wythall radio club

One of Wythall Radio Club’s most active “homebrewers” is busy again! Barry M0DGQ reports that construction has started on an ambitious new all band, all mode HF transceiver.

Using a Direct Digital Synthesiser (DDS) for the VFO, the controller is a two-PIC circuit, which can be found here. It has all the bells and whistles of an upmarket commercial transceiver with such niceties as dual VFO’s, memories & splits.

Ingeniously, Barry has used bits and pieces from redundant equipment – for example, he has salvaged the keypad from an old telephone unit and the blue switch array from a discarded fax machine. This is doubly advantageous as the buttons are both easy to use and see for us amateurs of advancing years! :-)

As Barry himself admits, “…by today’s demanding standards, this would not be suitable for a contest grade receiver due to the low level spurious outputs on the higher frequencies as these can mix with very strong out of band signals, however with good front end band pass filtering, this radio should be fine for most uses.”

We look forward to progress reports and to seeing the finished article!

For many radio amateurs, low power (or QRP) operation is a way of life. It is a real challenge to make radio contacts with other stations when you are only running the power of a kid’s night-light! This coming Tuesday evening at Wythall Radio Club, our visiting speaker will be telling us of his exploits in the world of QRP.

QRP Portable setup in Wythall Park

Tim G4ARI is one the UK’s leading QRP exponents. He is to be found in most contests, HF or VHF, somewhere in the countryside, high or low, putting out his flea power signals. Indeed this has led to his nickname of “QRP Tim”!

We are very fortunate to have Tim coming to visit us this Tuesday, as it is not often that we get to peek into the mind and operating practices of one of the most dedicated operators of QRP that this country has. To operate this way needs a certain mindset and members at Wythall Radio Club are looking forward to learning from Tim’s adventures.

An evening not to be missed! 2030 this Tuesday, the 21st May at Wythall House, Silver Street, Wythall B47 6LZ. Visitors, as always, are very welcome.

Wythall Radio Club put on a superb Special Event Radio Station on Saturday 11th May 2013 for Mills on the Air, activating Danzey Green Windmill, hence the call GB1DGW.

A full report will follow. For the time being, this is the beginning of the photographs.

This weekend sees the UK radio event known as “Mills on the Air” and Wythall Radio Club members will be out in force at one of our local mills with a special event station.

The 2012 station we set up at Avoncroft

We will be setting up the temporary shack near the mill at the Avoncroft Museum of Buildings in Bromsgrove. This is a fantastic museum which is home to over 27 different structures which have been rescued and re-built in rural Worcestershire. The Museum is spread over 19 acres and includes a wildflower meadow, period gardens, a traditional cider and perry orchard (yum!) as well as the fantastic collection of buildings.

Wythall Radio Club will be setting up our radio station underneath one of the barns near to the mill (see photo). Why not come down and not only have a great day out, but say hello to some of the hardy souls who will be erecting antennas and setting up this computerised hi-tech station? We will be there on Saturday from 0900 till about 1630. Ask for Callum – anyone there will know who you mean!

Looking back through recent posts, you will see that a number of Wythall Radio Club members are appearing individually in the hobby press or seem to be getting very well known for their Radio Activities.

Today it is the turn of Lee G0MTN. Lee is one the UK’s best known and respected Amateur Radio contesters. In the current (May 2013) issue of CQ Magazine (a US publication but read worldwide) a photograph of a slightly younger(!) Lee appears in the article entitled “The VooDoo Contest Group in Africa – The End of an Era”” written by another “famous” radio ham, Roger Western G3SXW.

The photo, reproduced above exactly as it appears in CQ Magazine, was taken in 2001/2002 when Lee was involved in the VooDoo Contest Group taking part in one of their CQ Worldwide contest activations – this time in Burkina Faso as XT2DX

It is really good to see another Wythall Radio Club member making waves in the world of Ham Radio! And why not take a look at CQ? It’s a darned good read!

