldering iron, strip the end of the coax cable ready for soldering.

Solder the inserts as shown.  Note one screw hole on each is uncovered.

Once the ends are soldered and cooled slip them on to the unbalanced U section.  The inner is connected to the longer leg and the braid to the shorter side.  Pinch tighten these close to the base of the U.  This will allow you to adjust the feed point.  In the workshop this was set at about 50mm to start.

Now slide a 3 way as a spacer on the unbalanced U section and tighten.  Using the final 3 way slide it in to place so that the short section is just fed through the connector.  Tighten this connector on both sides.

Connect the long side to the original U section and tighten.  In the workshop version the kebab skewer was used in the middle of two of the connectors so that it strengthens the gap section.

Effectively, the antenna is now complete and ready for use.  You could now tie a piece of string to the top and hang it somewhere (or tie spare bit of bent metal to the end and hang it over something).

Alternatively, the antenna can be bent through 90 degrees to make a table top version.  Let’s come back to that later.

Testing

Connect the antenna to your analyser – BUT DON’T  DON’T WORRY IF YOU DON’T HAVE ONE!

Testing can also be done by connnecting your 2 meter transceiver, low power setting, with your VSWR meter inline.

(OR if you only have a handheld, and no VSWR meter, then try listening on the 2 meter band.  If you can hear signals (especially if they are stronger than on a rubber duck antenna), chances are it will work fine.)   

Adjust the feed point as required to give the lowest reading you can.  Once you have reached the lowest point you can also adjust the overall length of the antenna from the various connectors.  This may increase or decrease the VSWR readings.  This is a bit experimental but that’s what the hobby is about.  The analyser plot below gives 1.5 or better right across the band.

The antenna should also work on 70cms – two for the price of one!

Analyser plot for the coat hanger slim jim

Optional Base

If the option of base is required here is an option that was put together in the workshop.  A length of 30mm wide pine was left over from lining the workshop roof so this was used for my base.

Foldable wooden base                                       Close up of skewer

Cut the base slightly longer than the bent section of antenna.  Glue two 30mm square blocks on the underside, one at each end.  Measure another length to be fitted in the gap in the underside.  Make this section 20mm shorter than the gap to allow for rotation to make a foot.  Place this strip in the middle of the gap and screw so that strip can be rotated.  You might want to drill a pilot hole to allow free turning.  If you use a long enough skewer you can use it to stabilise the upright.  Drill a hole small enough for a tight fit and push the skewer in to place.

I hope these instructions worked for you and you enjoyed it as a little project.

You can print off these instructions as a pdf by clicking here.

Neil – G1TZC

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.

Three Wythall Radio Club members entered the 48-hour CQ World-Wide CW Contest in November 2019.  Now the results have been published, here are their stories and achievements!

Jamie M0SDV, Lee GoMTN and Chris G3YHF each entered different categories of this Morse code-only competition and were placed 2^nd, 3^rd and 2^nd out of the English stations in their respective class. 

Jamie M0SDV reports:  I was looking for a station that was better equipped for contesting than my own .  Chris G0DWV in Norfolk said he would host me, using the call G9Y (see Chris’s antennas below!).   I decided to enter the SO2R (single operator 2 radio) high power all bands section.

The first night on the low bands was incredible. The contest started at 0001UTC and I managed the first 1,000 QSOs by 1 hour after sun rise. Then conditions flipped so I decided to have a go at dual CQ – calling on both 20 and 15m at the same time using the 2 radios.

The picture shows me operating radio 1 (left) transmitting an exchange whilst I use radio 2 (right) to do search and pounce for multipliers.

I learned a few things here. The main one being, if you’re going to dual CQ, the CQ itself needs to be short and fast!

With another night shift coming on, I decided to work the sunset DX on the low bands, working YB (Indonesia), VK (Australia), ZL (New Zealand), along with far east Russia and some South East Asian countries.  

On the second day I worked the missing Europeans from the day before and started to focus on chasing more elusive multipliers.  Using the second radio as much as I could I would pause the run on 20 and CQ on 15 whilst searching for multipliers, and vice versa.  

The 2nd radio also let me keep an eye on 10m, which did have a short opening to Africa bagging me V55A (Namibia), ZD7W (St. Helena) and some ZS (South African) stations.

This contest was super fun! Reflecting, I needed to spend more time in S&P (search and pounce) mode looking for the multipliers and less time trying to make a load of 1 point QSOs.  I also needed to better plan my off-time. This caused me to lose some 160m QSO’s.

