wythall radio club

Wythall Radio Club’s calendar is now correct up to the end of 2012.

As new talks or events are arranged, details will be posted and the calendar updated.  Talks are firmly in the diary up to June of this year and the Autumn talks programme is currently being planned. Watch this space!

The next event which may be of interest to non-members is on Tuesday February 28th when Callum M0MCX will be giving a talk and presentation on HF Antennas for your Garden. Visitors are welcome – just make yourselves known and say hello! :-)

I happened to be talking to Chris, G3VNA on the internet in the MyDel Yahoo Group Reflector. Chris has recently bought an SG3000, Auto Antena Tuner. We were discussing the technique of joining antenna wire together and I recalled a long debate years ago on eHam. The general conclusion was that you can join antenna wire but try not to use solder. Apparently the solder breaks down over time and you can end up with a worse problem due to the solder joint starting to behave as a component.

Over the last couple of years, I have experimented with jointing aerial wire and have had great succes with what they call the AT&T Wireman’s Joint (or similar). Somewhere on the internet is a PDF document showing this join which happens to be about the most natural join you can make with wire anyway. As it happens, that’s the same join as I have been making since I can remember. Indeed, it seems as strong as the wire itself.

The photograph shown here is of enamelled hard drawn wire. For the benefit of the photo, I have not scraped the varnish off the copper. This would certainly NOT work as a join if you left the varnish all shiny like this, you’d have to get your pen-knife out and scrape it all off. But the then the photo would be ruined :)

If you are using stranded wire, you can still use a similar join but I would recommend taping up the joint so that it didn’t unravel over time.

Have fun with rf!

Callum.

Wythall Radio Club’s latest Foundation Course begins this evening.  With a full complement of students, we are hoping for yet more successes at Foundation level.

All at Wythall Radio Club send their best wishes to our new students for a successful course and we hope to hear new callsigns on the air come March.

Remember if you are interested in becoming a Radio Amateur or just have any queries with regards to what the Foundation Course is all about, just drop a line to Chris G0EYO at g0eyo@blueyonder.co.uk anytime.  He will be more than pleased to give you any advice.

The Radio Society of Great Britain and Ofcom have reached agreement on the optional use of special callsigns for two significant events during 2012.

For the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, all UK amateur stations will have the option of applying for a variation to their licence if they wish, to use a special prefix for a five week period. This will add or substitute the letter “Q” in the place of the Regional identifier in the callsign. For the period of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, a similar facility will exist for a seven week period, using the letter “O”. Both the above facilities will also be available to Amateur Club licences, so expect to hear GQ4WAC and GO4WAC during this year!

More info at http://www.rsgb.org/news/articlelinks.php?id=0263

The Club’s programme of events on this website has been further updated and is now accurate to the end of September 2012.

October – December 2012 will be added shortly.

The latest issue of the Wythall Radio Club newsletter is now on-line and available.

January 2012 Newsletter (opens PDF in new Tab)

Amateur Radio operators around the Midlands might wonder what’s going on down at 145.225 FM most hours of the day and night. It’s the Wythall Christmas Contest. The rules are biased to encourage club members to work each other, every day over the Christmas break between Christmas Eve and New Year’s day.

There are two sections; the “restricted” section, which is 2m only and then the “open” section where bonuses are achieved for modes and band slots. Full rules here: https://www.wythallradioclub.co.uk/contest/xmas-contest-rules/

At the time of writing, late on Boxing day, over 50% of club members have been active and exchanged serial numbers with other club members. Serial numbers as high as 50 have been reported already.

A tremendous success!

I’m very pleased to report that I have just completed my first QSO on the HF bands using JT65-HF, a mode that was designed for very weak signal EME work but is now in use across the HF bands. If you have an RF isolated sound card you can be in business inside 10 minutes. You don’t even need a COM port for PTT, it will work with VOX. I downloaded my version here here but I believe there are other decoders out there.

In a nutshell, this is the most quirky and strange mode I have ever used but certainly fun. Calling CQ and answering CQ can only happen at the top of the minute. Each “over” takes 48 seconds and therefore you have 12 seconds to make up your mind what to do about the next over. On top of that, the protocol only allows for an exchange of 13 characters. However, it is highly tolerant of interference, fading and other nasties – ideal for EME as it seems (and also for bands that are apparently “closed”). There’s a fabulous paper written here which I recommend to all readers. Of interest, the character strings that are transmitted are not sent one at a time, like CW but as a scrunched up packet. Decoding these messages are a mathematician’s dream!

Click the thumbnail for a full-sized screenshot of my first QSO – and let me know if you have a go.

Wythall Radio Club will be running a Foundation course at their club shack at Wythall House, Silver Street, Wythall, B47 6LZ from Monday 23rd January between 8-10pm, and every Monday until the examination on Monday 5th March. Cost for this course is £40 which includes, the examination fee, course book, course notes and membership of the Wythall Radio Club until our next AGM in October 2012. For those students 18 or under, or unemployed and on benefits, we have a reduced fee of £32.50.

Contact Chris G0EYO on g0eyo@blueyonder.co.uk if you are interested or go to the Training page for more information.

Club member Chris G7DDN has been busy with his soldering iron already this winter, as the photo shows.  This is his version of the Hendricks “Weber  Dual Bander” kit.  See www.qrpkits.com/dualbander.htm.

Chris says, “This is a fantastic little kit, it came quite quickly from the US and attracted no extra duties or VAT. There were a couple of missing bits which were remedied by Doug at Hendricks Kits and despite the transformer windings being a little awkward to work out, a post to the Yahoo Group sorted it out quickly”.

He says, “I’m achieving 5w out on 40m and 7w on 80m”. Delighted with himself, Chris continued, “It’s a sensitive receiver with a 600Hz crystal filter and I’ve finished it just in time for the Christmas holidays – and the G-QRP Club Winter Sports!”. Chris has promised a longer report on the build of this kit in the next Club Newsletter in the New Year.

Good job!