wythall radio club

If you are tuning around on the 2 metre band in the Birmingham area or 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. No wonder so many Wythall RC members are getting larger!

There is a section of the Ham Radio hobby, the fastest growing we are led to believe, which is known as “Radio Sport” or “Contesting”. The idea is to make as many contacts (exchanging the correct information of course!) within a specified time period. It is a very big part of the hobby of many a Radio Amateur!

To get Wythall Radio Club members in the mood to have a go at a big contest, our “top gun” Radio Sportsman, Lee G0MTN, is putting together one of his famous presentations to enthuse us to all to have a go at the next worldwide event, the CQ Magazine World Prefix Contest (known as CQ WPX) on the last weekend of this month.

There will be plenty of big gun stations like OH8X on the air!

You could try it out from home or even from our well-equipped club shack.  It is not too difficult to achieve a DXCC award (100 countries contacted) in one weekend during this contest!

So if you have little or no idea what the “contesting” bug is like, why not come and catch it at Wythall House, Silver Street, B47 6LZ this Tuesday at 2030?  Lee will be giving an introduction to all-band HF contests in general as well as this contest in particular.

There is even a rumour, that to encourage participation within the club, there may even be a “contest-within-a-contest” that we’ll run, just for fun, to encourage members’ activity in the WPX contest.

I wonder if there will be a prize in the form of a liquid refreshment for the winner? :-)

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73, Callum.

Nice to see the national journal of the Radio Society of Great Britain is catching up with us here at Wythall Radio Club! :-)

“RadCom” is published monthly and Wythall RC member Dave G3YXM is one of their regular columnists, writing the LF (Low Frequencies) column.

In his column for April, which has just been published (page 48), is a mention (and photo) of an item that appeared on our website here just over a month ago. Click here to see it!

Amusing that, at least this time, Wythall RC’s website is setting the trend! :-)

Wythall Radio Club members were certainly living up to their motto of “Having Fun with RF” last night!

Barry M0DGQ assists David G7IBO (left) & Juliet M6RSC

20 members crowded into the club classroom, soldering stations at the ready, to have a go at building the M0DGQ designed TRF Radio Receiver. In truth, most of us did not know what to expect, but Barry, the project designer, handed out our bags full of components and led us very professionally through the build. Suffice it to say that it did get rather warm with 20 or so soldering irons adding to the general bodily warmth(!) and as the photos show, things were a little cramped!

Feeling hot, hot, hot!

Nonetheless, all the participants thoroughly enjoyed themselves and much banter was heard during the 2½ hour session. We had started at 1930 but had to wrap up by 2200 as we were all getting too tired!

A couple of folk managed to finish the project to the point where they could get their receivers tested by Barry, but the rest will either be finished at home or at this Friday’s shack social evening.

Many comments were heard to the effect of “we must do more of this”. However, the preparation involved was considerable so thanks must go to designer and teacher Barry M0DGQ for his time and efforts in sourcing materials and preparing the project so well. We do indeed look forward to doing more construction work!

Winter is traditionally a time of year for Radio Amateurs to spend long evenings indoors “playing radio”. For many of us, that means the opportunity to build our own radio equipment. In this, we are following a ham tradition which goes down the years (the early radio pioneers HAD to build their own equipment as there was nothing to purchase!)  and indeed, this is one reason why one needs to pass exams to join our hobby.

So it is then that this winter, Wythall Radio Club’s members are undertaking a simple construction project to get us “back to basics”.

Wythall Club Member Barry M0DGQ is leading us in a two week project  to build a simple TRF  (Tuned Radio Frequency) Receiver. The set Barry has designed covers 2.6 MHz to 3.9 MHz approximately. This includes all of the 80 metre Amateur Band and some of the Shortwave Broadcast band. Using a good antenna and ground, we would hope to receive international shortwave broadcast stations, as well as Amateur SSB and Morse signals.

This Tuesday, 19th February, Barry will lead us in an informal presentation of the basics of the circuit and how it works and the pitfalls we will have to watch out for in constructing it. The following Tuesday, 26th February, we will be making a set each. Should be fun!

