Talk to the world from Wythall Park
SATURDAY AUGUST 16TH 10.30 A.M. ONWARDS. IN THE FIELD BEHIND THE SCOUT HUT . LOOK FOR THE FLAGS AND THE FUNNY ANTENNAS! VISITORS VERY WELCOME
THE WORLD RADIO TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP PREPARATIONS: G0MTN LEE’S REPORT
Lee preparing and testing for the Championship
During the July 2025 IARU HF Championship 5 WRTC stations were tested under field conditions.
We used the same planned equipment for the 2026 event as a trial – a 12m telescopic mast, small HF triband yagi, and dipoles for 40m and 80m.
The operating location was a cluster of sites within the grounds of the Euston Estate, Suffolk.
This was a test of erecting the masts and antennas with some of our volunteers, ahead of training the full team of volunteers over the next year.
The weather was very hot which made the site build on the Thursday and Friday quite challenging. although it also became surprisingly chilly overnight on Saturday. We also tested the IT networking and our scoreboard system.
We had the callsigns GB0WR GB2WR GB5WR GB8WR GB9WR and made 9600 QSOs in the 24 hour period.
We learned a lot and it was a great (if tiring) experience meeting with our volunteer station builders and operators. There was also much positive feedback from the public as such as demonstration of real equipment from the agreed site locations helps to show we’re on track with our preparations for next year. The big challenge of course is scaling up from building 5 sites to 50, and looking after 100 international operators and 50 referees next year. Please visit https://www.wrtc2026.org/ for more details of WRTC overall, and this 2025 test run.
THEWORLD RADIO TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP 8TH-13TH JULY 2026
WYTHALL RADIO CLUB IN THE COMMUNITY: RECENT WORK BY THE CLUB
“It was so good of Wythall Radio Club members to rally round and help me with the little problem of taking down my father’s ancient monopole, which was straining against its ropes. Fortunately, with some engineering brains in the group, the whole thing went off without a hitch, though my Geraniums are for the Chelsea chop. Not to worry, they’ll recover. Just need to find a gardener now ! Thanks again, much appreciated. Penny “
Happy to help and also pleased to help John G3OIC remove a mast in his Garden in Wythall.
Beams for Sale
Wythall Radio Club are offering these 3 beams for sale.
InnoVAntennas 13 element 2m LFA
InnoVAntennas 19 element 70cms LFA
InnoVAntennas 6 +6 element 50Mhz/70Mhz
They were used on our tower for 2-3 years and dismantled and put in store in 2022.
They are complete, in good condition and all elements etc are straight and undamaged.
Selling individually or as package. Collection only. Sensible offers please.
They can be inspected by arrangement at Wythall Radio Club, near j 3 M42 south of Birmingham.
Contact info. and photos, click here.
Sun, Wind, High Wires, Buses, Steam Trains … and RF!
This time last year we had strong winds and lashing rain for Wythall Radio Club’s annual activation at the Transport Museum Wythall. The weather was so bad that two of the gazebos on site were damaged by strong gusts.
So as you can imagine, when last Saturday’s forecast was for storms we weren’t impressed. Fortunately we only had over-night rain and a day of sunshine and breezes!
All the prep work was done on the Friday. Simon G4TVR kindly supplied his van to move all the gear the mile from our club room.
Dave G3YXM – who usually catapults a halyard over a tree branch – was in GM-land, but luckily Simon has an arboreal catapult (photo below). This monster lauched a line attached to our OCFD over the top of 15m high trees. This ended up with it being even higher than last year.
Ian decided to try locating the HF vertical on the other side of the trees and directly at the end of the wire antenna. We lashed it firmly to a wooden fence with bungy cord.
On the previous visit there had been huge issues with the HF stations interfering with each other. The new positions seemed to resolve this issue.
We all turned up on the Saturday, from 8.30am to put the radio equipment in position, for the general public to start arriving at 10.30am for the Transport Museum open day where there was a visiting fleet of green London Transport buses.
