Galashiels and District Amateur Radio Society (GDARS) GM4YEQ

2023 Rally and Open Day – Sunday 22nd October 2023

Posted by gdars on October 21, 2023 12 comments

Lost and Found: Found a pair of glasses with grey translucent frames left at the Canny Components stall. GDARS club has them, contact us by email if they’re yours.

NOTE (21/10/2023): Rally still on! Not badly affected by Storm Babet, just a little soggy and windswept. All weather and flood warnings finished on Saturday.

This year’s Galashiels Rally and Open Day will take place on Sunday 22nd October 2023. Venue is the Volunteer Hall, St John Street, Galashiels TD1 3JX.

Note that this is NOT the weekend of changing the clocks as previous years but is the weekend before to avoid the CQWW SSB contest weekend.

Doors open for general admission at front doors at 11:00 BST.

Disabled/accessible entry and early book-in of Bring and Buy items only at 10:45 BST at rear door.
(Table traders entry at rear door from 08:00.)

Admission will be £2.50 per person, with free entry for under 16s accompanied by an adult.

CASH ONLY at the door. Change will be given but we appreciate having correct change for faster entry.

A sticker will be provided for exit and re-entry.

Confirmed traders (as of 18th October):
Bob McClements GM4CID (Club Stall, Used equipment)
Alan Clegg (valves etc)
Mirfield Electronics
Canny Components
Mick Hunter (Batteries, Memory cards etc)
Tony Kruszelnicki from TK Electronics in Lincoln
Perth Repeater Group
Pete Bates GM4BYF
RSGB (Books, Memberships)
Ken Elliott GM4NTX
Dave Bagshaw
GQRP Club
Michael Wills
Gavin Chalmers GM0ALW
Fraser MM0HCD
DX Maps (Michael Whitehead)
John 2M0YTN
Paul GM0EDJ (Elderslie ARS, SK equipment)

Bring & Buy Stall (50p Book-in charge, 10% Commission up to £10 maximum)
Catering with hot and cold refreshments.

Any trader queries or traders not already booked but wanting to check table availability please email Jim Keddie GM7LUN (mail@gm7lun.co.uk).

Location:
The Volunteer Hall
St John Street
Galashiels
Scottish Borders
TD1 3JX
(Google Plus Code 9C7VJ57R+WV )
(What3Words///practical.diner.voltage)

Access to Galashiels by road from A7, A72 or A68 (via A6091), by bus (bordersbuses.co.uk) or by train (scotrail.co.uk).

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Railways On The Air 2023- Whitrope Sat 23rd/Sun 24th September 2023 – GB0WRH

Club members will be taking part in this year’s Railways On The Air event, with a station being set up at the usual place of Whitrope Heritage Centre near Hawick on the weekend of 23/24 September.

The callsign used will be GB0WRH (Waverley Route Heritage) operating on HF bands. Dave MM0HTL will be arriving around 9am on Saturday and setting up, and then along with other members will be operating through the day and evenings until late Sunday afternoon.

All club members and visitors are welcome to come along and see the stations (radio and railway) and help with operating or just come along to chat with us.

The Whitrope Heritage Centre is run by the Waverley Route Heritage Association who have restored a length of track and sidings on the old Waverley line (1849-1969) between Hawick and Carlisle. Further details here: https://wrha.org.uk/about/

Location:
Whitrope Heritage Centre, Whitrope, Hawick, Roxburghshire TD9 9TY
Location: 11 miles south of Hawick on B6399 (Hawick to Newcastleton road).

Maidenhead Locator: IO85PH 00co
55.294320, -2.748944 (55°17’39.6″N 2°44’56.2″W) 1034ft (315m) asl
NGR: NT 52540 00279
Google: 9C7V77V2+MC
W3W:///jousting.windmills.wire
https://wrha.org.uk/the-association/find-us/

Satellite image showing location of Whitrope Heritage Centre carpark

https://rota.barac.org.uk/
https://wrha.org.uk/the-association/whitrope-heritage-centre/

PW 144MHz QRP Contest 2023

Posted by gdars on June 25, 2023 No comments

On Sunday 11th June 2023 club members went up to our usual spot up the Yarrow/Ettrick “Middle Swire” (aka Witchie Knowe) to operate the station for the Practical Wireless 144MHz QRP contest.

