wythall radio club

This coming Tuesday, Wythall Radio Club welcomes a speaker almost “white hot” from the RSGB Convention, Mark Hill G4FPH.

Mark is a friend of the club, often helping out at our annual Radio Rally, and has visited us before, educating us about such concepts as remote operation (interestingly, this coming Sunday, the RSGB Convention gets the benefit of his knowledge on that subject!)

A nice example of an Atlas 180

On Tuesday 16th however, Mark is coming to visit us at Wythall to share his encyclopaedic knowledge of the “Perfect Mobile Radio from Atlas Inc.”

Atlas radios are part of the venerable history of Ham Radio and Mark will doubtless be showing off some fine examples and explaining what HF mobile radio was like in the early days of Solid State Transceivers. Not to be missed – Tuesday 16th October at 2030 in the Darts Room in Wythall House, Silver Street, Wythall B47 6LZ

SPRAT (Small Powered Radio Amateur Transmitters) is the club magazine of the G-QRP Club, QRP being the amateur radio code for “low power”.  Many radio enthusiasts like to see how far their tiny QRP signals will travel, often from simple home-made transmitters, receivers and antennas.

Barry, M0DGQ, is one member of Wythall Radio Club who enjoys doing just this kind of thing and for the second time in recent months, one of his home-brew projects has appeared in the SPRAT journal. This time, it is a companion receiver to go with the transmitter he has already had featured for the 40m shortwave amateur band.

Getting an article into SPRAT is no mean feat, but then Barry is no ordinary amateur! Take a look at his homepages at m0dgq.co.uk to see what sorts of things Barry does with his hobby!

Meantime, congratulations to him for another top class article published for the world to enjoy!

It’s been a great year for Wythall Radio Club.

Just browsing through the posts on this website shows how busy members have been with all kinds of projects.

How good then, to see Wythall RC featured as one of the Amateur Radio Clubs in the 2013 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 will read of the Club’s most recent achievements.

The RSGB itself is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2013, so an even more appropriate edition of the yearbook to be featured in, we cannot think of! Visit the RSGB website to get more information and maybe even order your copy!

Thanks to our friends at Martin Lynch & Sons and Kenwood UK, Wythall Radio Club is now the proud owner of a top-notch transceiver in the club shack.

The Kenwood TS-590S is a very high performance radio, capable of excellent receive operation.  The old adage “If you can’t hear them, you can’t work them” is certainly true. Receive performance is often the limiting factor in amateur radio communications. No longer for G4WAC! Wythall Radio Club has taken a leap into the 21st Century with the purchase of the TS-590S with its excellent specifications.

The ceremonial “unboxing” took place in the club shack last night and it wasn’t long before members were on the amateur bands working the world via our excellent triband beam on the club tower.

Our thanks once again to the staff at Martin Lynch and Kenwood UK for their help in securing an excellent deal for the club – this radio is going to get a lot of use!

Rockall – not just a name familiar from the UK Shipping Forecasts on Long Wave, but an extremely small, uninhabited, remote rocky islet in the North Atlantic Ocean, and a very dangerous place to attempt a DXpedition to!

The Rockall Islet

Indeed, not many have attempted it but one intrepid Belgian Group has. What is more, they have now made a DVD of their exploits so we can all share in the excitement.

Wythall Radio Club has recently purchased one of these and it seems a useful way in which to spend a dark Winter evening at the club. So be aware that on the 15th January next year, we will get to see one of the most dangerous DXpeditions to have taken place off our shoreline.  It cost over €35,000 to mount and sailing to Rockall in a Force 11 storm makes some interesting viewing too!

For a taster of what is to come, visit this link but then make sure you come along in January to the club to see (and hear) the whole story!

Tim Kirby G4VXE "drowning" in PowerPoint on Tuesday at Wythall RC!

A fantastic turnout on Tuesday evening just gone (30+ members, around half the membership!) enjoyed a compelling presentation, courtesy of Tim G4VXE.

