NEW DATE – SAME VENUE Due to the Radio 1′ Big Weekend being held on the bank holiday weekend on the Stockwood Park site at the end of May, the Dustable Downs group have had to move their event to the 30th June. At the time of writing the RSGB rally calendar was clear but … Read more
Early in February the RSGB announced that the fees for Foundation, Intermediate and Full level examinations would increase from the 1st of May 2024. You can now use the online booking system to book an exam prior to the 1st of May at the current price or select exam dates from the 1st of May … Read more
Following Ofcom’s consultation on the amateur radio licence last year, it released a statement in December 2023. The statement outlined its decision to update the amateur radio licensing framework to ensure the policies and licences meet the needs of today’s and tomorrow’s radio amateurs, while streamlining the licensing process. It also published a General Notice, … Read more
Ofcom has released its final decisions following its consultation on the amateur radio licensing framework last year. Revised licence conditions became effective on Wednesday the 21st of February 2024. The changes to licence conditions include the optional use of Regional Secondary Locators, increased transmitter power levels and provide greater opportunity to bring newcomers into amateur … Read more
Registration is now open for Maritime Radio Day 2024 which takes place annually on the 14th and 15th of April. The event is held to commemorate the almost 100 years of wireless telegraphy service for seafarers which ended with the closure in the UK of Portishead Radio on the 30th of April 2000. Commencing at … Read more
Chris, WA7RAR will be active as 8P9CB from Barbados, NA-021, until the 25th of January. Most of his operations will be portable at various locations, especially Parks on the Air sites. He will be QRV on the 20 to 10m bands using CW and SSB. QSL via Logbook of the World, or directly to WA7RAR. … Read more
The Canvey Rally will be held on Sunday the 4th of February at Cornelius Vermuyden [VER-MOW-DEN] School, Dinant Avenue, Canvey, Essex, SS8 9QS. The Rally is expected to be the usual hive of activity with plenty of traders on site. For more information contact Richard Stanley on 07725 551 263 or email g7oed@icloud.com
Held at The Boot public house, High St, Kimpton. The Committee was elected with no change and fees also held for a furhter year.
Two RSGB Convention presentations have been published on YouTube over the Christmas holidays. In the first, Nobby Styles, G0VJG describes the challenging and hazardous DXpedition to Europe’s rarest IOTA location, Rockall Island. The second presentation, by David Lauder, G0SNO, outlines the RSGB EMC Committee investigations into sources of RF electrical interference from recent developments in … Read more
VARC is now running two remote radios from our cabin site. They are both using the ‘Remotehams’ software and seem to be running very well. If you have not used our remote before then why not take a look. To operate the stations you will need to be a member of VARC and your call … Read more
Earlier this week, Ofcom released a document titled “Updating the amateur radio licensing framework”. The document states that amateur radio licences will be changing in 2024 and provides details of the changes that are planned. These include adjustments to the overall licensing framework and rules in a number of areas including callsigns, technical parameters, and … Read more
The UK Six Metre Group Winter Marathon is underway. The objective is to work as many four-digit grid squares as possible, between 0000UTC on the 1st of December 2023 and 2359UTC on the 31st January 2024, on the 6m band. Logs can be submitted until 12 February 2024. For more information visit uksmg.org
Youngsters on the Air month has now begun. Callsign GB23YOTA is active for the duration of the month, with a range of groups, clubs and individuals having reserved operating slots. It will be on the air between 8am and 5pm. Sandringham School will be active on Wednesday the 6th of December between 8am and 4pm, as … Read more
We continue to help bring newcomers into amateur radio and the club. In mind at the moment A) Calum M7??? – Calum is a student; I don’t yet have his callsign but he has our congratulations. B) Ivor M7EZM (Ivor lives in St Albans and again is recently licenced and has offered to do a … Read more
We desperately need to locate a new and more central venue for our more formal meeting/presentations/club projects. Several of us have spent quite some time hunting around but get little either little response from queries, expensive quotes in large (cold?) rooms etc. It would be great if someone could step up and push this forward … Read more
PREVIOUS MEETING A really big thanks to Matt G4IYT for a fascinating talk and demonstration of 3D printing with examples of amateur radio and other applications. 20 members and guests attended.
