Our club meets every month, normally on the third Tuesday. Our meetings typically involve a radio based talk or presentation followed by a chance to catch up over a cuppa.
Do you have an interesting radio related topic to share? We are always looking for interesting presentations and ideas for our club meetings. If you have a story to tell and fancy sharing some interesting aspect of our hobby then please get in touch with our Membership Secretary by emailing membership@verulam-arc.org.uk.
Talk by the club’s Chairman David Thomas (G4HHJ) on home built antenna beams. Presentations by students on recent advanced level license training and examination. BBQ at club's field operating cabin, Dunstable Downs, starting at 2pm, followed by the 50 MHz trophy contest. Presented by Stan Ames, this talk follows on from his earlier presentations about radio interception and secret stations in the St Albans area. It concerns the spies sent to Britain by the German Secret Service, The Abwehr, some of which operated or were caught in the St Albans area. All of the spies sent to Britain were caught or gave themselves up with the exception of one who's interesting story will be revealed. The majority became double agents who were valuable in allied deception operations. The use of radio interception and direction finding in their detection and capture will be discussed. The talk will last one hour with about 10 minutes at the end for questions and discussion. GB2CW Starts at 8.00pm on 145.250 VARC Morse Improvers Net at approximately 8:30pm local time. Voice on 145.375 MHz FM or if occupied then 145.350 MHz. CW Morse on 144.062 MHz. Short Wave Listeners welcome. We use text from the latest issue of Rad-Com. For current updates visit www.tinyurl.com/varcmorse 1.950 MHz (NOTE NEW FREQ) SSB 145.375 MHz FM Top Band from 19.45 - 20.00 hrs local. 2 meters from 20.00 hrs local(except club meeting nights). GB2CW Starts at 8.00pm on 145.250 VARC Morse Improvers Net at approximately 8:30pm local time. Voice on 145.375 MHz FM or if occupied then 145.350 MHz. CW Morse on 144.062 MHz. Short Wave Listeners welcome. We use text from the latest issue of Rad-Com. For current updates visit www.tinyurl.com/varcmorse GB2CW Starts at 8.00pm on 145.250 VARC Morse Improvers Net at approximately 8:30pm local time. Voice on 145.375 MHz FM or if occupied then 145.350 MHz. CW Morse on 144.062 MHz. Short Wave Listeners welcome. We use text from the latest issue of Rad-Com. For current updates visit www.tinyurl.com/varcmorse GB2CW Starts at 8.00pm on 145.250 VARC Morse Improvers Net at approximately 8:30pm local time. Voice on 145.375 MHz FM or if occupied then 145.350 MHz. CW Morse on 144.062 MHz. Short Wave Listeners welcome. We use text from the latest issue of Rad-Com. For current updates visit www.tinyurl.com/varcmorse Auction of members' surplus radio related equipment. Please see our Auction Page here to see some of the items that will be available for purchase on the night. 2m 145.375 MHz FM If the frequency is in use the please try 145.350. GB2CW Starts at 8.00pm on 145.250 VARC Morse Improvers Net at approximately 8:30pm local time. Voice on 145.375 MHz FM or if occupied then 145.350 MHz. CW Morse on 144.062 MHz. Short Wave Listeners welcome. We use text from the latest issue of Rad-Com. For current updates visit www.tinyurl.com/varcmorse GB2CW Starts at 8.00pm on 145.250 VARC Morse Improvers Net at approximately 8:30pm local time. Voice on 145.375 MHz FM or if occupied then 145.350 MHz. CW Morse on 144.062 MHz. Short Wave Listeners welcome. We use text from the latest issue of Rad-Com. For current updates visit www.tinyurl.com/varcmorse Some past student practical assessments. Presented by Chris Taylor of Taylor Made RF While the talk will be focused on using DMR in the local area Chris will be covering the differences in all current digital modes and giving a run down on how to use the Elstree Club Fusion Gateways (One of which is in St Albans). This is the 33rd year that DDRC have held their popular rally. More information can be found at: http://www.ddrcbootsale.org. The 50 MHz contest commences on the 18th June at 15.00 for 24 hours. The start time of the BBQ is still to be confirmed but it is believed to be just before the start of the contest. On the evening of June 21st the Verulam Amateur Radio Club will be holding an 'Antenna Shootout' on the playing field of the Aboyne School in St. Albans. The committee has deliberated over the rules for this event and decided to class it as an 'open' event. So what does this mean? Well, in the interests of experimentation and having fun members