Why not come along and see how we all get on? 2030 at Wythall House, Silver Street, Wythall. B47 6LZ

It might seem to folk looking in from the outside that not much is happening at Wythall Radio Club just now. Well nothing could be further from the truth!

The fact is that many of us are now so busy monitoring our club frequencies (and using them!) that both this website and our club email reflector have seen an equivalent decline in activity! Long may that continue!

Since the whole point of being a Radio Amateur is to “have fun with RF”. as our club motto suggests, then it seems entirely appropriate that while there may be less chatter via computer,  there is most definitely a lot more going on on the airwaves!

Following the excellent turnout for Wythall Radio Club’s Christmas Contest (see below!), we have decided to try out a new way of getting members on air all year round. Our new Activity Ladder scheme starts in a few hours time at midnight on 1st February.

The idea of this is to give points whenever club members work each other. It is not a contest as such; there is no exchange to record, for example. However, whenever members work each other, rag-chew style, they can enter that contact in their new club logging spreadsheet.

This clever piece of coding allocates points depending on who they are working. The Club Station is worth 10 points, the Chairman 9, Secretary and Treasurer 8 and 7 respectively, and Committee Members 6 points. Ordinary Members are worth 5 points. In addition, members can claim bonus points for working mobile, portable, from each other’s stations and for operating our Club Callsign G4WAC.

Each month, our Ladder Co-ordinator Colin M0GJM, will produce a “League Table” of how members are doing and we hope this will encourage all of us to come on the air more to chat with each other.

Time will tell of course, but early indications are good, in that several members are reputed to be awaiting the “off” with some anticipation!

Every year between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day, Wythall Radio Club holds its Christmas Contest.

Club Member Sylwia M3SSP
A rare multiplier in the Christmas Contest!

Designed to encourage activity between our 70+ members, it has become a firm favourite with just about everyone. Indeed some people have been known to join the club just to take part in this event!

It is designed as a relaxed fun “party” exchanging serial numbers and generally having fun on air in keeping with our club motto. It has to be said though, it does bring out the competitive side in more than a few!

There are two trophies up for grabs as well and this Tuesday at 2030, we have our “Results and Presentation” evening. Adjudicator Lee G0MTN has been very busy wading through 40 or so Excel logbooks (designed by club members just for this event) and he will have come up with two winners. They will be presented with the G7OJO Trophy and the 2m FM trophy this week. Other certificates will be given out too.

This is one of the most anticipated evenings in the Wythall RC calendar so space is likely to be limited – an early arrival is advised! Tuesday 29th January at 2030 at Wythall House, Silver Street, B47 6LZ. Visitors, as always, are very welcome!

The results are out for the RSGB Club Calls 1.8 MHz Contest and it’s great news for the members of Wythall Radio Club!

51 Club Teams from across the UK took part and Wythall Radio Club’s ‘A’ team of G7WAC, G3YXM, G7DDN & G4WAC finished in overall 3rd place. A great effort and winners of the certificate pictured!

Our ‘B’ team of Pete M0COP, Don G0NES, Jim 2E0BLP & John G4MTG finished 16th and even our ‘C’ team (we were the only UK club with a ‘C’ team!) of Pete M5DUO, Barry M0DGQ, David G7IBO & Alf G1MJO finished 40th out of the 51 entrants!

In the individual scores, 3 of Wythall Radio Club’s stations finished in the top 10 (from 73 entrants) with G7WAC (operated by Callum M0MCX, Jon M0JMM & Stu M0NYP) ending up in 6th place. Dave G3YXM was 8th and Chris G7DDN came 9th.

In the Club table, G4WAC (operated by Lee G0MTN, Mike G4VPD, Stan G4JGV, Mark M0RKX & Phil 2E0WTH) finished 9th out of 33 Club stations.

The full results are tabulated at the RSGB’s HF Contest Website. Meantime our congratulations go to the 18 members who took part on air, plus the support teams who helped out with food, drink and in so many other ways! Special thanks to Dave G3YXM who co-ordinated all the efforts.

Great fun and we will be back next year!