Weather was decent, starting off as mostly cloudy in the morning and a light breeze, becoming less cloudy, more sunny and hotter by the afternoon. The heavy rain through the night before had passed over.

John GM7NVA, Mike MM3NTX and Brian MM7OYD arrived first, then Dave GM0KCN with the antenna and radio. Some chatting between us and playing with HF radio for a time while waiting for Colin MM1APS to arrive with the mast, which he did around 1040 after having to clean up from one of his dogs making a sick mess of his livingroom carpet through the night.

So we got the antenna set up on the mast, and Dave and Colin started operating the contest on radio and logging with John turning the antenna as needed. Some time was spent chasing other stations, and some sitting on a frequency calling CQ. Mostly on SSB but occasionally chasing locals on FM.

John GM0NYD and George GM1OPO arrived around lunchtime and Jim GM7LUN a little later.

Around 1530 (local time) we decided to call it a day as there was only 30 minutes left in the contest and the only stations we were hearing were those we’d worked before. Radio propagation seemed to be starting to fade.

All in all it was a good day operating, the weather held out contrary to earlier forecasts of thunderstorms. Our logs showed 035 as the last serial number used, but on later inspection we found that the numbers went from 022 to 033 then 034 and 035. So 25 contacts made, and a note was included when Dave KCN submitted the logs to the organisers. The logs corresponded to the information sent over the air, so nobody’s logs will be inaccurate, we just omitted serials 023 to 032, possibly after a battle getting the serial 022 copied by the other station.

For those not operating the contest station a chance to get out and experiment with other bands and antennas away from home QRM.

Many thanks to Dave and Colin for operating the station again this year, and hopefully we’ll maintain our streak of Best Scottish Station and Best in IO85.

Photos by Mike MM3NTX, John GM7NVA and Dave GM0KCN.

PW 144MHz QRP Contest 2023 – Sunday 11th June 2023

Posted by gdars on June 7, 2023 No comments

Again members of the club will be going up the hill to operate a portable station for the Practical Wireless 144MHz QRP contest on Sunday 11th June. We will be using the callsign GM4YEQ/P.

(See next post for how it went.)

Wednesday Nights

Posted by gdars on May 6, 2023 No comments

Here are a few photos of some Wednesday night meetings’ technical goings-on. Not the same night, but several nights at the start of 2023.

Looking at several magnetic loop antennas on the table and on tripod

We had a “magnetic loop” antenna night when several members brought their various magnetic loop antennas to look at. Bob GM4CID tested them for frequency and efficiency using a MiniVNA analyser.

Also Colin MM1APS was looking inside a Kenwood TK-705 mobile set to fault find problems with it.

Opening up a vintage Cambridge Pye shortwave radio.

Old valve (vacuum tube) tester and Colin

Colin brought in an old valve tester to test some vacuum tubes for another piece of equipment.

Icom IC-756 Pro II and Icom IC-706 radios on table, 756 with case off

Colin fixing a member’s Icom IC-756 Pro-II radio. Spot the destroyed component he’s trying to replace.

Icom IC-706 radio with ATU-100 EXT tuner and portable battery pack

Frequency standard receiver and frequency counter

Mike MM3NTX brought in his Icom IC-706 radio to be frequency-calibrated because he was told it was “very slightly off” when he bought it second-hand. Colin brought in his frequency standard (receiving the 60kHz MSF signal from Anthorn) to calibrate the club’s frequency counter, and then in-turn used that to adjust the Icom. The radio was 400Hz out at about 145MHz, adjusted to within about 5Hz of frequency which is pretty good.

Old 486 PC running MS-DOS being used to program a some old Philips FM1000 radios.

John GM7MUN brought in his old 486 PC running MS-DOS as it had the hardware and software to program his Philips FM 1000 mobile sets. Bob helped him with the programming.