are encouraged to bring along any type of antenna they wish for any band for temporary installation on the field. Bringing your own radio is not essential as the club can provide one to hook up to your antenna although 'on-air' time my be very limited depending on demand. Members are encouraged to try a diverse range of operations and modes to see what works well, what works poorly and what doesn't work at all! Running a radio from your vehicle is fine provided you bring enough feeder to reach your antenna if planning a ground based setup. Although the event is not designed to be a competition, for those of you have do have a competitive streak there will be an unofficial contest to see who can make the furthest contact on the least amount of power. This will be calculated on a miles per watt basis. Those of you who don't have an antenna to bring of your own are encouraged to assist where possible helping and collaborating with others to get their monstrous antennas into the air and to have a go on the mike, key or keyboard of the stations setup. For those of you who want to have a go but are missing a few bits and pieces to make it happen please shout as I'm sure other club members can help out with equipment. We're sure there will be plenty to see and learn during the event as well as plenty of laughs so we look forward to seeing you there....... Announcement from Mike Stewart (G4RNW) of the Edgware & District Radio Society: “Once more we have been able to secure the services of Doctor Jamie Barras. He has very kindly presented previous talks at our club based on his research at King's College. On this occasion his talk will be entitled ‘POKING A HORNET'S NEST’ subtitled ‘LAND MINE DETECTION USING RF SPECTROSCOPY’. Based on our experience of his previous presentations, this promises to be an interesting and absorbing lecture. So please encourage your members to come and help us, a small club, to make up the numbers and give Doctor Barras the welcome he justly deserves. There is ample parking available and tea and biscuits will be available during the interval, as usual. The talk starts at 8pm on Thursday 14th July. Our address is The Watling Community Centre, 145 Orange Hill Road, Burnt Oak, Edgware, HA8 0TR.” Following a fantastic team effort getting G3V on the air for the CQ WW 160 CW contest, Alex, M0UKR talks us through the wide range of antennas chosen for the contest and discusses the challenges of putting a high-performing top band station together. Contact:- David G4HHJ for more information. The Headquarters compound is approached along a narrow lane signed very boldly as OAK TREE MANOR CARE HOME. Jamboree On The Air has been around for many years and is intended to provide a means for scouts to be able to communicate with scouts in other countries, inevitably the event attracts amateurs from outside the scouting movement. Recently it has been joined by Jamboree On The Internet with similar intent. At the moment VARC is concerned with a JOTA operation. Stan Ames returns to VARC to talk about the contribution made by three early wireless experimenters (amateurs) who dramatically improved wireless interception for Naval Intelligence (Room 40) in WW1. They set the pattern for the vital role subsequently played by 1500 radio amateurs in WW2. One of the three was among the first group to arrive at Bletchley Park when it opened in 1939. Contact:- Norman Fisher G8ATO Any members who may be interested please e-mail treasurer@verulam-arc.org.uk giving an idea of their numbers that could be attending. Details of menu will be published when known. Presented by Chris Taylor (Taylor RF) Auction of Equipment donated by the late John Welsh G0NVZ Anybody interested in the contesting side of our hobby is very welcome to attend. We are also likely to discuss some of the work that will need to be carried out at the cabin (our operating shack). Initial working party to clean, tidy and plan more heavy work to be carried out next Saturday 13th May. All hands on deck! Where we are looking to do some of the heavier and more practical alterations to the cabin. This month, the Repeater Group are combining their meeting with the VARC Informal Meeting. This is the first of our new informal evenings and gives everyone the opportunity to get together and chat about anything and everything. It's a great way to get to know your fellow club members and make new friends. We also welcome our friends from the GB3VH Repeater Group. If you are in the area and fancy meeting up with some fellow radio amateurs then please feel free to drop in. We plan to be running a station on GB3VH so