As May approaches, the thoughts of Wythall Radio Club members turn to a special event in honour of our past President.

Lew Williams was a grand man who taught many of the senior members of our club the joys of Morse Code (CW). When Lew passed away, it was thought appropriate to honour his memory in a suitable manner and so the “Lew Williams Shield” was born.

In order to win this trophy, Wythall Radio Club members are asked to view the 31 days of May as a “Morse Code Activity Month”. The trophy is awarded to the club member who has shown some kind of commendable contribution to the event. It will probably involve some evidence of improvement, however small, in some aspect of his/her Morse Code skills.

In order to explain a little more about how we can take part, even if we might not know much about the Code, Lee G0MTN will be giving a short talk this Tuesday evening. He will take us through what the Lew Williams Shield is about and how ANY member can submit a valid entry to try to win it.

Perhaps we will see you there? Visitors very welcome – this Tuesday, 30th April, at 2045 at Wythall House, Silver Street, Wythall. B47 6LZ

Jim 2E0BLP receives his prize from Chairman Mike G4VPD

Last night saw the results and presentation evening for the annual Wythall Radio Club Easter Contest. You can read more about how the event works here.

6 lucky winners were revealed and Mike G4VPD, Club Chairman, took great delight in presenting both certificates and Easter Eggs to the first, second and third placed entrants in each of the two sections, 2 Meters FM and Open. Bizarrely, Mike came second in the Open section so had the strange task of congratulating himself!

Jim 2E0BLP won the 2m FM section and is pictured above right – just click on the pictures below to see a few of the other happy winners!

As regular readers of our website will know, Tuesday evening is the main meeting night at Wythall Radio Club and this Tuesday’s meeting is one that quite a many members will have been looking forward to.

That’s because it is time for the results of our “in-house” Easter Contest.

Just as at Christmas, we hold an event to get as many members on air and working each other as possible. 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 makes life simple, a fact to which lead adjudicator Lee G0MTN will testify!

Tomorrow night is Easter Egg Prize night and, while we cannot yet publish any information about winners and runners-up, suffice it to say that there are going to be quite a few surprises in store! 2030 at Wythall House, Silver Street, Wythall, B47 6LZ. Visitors are, of course, most welcome!

One of the fun parts of the Amateur Radio hobby is being tempted by all the goodies that radio and electronics traders place in front of us. And the best way to put oneself in a place of great temptation is to visit a Radio Fair, also known as a Rally (Hamfest to our US readers!)

Today saw one of the highlights in the UK rally calendar, the West London Rally at Kempton Park Racecourse, not a million miles from Heathrow Airport!

Five members of Wythall Radio Club were there perusing the stalls today and parting with some well-earned spondoolicks in the cause of the hobby! Ian M0IDR, Barry M0DGQ and Chris G7DDN met up with David G7IBO & Juliet M6RSC.

A great time was had by all. The general consensus was that, this year, there was a very good balance of “junk” type stalls and “high end” traders.

Certainly the members of Wythall Radio Club who were there had a great time, especially given that it was our first opportunity to play with the new large Kenwood TS-990 (pictured)!

Yet another Wythall Radio Club member is making a splash in the news – this time it is the turn of Dave G3YXM.

Dave already writes the bi-monthly Low Frequency column in RadCom, the journal of the Radio Society of Great Britain. But this time his writing is featured in the magazine in the form of a review. Page 36 of the latest May 2013 edition (part pictured) features Dave’s opinions on the Rigol DSA-815TG spectrum analyser with tracking generator.

We have noted the oblique reference to Wythall Radio Club at the end of his article! Thanks Dave! Of course if you want to know what he really thinks of this rather nice piece of (expensive!) gear, you will just have to join the RSGB to get RadCom to find out! :-)

Needless to say, members of Wythall Radio Club are very proud that Dave’s writing should be featured in this way. Most new members of the club know Dave well from his teaching on our Training Courses and he is a regular contributor to club events and a well respected member of the club as well as obviously in great demand by our National Society.