wythall radio club

One very pleased George, M0HQV

Wythall Radio Club is pleased to welcome one of our Intermediate members, George Ifrim, to the ranks of the Advanced licence holders!

George is originally from Romania and it should not be underestimated how difficult it is to study for the Advanced using English as a second language.

He was so keen to progress in the Amateur Radio Licensing Scheme that he took lessons as quickly as he could and we are very pleased that he now has his new callsign, M0HQV.

Work commitments mean that George is not always available to visit the club as often as he would like, though we always enjoy seeing him when he does appear, such as at our last Friday Social meeting. From all the members of WRC, well done George!

Meanwhile, our 6 Intermediate class students have all passed their exams with flying colours and we are just awaiting their new callsigns.

More news on that very soon!

Wythall Radio Club is pleased to announce that we are running our second on-line course for those seeking to gain their Foundation licence. It is planned to start on the 14^th July and be completed by 14^th August. 

The members of Wythall Radio Club have their fingers crossed for our latest batch of recruits to the hobby of Amateur Radio.

Candidates completing the practical assignments at the recent Saturday workshop

It’s almost time for the Intermediate Exam for 6 of our Foundation Licence holders.

Over the past few weeks they have been very busy completing their practical assessments and studying towards getting the next stage of the licence.

And if they are successful, Wythall Radio Club will be welcoming a new batch of 2E0 callsigns coming our way very soon.

So it’s congratulations to all of them on finishing the course – now we wish them all the best for the exam tonight (Monday) – we hope to have news of some new callsigns within a week or so!

This year’s Wythall Fun Run took place yesterday (Sunday morning) around the village. Despite the name, it’s a pretty serious event with 1.5 km, 5 km and 10 km courses attracting some even more serious entrants!

Checkpoint Anita M6DUO! She tells us she enjoyed watching fit young men running past her… Well!

For the members of Wythall Radio Club though, it was an opportunity for fun of a different kind!

This year we were asked by the organisers to help provide communications for the event. So some of us took a break from our Field Day event to go and help make sure the Fun Run went without a hitch, which it did!

Wythall Club Member John M1JSS rallied the troops into action – all those some folks along the route with handie-talkie radios or perhaps sitting in their cars handling communications traffic for the event were all Club members, having fun with RF in yet another guise!

And it’s really quite satisfying to use our love of radio communications to put something back into the community!

A lonely M0MCX operates on 144MHz while everyone else barbecues! Don’t worry, he eats well!

VHF Field Day is one of the highlights in the Wythall Radio Club calendar. Not just for the fun and camaraderie we have around taking part in the biggest VHF outdoors contest, but also because of the fun we have socially.

Last year’s event was one of the best (if not the very best) Field Days in the memory of most people in the club, from founder members to new recruits. It will be difficult to better but we are keeping our fingers crossed for good weather, which always helps!

This Tuesday sees a very important evening at the club, as it is traditionally the evening where we “dot the i’s” and “cross the t’s” in terms of getting our final preparation right for the big day.

It’s a good evening to come to especially if you harbour any plans about turning up on the actual day!

2030 in the Club Shack in the cellar at Wythall House, Silver Street, B47 6LZ.

Is this the ultimate 80m antenna?

Please don’t think that the members of Wythall Radio Club are about to burst into a Mary Poppins song – really, that is something no-one would want to hear!

When Radio Amateurs talk kites, we are usually thinking about getting a wire antenna strung into the air!

Roger Stafford G4ROJ is perhaps the best known amateur in the UK when it comes to using kites to string up antennas. He is an expert, not just on the antenna side of things, but also in his knowledge of kites themselves. His work has recently been featured on the Amateur TV Channel the TXFactor.

Fortunately for us, Roger is this Tuesday’s visitor to Wythall. He is planning to give us a talk and possibly even (weather permitting) a demonstration of using a kite to hoist up an antenna safely.

We welcome visitors to come along and see just how much fun one can have with RF in the great outdoors. The talk will start at 2030 in the Darts Room at Wythall House, B47 6LZ but may (or may not) be outdoors too (and may therefore be earlier around 1800! – email ian.radioworkshop@hotmail.co.uk for final details!)

Perhaps you might “breeze” in for a visit?

Western Power Distribution’s John M1JSS (left) presents the cheque for GB3WL’s antenna to Chairman Mike G4VPD (right). Project Manager Chris G7DDN & Repeater Keeper Dave G3YXM look on, with GB3WL itself in the foreground.

Wythall Radio Club are pleased to announce the arrival of the new antenna for forthcoming repeater GB3WL.

Once cleared by Ofcom, the 70cms unit will transmit to a wide audience across the West Midlands thanks to a brand new commercial quality antenna that will soon be installed at the club.

The stacked array of 4 folded dipoles has been professionally built exactly to match GB3WL’s frequencies and has been purchased following a generous donation from Western Power Distribution, the electricity distributor for our local area.

Club Chairman Mike Pugh said: “We are delighted to be able to purchase the highest quality antenna that we can afford. This is in no small part thanks to the financial help we have received from our friends at Western Power Distribution. We are pleased that, like us, they can see the value to the wider community in having a repeater station like this installed underground to give continued coverage in the event of any kind of emergency.”

It’s finished and ready to go, almost!

Wythall Radio Club’s new 70cms repeater GB3WL is getting ever closer.

The modified Tait unit’s inner workings have been completed on the test bench of G1YFF in Cambridge and delivered to the club for public show at tomorrow night’s (Tuesday 10th June) Committee Meeting.

Repeater Keeper Dave Pick  G3YXM said, “This is another milestone in our repeater project. It is great to have the repeater complete and ready to go. As soon as the license to operate GB3WL arrives, we will aim to get the repeater on the air as quickly as possible”

Another recent development has seen Wythall Radio Club gain a community grant towards GB3WL’s antenna system.  A spanking brand-new commercial 4 stacked folded dipole array will be in use for GB3WL, courtesy of club member John Smout M1JSS and his employers, our friends at Western Power Distribution. We hope to have more news on this exciting development soon. 

So while we await the Notice of Variation that allows GB3WL to become “live”,  it seems that Wythall members have more than a little antenna rigging work to do!

Wythall – Gateway to the World!

The members of Wythall Radio Club have something to celebrate. The club is supporting a new Internet Simplex Gateway for Digital Ham Radio.

MB6IWL is a D-STAR gateway and it’s situated in Major’s Green, a nearby village. The project has been in the pipeline for a little while now; it was inspired by the number of club members who have been taking advantage of a rather good offer from our friends at Martin Lynch & Sons. He has been discounting the Icom ID-31E handheld transceiver and several members have been relieving him of them!

With around 12 Wythallians now on the D-STAR mode, it seemed a good idea to have a way of accessing the D-STAR Internet Reflectors world-wide, and so MB6IWL was born. Clearance from Ofcom was swift and the Gateway is on air daytimes as of now.

There is more information about the Gateway here, and though supported by Wythall Radio Club, anyone passing through the area is very welcome to make use of it.