give us a call if you want to find us. Alex is also planning to run a WSPR station from the school. Due to the current bad weather and uncertainty around the school being open we have reluctantly decided to cancel the bun fight. In January we will be presenting the RSGB Video on VHF Propagation. We showed the HF one last year and it generated a very interesting set of conversations afterwards. This video is 20 minutes long so also plan to use this meeting to host our Bun Fight as we had to cancel the one in December due to adverse weather conditions. Hosted by Dr Roger Bleaney (M0RBK) Wireless is not limited to Morse code, telephony and data modes. One of its major uses is to transmit moving images by the means of what we now know as television. The speaker intends to give a brief outline of how television was developed putting emphasis on how an image is converted into an electrical signal, transmitted and reconstituted as a picture. The Shefford and District Amateur Radio Society will be having their Spring Junk Sale on the 5th of April 2018 at their usual venue in Shefford next door to the chip shop. Doors open at 19:30 and sales start at 20:00. Any items brought in for sale and not sold must be taken away. Parking in front of the building and on the street, so come along! Contact Ken (G4YRF) for more information. That said there’s still plenty of opportunities for the smart Ham to keep active on the HF bands. By paying attention to conditions, station equipment and adjusting our operating techniques there’s no reason why you can’t keep filling those log books. In his talk, Alex, M0UKR gives his top ten tips on how to overcome the challenges presented by low solar conditions. All the tips suggested can be taken advantage of by just about any Ham and are guaranteed to increase your activity and contact successes on a low budget. The purpose of the talk is to trace the development of Scientific views on the nature of Electromagnetic Radiation from Michael Faraday’s view of oscillations of magnetic lines of force, to Current day Quantum Field Theory. The talk gives an overview of wave-particle duality, quantum mechanics and, from this, how Quantum Field theory developed. This talk will be presented by Fred Lupton (G0MDR) who has an M.Sc. in Physics. His talk will rely heavily on video clips to support the concepts he will be presenting. We have our joint social gathering this month. The users of GB3VH and those of Verulam ARC are welcome. Bar food and car parking are available. All are welcome, hope you can pay a visit. Hear ye, hear ye! Announcing this years VARC family BBQ, to be held July 7th from 2pm. Please bring something to cook and perhaps drink along with some good WX. Tea, coffee, soft drinks and salad provided! Also to hand will be a trampoline for the more energetic of you, and some radios for the more sedate, along with some very good company. I hope you can make it with your better halves and family, so put it in your diary now while you think of it! For more details contact Peter (G0OIK) Rose & Crown PH Sandridge Nr St Albans Table location in the "Snug" at front of bar area. We have our joint social gathering this month. The users of GB3VH and those of Verulam ARC are welcome. Bar food and car parking are available. All are welcome, hope you can pay a visit The talk will tell their story and now, at last, they are being credited for their work. The following article may prove interesting: http://www.duncancampbell.org/PDF/1976-may-time-out-the-eavesdroppers.pdf. STARTING AT 7:30pm - at Bernard's Heath Recreation Ground, on the north side of St Albans. Bring along a 2m receiver and a directional antenna. A limited amount of loan equipment may be available just before the start. 'Teams' may be formed on the day for a car based hunt. Bernard's Heath Recreation Ground lies on the north west side of the B651 Sandridge Road with Boundary Road and Chaucer Close opposite. Post Code AL1 4AP for sat nav. Periodic transmissions will be made, probably on 145.375MHz, (145.350MHz fallback) vertical polarisation, staring at 7:30 pm from the fox's hide-out and ultimate meeting place. A basic map and instructions will be provided, together with a sealed envelope giving the fox's location should hounds run out of time. Computers are finding their way more and more into our radio shacks and this film, recorded at the RSGB 2017 Convention, is a presentation by Mike Richards (G4WNC) covering the history of the Pi and how it can be used for amateur radio. The film covers digital modes, Packet, APRS, GPS tracking, SDR Server, Spy server, security cameras and a