As usual there were one or two snags. We had tested the 2 HF antennas on the Friday, but on Saturday the OCFD antenna had very high SWR indicating open circuit.
Swapping coax feeder didn’t solve the problem. Using Phil 2E0WTH’s RigExpert analyser and Ian M0LQY’s homebrew dummy load, we checked the rig and cables. Finally we traced the fault to the short piece of coax supplied with the antenna and containing several ferrites.
Removing this and connecting our coax feeder direct to the antenna solved the problem – and didn’t cause any new ones with RF on the feeder.
So all was well.
In total, five stations were run on the day. These were split between HF, VHF and satellite.
On HF, we had separate FT8 and CW/SSB stations. Conditions were very poor and the CW/SSB station struggled to make contacts.
But by early afternoon 40m was open for inter-G and we had a couple of pile-ups on SSB. Many thanks to all the stations who called in.
The audio from the CW/SSB station was piped through a small PA, and attracted a number of visitors – including some current and prospective radio amateurs. It competed well against the noise of passing buses and the model steam train whistle!
Some visitors tried our CW demo kit, and were awarded certificates for sending their names.
Neil G1TZC brought his portable, solar-powered QO100 satellite station. A highlight was working Garry ZD7GWM – a DX member of our Club – via QO100. Several members took the opportunity to have a chat.
The team comprised: John 2E0XET, Phil 2E0WTH, Winston 2E0EGP, Simon G4TVR, David G7IBO, Gary G5RGS, Ian M0LQY, Neil G1TZC and Chris G3YHF.
Come 3.30pm, we quickly dismanted the stations and everything was back in the Club room by 4.30.
The great thing about these days out is that you get to experiment in the real world to see if your station does what you want it to do.
FOXHUNT in WYTHALL PARK 2025
We were approached by two very polite youngsters after our Foxhunt in the Park; they asked the question on the minds of many in the park that evening,dog walkers, footballers, children , walkers and many more!
“Excuse me but what exactly are you doing” We tried to explain.. they weren’t convinced “We thought you were looking for Aliens,” they said and left.
Neil’s report follows but it was another happy and enjoyable event in the park for Wythall Radio Club members and a really good buzz (not radio related) in the bar afterwards.
Neil the organiser reports as follow
Ian, M0LQY holds his DIY antenna aloft.. “is there anyone out there?”
“Having put the equipment in storage after the last event, there wasn’t too much to do. Debra did all the repairs and testing to the aerials that had been made last year. All I had to do was charge the beacon, load the car and we were ready.
At 18.30 BST the beacon was hidden in the grounds of the Wythall Community Centre, ready for the eager competitors. Club members started to congregate in the car park from about 19.30 BST.
There was much comparing of antenna designs! (see pictures!!) I had my antenna analyser available to check the home-made kit.
At a given signal the gang dispersed but unlike last year they mainly moved in the same direction!
It took about 20 minutes for David G7IBO and Ian M0LQY to locate the tree where the beacon was concealed, with David being the first to seize the Fox!
The magnificent Four
And the winner is… Clutching the transmitter and his extremely sophisticated Home brew antenna G7IBO: a difficult act to follow!
From feedback, it was a popular event and I have been asked to organise another one, maybe at the Lickey Hills. We can chat through this at the next committee meeting.
Thanks to everyone that took part in this club activity.” and welcome too to Ian and Nigel .
UPCOMING EVENTS AT THE CLUB
GB0BUS ACTIVATION AT WYTHALL TRANSPORT MUSEUM SATURDAY 14TH JUNE -A FULL REPORT TO FOLLOW
FRIDAY MORNING CLUB AT WYTHALL HOUSE 9.45-11.45 FRIDAY JUNE 20TH
OPEN COMMITTEE MEETING TUESDAY JULY 1ST.
Radio and Buses – visit us at Transport Museum Wythall
Saturday June 14th – that’s the date for Wythall RC’s annual demonstration station at Transport Museum Wythall.