It seems Experience trumps Youth in this case.  Thank you to Chris G0DWV and his YL Tina for being incredible hosts and making me feel welcome yet again!

Jamie operated for 41/48 hours and made 3,709 QSOs – that’s about 91 per hour!  His score was 2,635,578 points and he was placed 65/1057 entrants world-wide in his class.

You can find a write up of Jamie’s exploits using the pre-production Gemini DX1200 linear amp, loaned by the DX Shop, here

Lee G0MTN reports: Despite writing ‘CQWW Contest!’ on the kitchen calendar back in January, through bad luck and lack of other available dates my wife was away on a work trip on the Sunday so I was in “SO2R high power all bands assisted + childcare” mode.

I took Friday afternoon off work to wind up the mast and prepare the wire antennas. I had Spiderbeam yagi / 40m dipole @ 50 feet (see photo left) and 80m dipole @ 45 feet. I ran out of time to raise the 160m antenna.  Aside from the rain, there was very little wind for almost all of the weekend which was one less thing to worry about.

I typically start an hour or two after the 0001UTC start, having then had a modicum of sleep. I operated through till after 1am Sunday.  The operating itself was a bit of a blur – when checking worked DXCC for my local club’s DX ladder even last night I had no recollection at all of having worked particular countries! 

I then slept through a very early alarm clock (grrr), and operated until late afternoon when I’d reached 1,800 QSOs and it was time for domestic duties.

SO2R – not as easy as it sounds.  I’m using an FTdx3000 as a second radio, and at very low audio levels the audio is a little distorted. I need to fashion another volume control so I can have good quality audio but at a wanted lower level. I missed a number of first radio callers first time due to the second radio – I moved the audio switching ‘heavy pileup mode’ so I could better concentrate on the first radio when finishing a CQ. Much more practice required.

Even when not actively working people, just being able to dial around the other bands helped with general awareness. I do appear to have a second radio TXBPF failure on 15m, which is hopefully just a connection problem as I’ve only fed it 15w and into good VSWR. Other TXBPF is fine on 15M.

When looking at a bandmap and seeing a number of unworked stations, I did find myself wanting to Search and Pounce and stop CQing. Even trying to do that as aggressively as possible working a few a minute was perhaps slower than the CQ rate. I think the mantra is that I always ought to be CQing. My desire to S&P and not miss multipliers is what that second radio is there for.

15M and 10M were not as good as last month – I hoped that Sunday might be better than Saturday, but to me Sunday seemed even worse. I worked a few on 160M using the 80M dipole.

The technology played a few tricks.  After setting up DXLog I discovered that my sent CW was slightly laggy between each character.  I rebooted the PC, turned off the panadapter, tinkered with Winkey and Microham settings. Eventually I ticked an ‘extra character buffer’ setting in DXLog which did the trick.  

Not long after restarting on Sunday morning a 59+ loud DL appears CQing away slap bang in the middle of my audio passband. I complained a little. DL station protests. Then I found that I had somehow QSYd around 1 kHz in the last few minutes. I had no idea how that happened and wasn’t aware. Apologies to the poor DL station.

For me, not a winning score by a large margin, but I had fun. Will do better next time! 

Lee operated for 30/48 hours and made 1,766 QSOs.  He was placed 204/1926 entrants world-wide in his category. 

Chris G3YHF is our third contributor:  This was my first attempt at a big international contest.  I had recently erected a 160M inverted L for the RSGB Club Calls Contest, so I decided to leave it up and make a 160M Single Operator Low Power entry.  This type of entry means no use of DX Cluster or other kinds of station-finding assistance, and maximum 100w output.

This was only the second time I’d used N1MM logger in a contest.  I had it speaking to my TS590SG so it automatically recorded frequency and mode.  But I hadn’t mastered computer keying or shortcuts, so I used my Bencher Hex paddle for all the CW. 

Besides logging the QSOs, another benefit of N1MM was that it remembered the frequencies of stations whose calls I had entered (or just looked up to see if they were dupes).  So as I tuned the band and came across a signal, it would often tell me the call sign and I could move on if we’d already worked.

Of course, the advantage of a 160M entry is that the band isn’t doing much during daylight hours so I didn’t have the lack of sleep problems faced by Jamie and Lee!  And stations in the contest are spread over only about 40-50khz, so there’s not far to tune. 