trail camera. Club members are invited to attend the Annual General Meeting on the 19th February 2019. Although this is an informal meeting we are sure that Ron will spend a couple of minutes bringing us up to date with happenings at the RSGB and within our region. After that he will be hanging around to chat and enjoy our hospitality. Please come along and join us. Our VARC April meeting on Tuesday will have a short session on the 2019-20 Club Committee plus a talk/discussion/brainstorm on 'Operating Away from Home'. On the latter: Peter Baker (G4HSO) says 'I have tried and failed at operating locations worldwide (including /mm from the mid Atlantic), spent hours preparing but little success, however the occasional MAGIC success keeps me keen to try again, to learn from others and share ideas' Here is what Peter plans to cover: Getting outdoors, QRM club theme and QRM from various sources. Gear and organisation, rigs. Locations and cost of 'exotic locations', getting local contacts / local information. Licensing issues. Solar cycle radio conditions, TOD, Latitude contests, WhatsApp propagation. Operating /MM /M /P /A. Modes - JTn, WSPR, CW, Others... Antennas for portable operation. Antenna options; antenna supports, (kite, portable poles, gambling) end fed, trap dipole, linked dipole, doublet, magnetic loop, tapped, miracle whip, ..... Criteria - low visual impact, light weight, coax fed, backpack /pm?, Share tricks and tricks. Propagation and testing propagation while running light. Flying with batteries, gellcell, lithium, BA letter,.... carry on or checked? Club resources, generators, antennas, sites.... SOTA, RAYNET. Satellite operation. DXpeditions. CDXC. As always visitors and prospective members are always VERY welcome, please pass this to anyone you feel may be interested. With weaker signals resulting from solar cycle minima propagation noisy bands are a constant topic of conversation within the Ham Community but who or what is to blame and is there anything you can do about it? In this presentation, Alex, M0UKR, defines noise types and discusses their sources and impact to radio activity on bands from 160m to 2m together with a high level guide to diagnosing noise issues at your QTH and how to go about fixing them. Our club meeting in June sees the return of the Annual Antenna Shootout where members get to amaze their fellow participants with their novel approaches to antenna design. In recent years we have seen antenna’s made from wet string through to massive frames connected by silver foil. Members can either build their own ‘home-brew’ antenna or bring something that is commercially built to see how it compares with the others. For newcomers to the hobby this is an excellent way to see some proper antenna theory take place and members of the club are always happy to answer questions about their designs. Every year we have a theme or constraint for everyone to work within – this year, in line with our recent talk on operating away from home, the rule is that the antenna needs to fit in a standard suitcase. Once assembled it can be any shape or size but it must have started from something that would fit in a suitcase. Non-members of the club are welcome to attend. We will be at the rear of the school. Time for our annual fox hunt where one of us goes and hides somewhere with a radio and the rest of us have to use our radio direction skills to find him. This time our fox is Peter, G0OIK. Norman, G8ATO will be handing out envelopes and maps at Bernards Heath. The postcode for your sat nav for Bernards Heath is AL1 4AP, which is the map location 51.760979, -0.3311837,17 or on Google maps is https://goo.gl/maps/PJhQoC5ezZxUNkyUA. Norman will be there from about 18.30 until 20.00. The envelope will contain the location of the fox so, if you are unable to find him at the end, you can open the envelope and then meet everyone else. Typically the fox is not far from a pub. You may perhaps want to source yourself a full-sized map of the area, but the one provided should suffice. You will also need a compass to orientate the map, so if you don't have a 'normal' compass, then a compass app on your phone may help. You will need a pen or pencil to fill out your details on the envelope. The first transmission will be at 19:30 and Peter will be using the club call G8VER on 145.400 (unless the frequency is busy, in which case it will be 145.375). Full details will be provided with the envelope and map at the start of the hunt. This is a continuation of our recent talks on getting started in amateur radio. Following on from a recent talk on Interference by