On the 8th May we had a speaker attending, Paul Gacek W6PNG/M0SNA to talk about his radio activities, Wilderness Activations in Western USA, SOTA activation and the 2016 ARRL National Parks event. Examples of some of his material is on his blog nomadic.blog
Many thanks for an interesting journey across the Western USA and a good mixture of radio, geography, history and encounters with deadly animals!
Also some good information about SOTA that hopefully will encourage some members either to go up local hills to activate them, or to assist SOTA participants to get the contacts they need for activation. More SOTA information here: sota.org.uk
Many thanks to the members who attended for Paul’s talk.
Old Murphy receiver given to a member by the widow of a local Professor of Electrical Engineering, who wasn’t a licensed radio amateur but according to his wife spent hours on this sitting listening at night.
Just don’t touch the metal bits… Yes that is the earth wire plugged into the power gang. Probably should be pointed out that this was under constant supervision and everyone in the room has awareness of electrical safety and knows not to touch bare live electrical components.
Meanwhile, some old gear being looked at and opened up.
Also, George making contacts on low power. Extra points for the Irish participant in a contest for getting our IO85 square. Easier to control the FT-817ND through Ham Radio Deluxe interface.
The 2018 Annual Open Day and Rally was held on Sunday the 21st of October 2018
Another very successful rally.
Many thanks to the Traders for filling the hall with their goods, the club members who helped out on the day with setting up and packing up of traders goods, manning the doors and the Bring & Buy stall, and to the visitors who came from far and wide to our open day.
Bob McClements
Perth RG
GQRP Scotland
Davy Jackson (Canny Components)
RSGB
Mick Hunter
Kevin Avery
SBRG
Alan Clegg
Dave Bagshaw
Tony Kruszelnicki
Martin Stokes (Mirfield Electronics)
J Dosher
Geoff Darby (Worked All Britain)
Ken Elliott GM4NTX
Peter Bates GM4BYF
Club members participated in the Practical Wireless 144MHz QRP contest again this year.
The aim is to contact and exchange details with as many other stations as we can through the day, all over the country, using 5 watts of power maximum, on 144Mhz band which is usually “line-of-sight” only.
We were slightly more successful than last year, even though we had a few episodes of thunder and heavy rain and had to retreat to the vehicles. Contacted stations from the north of Scotland right down to the south coast of England.
Thanks to our operators Dave and Jim, Dave and George for getting the station set up and antenna erected, Mike for logging, and the other club members who came to support us during the day. Also special thanks to Dave for the coffee and fresh bacon rolls cooked on the portable gas stove!
As usual we were located at the top of “Middle Swire” between Yarrow and Ettrickbridge, 6 miles west of Selkirk. The day started off nice, then the clouds rolled in and the rain started.
The day started off nice.
Nice view down to the south
George’s car equipped for some HF and VHF listening while we’re up the hill.
George and Dave building the antenna pole.
This battery should last long enough.
Solar power, only useful while the sun was out…
FT-991A Transceiver
Playing with HF while waiting to start contesting on VHF…. and watching the heavy showers dodge us. For now….
Calling CQ for any stations listening. Callsign and locator on the sheet for reference. Notice the DIY audio reflector for the on-board speaker.
Okay boys, time to retreat to the vehicles! Rain started.
Getting very noisy and crackly on the radio now. Acutely aware there’s lightning around and we’re next to a tall metal pole with a trailing cable leading inside the car. The radio was disconnected for the short time the bursts of static became a constant loud crackle. Not that we could hear the radio anyway over the sound of the rain battering off the roof of the car.
These were taken during the breaks inbetween showers.
At the end these were the squares that we had contacts in. Shame we missed IO83 and IO92.
Altogether (to be confirmed by the invigilator) 28 contacts (we had a duplicate that nobody noticed at the time) in 13 squares. Just need to wait and see how well we did compared to other stations, particularly the Scottish ones as we won Best Scottish station of last year’s contest.
Call: GM4YEQ/P
Locator: IO85MM (Square IO85)
Coordinates: 55.5215N 2.999W 360m (1180ft) ASL
NGR NT370257 (WAB Square NT32)
Google Maps shortcut: 9C7VG2C2+M7
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/search/9C7VG2C2%2BM7