Wednesday 8th November saw 15 enthusiastic club members vist the RSGB’s visitor centre at Bletchley Park, the home of the code breakers. The club was treated to an insightful talk about the visitors centre and some of the history of the site. After splitting into two groups we took a tour of the exhibit hall … Read more
Two new pages have been added to the VARC website. 1. With many thanks to Peter G3UHN – in the operating section we now have a page giving details of how to program your radio for FM repeater operation. 2. With thanks to Bob G4PVB – we have a page dedicated to receiving the very … Read more
After an extended period of building maintenance, World Heritage Grimeton Radio Station has scheduled* SAQ to be on air on UN-Day, Tuesday October 24th 2023 at 17:00 CET (15:00 UTC), to send out a peace message to the whole world, using the 200kW Alexanderson alternator near Grimeton in Sweden from 1924, on 17.2 kHz CW. … Read more
In this ever growing website, we have now added a page dedicated to Slow Scan Television. You can find it by to to the webpage HERE!
Upcoming on the 28th of October is the 48 hour CQ WW SSB contest. We entered this one last for the first time in a long time last year and it proved to be a very good and enjoyable event. We are looking to set up and enter again this year, so if you are … Read more
For anyone that might be interested, there is an activity event on 2m happening on Saturday 30th September (’23) between 1:00 and 3:00pm. This is an organised activation consisiting of a series of nets that covers most of the UK. The nets are chaired so that stations can be quickly passed around to get as … Read more
We had quite a turn out for the working party this past weekend (3/9/23). As a result we have moved the repeater antennas off the pump up mast and mounted them on the VARC tower. The pump up mast has been moved to one side to allow room for work to begin on the shed … Read more
The ProblemMost general coverage receivers have adequate gain and you can hear the background atmospheric noise from the receiver’s bottom frequency limit of around 30 to 100 kHz up to their maximum frequency of 30 MHz: that is except for the “Medium Wave” range of 500 kHz to 1.620 MHz. The reason that most receivers … Read more
Recap on the ThyristorIn a previous article, I explained how a thyristor worked. This is a transistor-like device in which the current through it, (between anode and cathode), is controlled by the thyristor gate. However, unlike a transistor, the “through current” is not proportional to the gate current in a linear manner. Instead, the current … Read more
Electro-Magnetic radiation is not confined to broadcast, commercial and amateur bands, and figure 1 shows a significant portion of the electro-magnetic spectrum including the visible part. Particularly note the “fierce” logarithmic scales of frequency and wavelength. This is necessary to accommodate the huge range between “radio” waves and gamma rays in a single diagram. This … Read more
Some things can go faster than light, but not ‘material’ things. Three examples of these things are; the cutting point of scissors, the meeting point of lines as the lines go from crossing to parallel, and the phase of a wave. But these are imagined things, things in the mind. In the case of waves, … Read more
It would be no good removing the man-hole cover in the pavement and directly measuring the resistance between the metal pipes at either end of the plastic section, as these would be effectively shorted out by the surrounding earth, so I decided to simulate the real situation by measuring the resistance of a length of … Read more
Back In the hastily rearranged talk to the club on Tuesday, 21/11/06, Brian, G3YKB talked about many different methods of home construction of experimental or “one off” circuits. These included: conventional printed circuit board, strip board, “paddy board”, ugly bug, and others, and also how to make screened enclosures by soldering sheets of single sided … Read more
It has a similar layout to the alternators used for generating the country’s electricity supply, except that instead of having 6 poles for generating 3-phase 50Hz AC, it has 600 poles for generating single phase AC at 17,200Hz. It also rotates somewhat faster than the alternators supplying the national grid, and delivers 200 kW of … Read more