Alex (M0UKR), this month we look at the radio receiver itself, what can cause noise within the shack and then how modern radios reduce this interference to make it more bearable for the listener. A talk that highlights the conflict between the demands of warfare and the altruism of science. An appreciation of Quantum Computing. The basic idea will be described, followed by an explanation of the fundamental principles of Quantum Mechanics, and their application in the fabrication of QBit devices. The operation of a Quantum Computer will be illustrated, with reference to a search algorithm. Our next meeting is on Tuesday, 21st January which is the last meeting before our AGM in February. We need to plan what we do with our club over the next year so I would like to use our January meeting to get some ideas from you on what topics we should cover in our talks and anything else you would like to raise before the AGM. There are 7 car parking spaces on Blandford Road (including one disabled space). There is free parking on Hatfield Road opposite the cemetery and along the road past Tesco (usually more spaces on the cemetery side) and more going towards Morrisons. The church asks people not to park in Blandford Road itself to help them keep on good terms with their neighbours. The church is at the corner of Blandford Road and Hatfield Road. The entrance is on Blandford Road. Enter through the lobby. Go across the concourse. Turn left through the double doors and the room is down the corridor on your right. This meeting is our Annual General Meeting followed by a presentation from David Thomas (G4HHJ) entitled '5G - What Can We Expect'. Verulam Amateur Radio Club are pleased to welcome RSGB District Representative Ron White (G6LTT) to our monthly virtual meeting. Ron will be available to share recent updates from the RSGB and to answer questions from our members. The session will start at 20:00 on Tuesday, 19th January 2021 and a link to the meeting will be shared via the membership forum nearer the time. If you are not a member of VARC but would like to attend this meeting, then please email membership@verulam-arc.org.uk for an invitation. Verulam Amateur Radio Club are holding their Annual General Meeting at 20:00 on Tuesday, 16th February 2021. Further details will be sent to members nearer the time along with the chairman and treasurers reports. This is a placeholder for the Stan Ames talk scheduled for the VARC March Meeting. Further details will be posted once they are available. See http://www.verulam-arc.org.uk/posts/the-2021-varc-antenna-shootout for more information. VARC has been running an antenna shootout competition for several years now and this is the first time we will be holding it at our new cabin site. This year, the chosen band is 10 metres and the antenna needs to be self-supporting. John (5B4AAB) will be listening out for our calls in Cyprus and will judge the winner based upon signal strength. We look forward to seeing you there - look out for photos afterwards. The Verulam Amateur Radio Club celebrated its 60th Anniversary in 2021, but due to the ongoing pandemic, these celebrations were very muted. Now that restrictions have eased, we will be operating a special event station from the popular DDRC Rally on Sunday 22nd May. This is the first time that the rally has been able to operate since the pandemic so we are looking forward to meeting up with old friends and potential new members that are interested in Amateur Radio. We plan to operate on 40m, 20m and 2m - depending on the noise levels on the day. We will be using the special event callsign of GB6VER. If you are attending the rally in person then look out for us up near the concession stands. We will also be running a stall within the main rally area.
With the current solar cycle proving to be the worst in 200 years it’s no wonder HF radio propagation is suffering and with still 2 years to go before we reach the minimum it’s not going to improve for several years.
Radio operators were in short supply in Britain in World War 2 and a major training program was begun to provide operators for the military services. In addition there was a need for highly skilled operators in the world of Signals Intelligence where the ability to copy fast Morse code under difficult conditions was essential. All three of the military services required such operators as well as other organisations. There were several thousand in all and the great majority were recruited from the amateur radio fraternity.
This month we are pleased to welcome Ron White (G6LTT) who is one of our RSGB District Representatives.