It’s a chance to see our satellite station in operation, as well as digital, voice and Morse Code on short-wave and VHF radios.
And you can also experience a ride on the Museum’s fleet of buses and their visiting iconic London ‘green’ buses.
We’ll be talking to radio amateurs around the world.
Watch as our signals travel 22,000 miles up to the QO100 satellite, which will retransmit 
them the 22,000 miles back to earth – so we can talk to other radio operators across much of the world.
You can try your hand at sending Morse Code – it’s great fun!
We welcome visitors – come and chat to us.
We’ll be there during the Museum’s normal opening hours.
SSTV DX at MB7TW
The SSTV repeater at Wythall RC – MB7TW – has been receiving frames from outside our local area during recent weeks.Enhanced propogation on 2 meters gave us our first screen capture from our sister repeater run by the Martello Tower Group at Clacton, Essex – MB7TV.
Chris is hoping to try and work MB7TW using his 8 element vertical J-Beam.
If you see any frames from him or other ‘DX’ stations, please reply if you get a chance.
Here are a few of the other frames received recently:
Spring sunshine radio fun at Wythall RC
Wythall RC portable operators were bathed in the spring sunshine!
Club members used their Tuesday evening and Friday morning meetings to operate /P from the lawn outside their Wythall House HQ.
Phil 2E0WTH used an antenna analyser to set up his portable antenna, assisted by David G7IBO and Mike G4VPD. He tested it using a SOTABeams WSPR-lite transmitter. Daytime 200mw signals on 40m were received in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Meanwhile Ian M0LQY was using a QRPLabs QDX 5w digital transceiver and a SOTABeams bandhopper antenna to make FT8 contacts over a wide area. And Chris G3YHF joined in the Tuesday evening 2m CW activity session with a QSO with G4ALG/P in the Forest of Dean, both running 5w QRP to small Yagi antennas.
There was also satellite activity from Neil G1TZC’s portable station, with many QSOs through the QO100 geostationary satellite.
An additional burst of satellite activity took place one Saturday morning, when members and partners joined Neil and Debra for the official opening of his new workshop/shack.
Using our club call GX4WAC, stations worked by members included:
- F5VMJ (Paul in Paris) – OP Winston 2E0EGP
- VU2GRM (Ram in Bangalore) – OP Neil G1TZC
- OE4EIE (Tom Bergenland) – OP Lee G0MTN
- ON7SX (Michel in Diepenbeek) – OP Lee G0MTN
- DL8SDQ (Juergen in Nordheim) – OP Neil G1TZC
Surprise win in Wythall Easter Radio Contest!
Simon G4TVR was a surprise winner in Wythall Radio Club’s Easter Contest 2025!
He topped the 2m/70cm FM section and Lee G0MTN won the all band/all modes category.
This year members made much greater use of different modes and bands.
There were contacts on 40m, 12m, 10m, 2m and 70cm bands.
Members made use of FM, SSB, CW, FT8, D Star, Echolink and SSTV (slow scan TV – using the Club’s MB7WL SSTV repeater).
They also accessed the GB3WL and GB3XO repeaters (with thanks to the GB3XO team in Redditch).
Mobile contacts were also recorded.
And Lee G0MTN operated remote into his home station via his mobile phone while on a shopping trip.
That’s dedication!
There was even an AM (amplitude modulation) contact between Winston 2E0EGP and John M6KET! Now, that’s real old-time radio!
Wythall RC runs club contests during the Christmas and Easter holidays.
Members try to contact each-other, with a point awarded for each contact and a multiplier for each member worked.
The final score for each member is calculated from their best 3 days.
COMING UP AT WYTHALL RADIO CLUB……
Tuesday 20th May 7.30 onwards
Portable radio activity on the lawn at Wythall House, and chatting in the bar later on.
Visitors welcome
Tuesday 27th May 8pm –
Lee G0MTN will be talking about the forthcoming World Radiosport Team Championship.
In the Darts Room, Wythall House.
Visitors are welcome.