wythall radio club

Fox-hunting with hounds may be illegal in the UK but for members of Wythall Radio Club, fox-hunting means something altogether different!

Phil 2E0WTH tries to get a bearing on the “fox”!

The radio form of fox-hunting involves someone hiding somewhere in the countryside and transmitting regular bursts of signal. The rest of us are out and about in the same general area of countryside trying to get bearings on where the “fox” is transmitting from. Before too long (hopefully!) the “fox” is found and the finders become the new prey.

Admittedly it may look like grown-ups playing hide-and-seek with radio, but whatever, it is a lot of fun! Wythall Radio Club puts on a fox-hunt over the Christmas period but this year the enthusiasm is back to get out in the late summer evening light that we have at the moment.

Chris G0EYO is a leading light in the Wythall Fox-hunt department and will be giving a short presentation this coming Tuesday in advance of our actual fox hunt this coming Friday evening. He will be covering how the event works, some basic principles of hunting, using a compass, taking a bearing, and other useful information.

Why not come along and see what the fun is all about? Tuesday 25th June at 2030 in the club shack at Wythall House, Silver Street, Wythall. B47 6LZ

WAB members manning a promotional stall at a recent radio fair

The hobby of Amateur Radio has spawned a number of operating awards over the years; Worked All Continents and Worked All States are two examples, but there is a Worked All Britain!

WAB, as it is known, was devised by John Morris G3ABG back in 1969. It was started to promote an interest in the Amateur Radio hobby in Britain and to sponsor a series of awards based on the geography of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

WAB award chasing can almost become a hobby in its own right! Radio enthusiasts will travel to remote parts of the country just to activate rare “squares” based on National Grid references.

After experiencing a heyday in the 1970’s and 80’s, WAB is making a comeback in the UK and more and more stations can be heard on air activating squares and joining in WAB sponsored events and contests.

This Tuesday at Wythall Radio Club, two of the leading members of the WAB movement in Great Britain are visiting us to explain just what is behind this resurgence. Husband and wife team, Judith G4IAQ and Dave G4IAR will be presenting a talk in the Darts Room in Wythall House, Silver Street, Wythall B47 6LZ.

Visitors, as always are welcome. The presentation starts at 2030.

Wythall Radio Club has been going Morse Mad this May!

Lee G0MTN (adjudicator) with John and Certificate

In honour of our late president, Lew Williams, who coached many senior members through the old 12 words per minute Morse test, we nominated each May as a month in which members can make a special effort to improve their code skills. We award a shield to the person who in the adjudicator’s opinion has shown the most progress. It is not a competition, more of a nomination for progress. This Tuesday the results of the 2013 award were announced.

Alf G1MJO and his certificate with Lee G0MTN

Two certificates of merit were awarded before the “Lew Williams Shield” was presented; John (no call-sign yet!) joined our club Morse class during 2013 as a precursor to getting a licence. His progress has been phenomenal and when he passes his license later this month, he will be Wythall Radio Club’s first ever Foundation Licensee to make his debut on air on CW!

Alf G1MJO is in his late 80s and never passed the old Morse test but has shown real stick-ability and persistence, even appearing on air and taking some faster Morse sent by other members with a very high level of accuracy.

John G4OJL, proud winner of the Lew Williams Shield for 2013

The main award however went to John G4OJL who was a founder member of the club in the early 1980’s. He rejoined us last autumn, having never used CW on air, indeed he was not on air for nearly 30 years! Returning to the club, he found a new love for radio and especially learning the code and has spent every day (bar one!) since last autumn doing 30 minutes of practice a day! Now he is exclusively a Morse Man on HF.

Tuesday was a very moving evening for those present. We trust the pictures give you a flavour of what it was like to be there!

Whenever there is a little hiatus in the posts on the Wythall Radio Club website, it is usually because there is something going on!

This time it has been holiday time! Quite a few members have been away from the Midlands enjoying the unseasonably sunny weather we have recently been experiencing in the UK.

G0EYO was spotted in Wales; G7DDN has been heard on CW from South Devon; 2E0BLP has been fishing in Warwick and making contacts in his spare time; G3YXM has been in Scotland and Chairman Mike G4VPD has been working back to club members from Spain on 14MHz with his little Elecraft KX3. And there are others who have been away from home too.

So just because the website has been quiet, it doesn’t mean Wythall Radio Club members aren’t still “having fun with RF”!

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