However, the downside is that in this narrow band there are lots of big signals covering up the weaker ones.  The TS590 did very well, but I had a few ear-shattering moments.  Usually this was when I had the RF gain backed-off and AF gain turned up to reduce the noise and copy a weak signal, only to find a very loud station appear almost on frequency!  The 590’s filtering isn’t quite up to dealing with the conditions found on 160M during a CW contest.

Having just come back to 160M after over 40 years away, I was more interested in seeing what DXCC entities I could work.  So I concentrated on multipliers using Search and Pounce, rather than chasing each available QSO or calling CQ for long periods.  Overall, I had about 6 hours operating out of the approximate 30 hours when 160M would be active.

I was delighted with being able to work 40 countries on Top Band, particular notables being S01WS Western Sahara, CN3A Morocco, and RM9A in Asiatic Russia.  In addition, I had several contacts with stations in the USA and Canada.

This wasn’t a serious contest entry, but having received the results I did better than expected.  So next year I’ll make a serious attempt in the same category and see what I can achieve.  To help this along, I’ve now traded in the TS590 for an Elecraft K3S which will improve things on the receive side.

Chris operated for 6/48 hours and his 67 QSOs scored 3,384 points.  He was placed 33/56 in the 160M low power category.

A writeup and photos of the whole contest can be found here 

If you are tuning around in the next few days on the 2 metre band or on GB3WL in the Birmingham area (or even further afield) and hear some stations exchanging numbers, you just might have stumbled upon the Wythall Radio Club Easter Contest. 

Just as at Christmas, we hold an event to get our members on air and working each other.

Points are given for each member worked and each discrete member worked across the period also counts as a multiplying factor (or multiplier) to attain a final score.

It sounds complicated but we have a clever Excel spreadsheet which keeps score for us!

The best 3 days of the 5 days of Easter are adjudicated and the top 3 winners in each category get Easter Eggs as prizes. With 6 chocolate prizes, it’s a short but highly contested event.

Watch this space for the results!

Radio signals from Wythall Radio Club members reached remote parts of the world – including New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Mali, Seychelles, Guinea-Bissau, British Virgin Island and South Korea.  

The Club’s annual DX Table involves members logging their two-way radio contacts with other countries.

In 2019, Tim MoURX was top of the Table with 165 countries. He was closely followed by Jamie M0SDV and Lee G0MTN with 145 and 142 respectively.  These are all in the Full licence category where operators are allowed to use higher power.

John M6KET won the Foundation licence category with 78 countries contacted, using QRP (low power) – no more than 10 watts output and a simple wire antenna. 

During the year he passed the exams for the Intermediate licence, and also won that category with 63 countries – but continued to use low power and a wire antenna.   He operated 100% CW (Morse Code) rather than using voice transmissions.

It shows what can be achieved with simple equipment despite the poor radio conditions.

Special awards were made to several Wythall members for achievements during the year.

Tim M6OTN (photo) contacted A73A in Qatar – a small country in the Arabian peninsular – with his basic antenna, a short mobile whip.  He won the ‘piece of wet string’ award – so named as wet string can be used as a very basic antenna to transmit radio waves!

Chris G0EYO won the ‘midnight oil’ award for contacting 50 countries on Top Band (160 meters), again using low power and a simple wire antenna.  The award is called ‘midnight oil’ because Top Band contacts can normally only be made during nightime, due to propogation conditions.

And Neil M0LUH won the ‘pipped at the post’ award for achieving 99 countries by 31 December (the closing date for the DX Table competition) – but then contacting what would have been his 100th the next day!

The competition is also open to short-wave listeners who don’t have a transmitting licence. 

If you don’t have an amateur radio licence, but would like to gain one, then come along to our Club one Tuesday evening or see the ‘Training’ section of the web site.  A warm welcome awaits you.

Wythall Radio Club’s annual Christmas Contest results ceremony attracted a big turn-out of members.

Operating from Colorado USA, Mark M0LXQ – who also holds the US call sign K0YC – made contacts with 8 Club members and was first in the Digital Voice category.  His Christmas operating was at 8,000 feet in the mountains, with guaranteed snow (see photo)!

There was intense competition in the ‘all modes/all bands’ section and little to separate the top three places.  Success went to David G7IBO, who won the G7OJO Trophy (photo left).  Ian MoLQY and Chris G0EYO were in second and third places.