Entitled “My World of VHF”, Tim took us on a journey through all manner of VHF operating practices, propagation, anecdotes & antennas and showed us just how much is happening on VHF and UHF.  As a seasoned operator, contester, DXpeditioner and column writer for “Practical Wireless” magazine, there was little left untouched in his overview of the bands from 50MHz to 432MHz.

Members were unanimous in their praise for an inspiring evening and there is already talk of further antennas being erected at a few members’ locations in the near future.  It was a great prelude to our own exploits on VHF Field Day coming up the weekend after next.

So… thank you Tim!

Click the image to enlarge!

Nice to see members of Wythall Radio Club in the Amateur Radio press again. This time it is Barry M0DGQ, one of our QRP (low power) fanatics, who has been in the news.

Once again Barry has had one of his homebrew articles published in the latest issue (out today!) of what many people consider THE best Amateur Radio magazine in the UK, SPRAT.

SPRAT (Small Powered Amateur Radio Transmitters, to give it it’s full title!) is the quarterly journal of the G-QRP Club.  Many of the best known amateurs in the UK are among the members of this club.

What is more, this is the second time that Wythall member Barry has had an article published in this august publication. This time it is for a homebrew 40 Meter band Transmitter project.  Opposite is the latest front page from SPRAT and Barry’s transmitter is pictured on the left.

We are very proud to have Barry in our club. If you want to find out more about his ham radio projects, visit his personal pages at www.m0dgq.co.uk

Tim Kirby G4VXE (pictured) is the VHF Columnist for Practical Wireless Magazine.  Not only does he have that distinction, but he is also Wythall Radio Club’s next guest speaker! This Tuesday evening, Tim is wending his way up the M40 to join us at Wythall House on Silver Street to deliver his latest presentation, entitled “My World of VHF”.

Tim is basing his talk around the VHF/UHF column that he writes for PW.  In his monthly musings, he covers as many aspects of VHF/UHF as he can and tries encourage people to look at their VHF/UHF radios in a different way.  Those of us who have been following his writings, both in print and in his online blog, will know he is more than eminiently qualified to talk on this subject.  Tim has just about done it all in VHF/UHF, contesting, DXpeditioning and so on. His interests range from chatting on FM Repeaters to serious DX on 50MHz and above.

Tim’s visit comes at a very appropriate time as VHF Field Day is just around the corner and a little inspiration never goes amiss!!

We are looking forward to welcoming Tim amongst us. Tuesday 26th June is the date and 8.30pm is the time!

144 MHz or 2 metres is probably the most popular amateur band for local or semi-local contacts.

However, tomorrow it will be full of low power or QRP stations trying to make contacts far and wide in the annual Practical Wireless 2m QRP contest.

 All modes from FM to SSB and CW are allowed and it’s a great opportunity to snag some new squares or work some hilltoppers. All you have to remember is that no more than 3w is allowed as your output power.

This is a great chance to get out onto some high spots for an hour or so too and see how many stations can be worked.

So if you are at a loose end tomorrow, why not take part? Even a small antenna such as a tiny yagi or halo for horizontal polarisation will work.  The usual antenna types for vertical polarisation will also give good results.

See  http://www.pwcontest.org.uk/144MHzrules.html for more details and remember, have fun with RF!

In case you are not aware, Wythall Radio Club is now on the worldwide web!  The club shack and training room now has broadband internet access, both wired and wireless.

The many advantages of this we are yet to fully explore, but we are making a start this coming Tuesday, 29th May, when there will be an informal “Internet Evening”, which may well be the precursor of more such nights.

This week, Chris G7DDN will initiate our first “round table” by visiting “live” a few ham radio websites of which some of our members may not yet be fully aware.   It is easy in our modern connected world to think everyone already knows about the resources available at the click of a mouse or press of a button, but this is not always the case.

Future Internet evenings may well see members encouraged to bring along useful links to sites that they have discovered which might enhance the hobby for us all.

With our new link to the Information Superhighway, Wythall Radio Club is engaging 1st gear and getting off the “Super Hard Shoulder”!