A cold and misty evening operating from the Lickey Hills assured Kevin 2E0NCO of success in the 2meter/70cm (VHF/UHF) FM section, and award of the FM Trophy (photo right).  Winston 2E0EGP came second and Juliet M6RSC was third and also the leading Foundation licence competitor.

The Christmas contest is one of many Wythall Radio Club activities.  The Club meets Tuesday evenings at Wythall House, with its own dedicated meeting room and fully equipped shack, and welcomes visitors and new members.

Awards for Wythall Radio Club contests attracted a big turn-out of members this week.

There was keen competition between members over the festive period in the Club’s annual Christmas Contest. 

Only 30 points separated the winner of the 2meter/70cm (VHF/UHF) section, with Kevin 2E0NCO (photo below) repeating last year’s success ahead of Jim 2E0BLP.  Stu M0NYP came third, a great result as he was less active during the contest than many other entrants. 

One point was awarded for contacting another Club members on each day of the contest, and a multiplier for the first contact with each member.  Operating mobile or portable gained bonus points.

Entrants in the ‘all bands/modes’ section were not restricted to operating on VHF and UHF.  They could also gain bonus points by using the many short-wave bands available for amateur radio and by using different modes such as voice, Morse code or digital. 

The top places were separated by only a few points, with Chris G3YHF (photo below) wining the G7OJO Trophy for the first time, and Don G0NES and Ian M0LQY in second and third place.  

There were several special awards.  Tim M6OTN received a certificate for making the most contacts using digital voice (D-Star/DMR) modes.  He also won the ‘Out of Town’ award for operating in the contest while on holiday in Somerset! 

Awards were given for the leading Foundation licencees  – Maz M6NKO in the 2m/70cm section, and Miles M7ACN (photo below) in the all modes section.  Miles had an impressive entry – he received his licence 2 months ago and made all his contacts using a hand-held radio and antenna! 

Some members used Zello – a mobile network-linked radio mode – and Mark M0LXQ received a certificate for making the most contacts.   John M6KET and Chris G3YHF were equal first in making contacts using Morse code.  

Photos of all award winners are in the gallery below.

Wythall Radio Club was in full swing ‘on the air’ last weekend!

Members braved the hot weather to operate all manner of portable radio equipment and antennas and contact other stations around Europe on Sunday morning.  Operating from the field near our Club HQ, this ‘Plug and Play’ event is one of many activities Wythall Radio Club offers to its members.

Cool drinks and a camping grill kept the group hydrated and energised!

At the same time, two Club members were contacting stations around the world in an international radio competition – making over 13,000 contacts in a 24 hour period!  

Lee G0MTN and Jamie M0SDV used powerful radios and antennas on 60 foot towers, as part of the UK national radio society’s ‘M6T’ team based in Suffolk.  

Lee G0MTN presents Kevin 2E0NCO with the FM Trophy

Last night at Wythall Radio Club, it was celebration time! It was results night for our annual Christmas Contest. 

As is normal, the competition for the top slots is always very intense, but this year we had a new winner of the G7OJO Trophy.

Dave M0IFT, one of our relatively newer members, snatched the top spot by one QSO and one Multiplier from long-time contest stalwart and many-times winner, Jim 2E0BLP.

In the 2m/70cms FM only section though, the trophy was won by Jim’s son Kevin 2E0NCO, thus keeping it in the family, at least! Runner-up in this section was our club Treasurer Ian, M0IDR with an excellent effort from his home location near to Evesham.

As always, our members had lots of fun and several of our more recent additions to the WRC “family” appear to have caught the “bug”, as threats of antenna improvements and power increases have already been made!

We have our next Club Contest over the Easter weekend, so that will be the time to see if the threats become reality…

More pictures below…

Leanne & Sam present Harry with his new radio

Meet Wythall Radio Club Member Harry Bacon. 

At the tender age of 8, Harry is currently the youngest member we have. Along with his dad, he recently passed his Foundation Exam and is now the proud holder of the shiny new callsign M6NKW. 

A few days ago, Harry was congratulated by our friends (and Wythall Hamfest sponsors) from Radioworld.

On a trip up to their shop near Cannock, a very excited young man was presented with a new dual-band Handheld transceiver. (Click the photo for a larger picture).

Now Harry is looking forward to getting on the air and getting more experience before tackling the Intermediate License.

He is already learning Morse Code at our club Morse class and learning it very quickly, so we hear. We at Wythall Radio Club wish him all the best.

Listen out for Harry in our Club Christmas Contest from 26th December – you might even have a contact with him via our repeater GB3WL.