2015 oct to dec

Sussex Downs Contest Group G4FNL/P Plus

BRYAN G3GVB’S MEMORIES OF A B2

JONATHAN G1EXG’S SHORT CIRCUIT COMMITTEE MEETING NOTES AIR FORCE HUMOUR CLUB DIARY RALLIES

October – December 2015

Worthing & District Amateur Radio Club Established 1948 Website: www.wadarc.org.uk

E-mail: info@wadarc.org.uk President: Chris Smith G3UFS

Life Vice President: Peter Robinson G8MSQ

WADARC meets every Wednesday at 8pm in the Lancing Parish Hall, South Street, Lancing BN15 8AJ. All who have an interest in radio communications and associate subjects, whether a licensed amateur or not, are invited. WADARC can also arrange training for the radio amateur Foundation, Intermediate and Advanced licences.

The WADARC Committee 2015 - 2016 Andrew Cheeseman Alan Baker Andy Braeman Sally Holland Jonathan Hare Peter Head Norman Jacobs Alastair Weller Bodie Goodall Peter Penycate

G1VUP G4GNX M6RFE SWL G1EXG G4LKW 2E0RKO M0OAL 2E0VRM 2E0FVL

Chairman Vice-Chairman Secretary Treasurer Press & Publicity Coordinator Outside Events Coordinator Quartermaster Content Coordinator Training Coordinator Membership Manager

These Members have volunteered to accept these responsibilities for 2015 - 2016 Contest Manager Ragchew Editor Website Website

Graham Bubloz Roger Hall Andrew Cheeseman Alastair Weller

G4FNL G4TNT G1VUP M0OAL

WADARC Club Nets (all times are local) 07.30 19.30

Sunday Monday

3.725MHz Âą QRM SSB 145.425MHz (V34/S17)

11.00

Thursday

7.106MHz Âą QRM SSB

CONTENTS Editorial ........................................................... 4 Presidential Ponderings ................................... 5 Chairman’s Chatter ......................................... 6 Sussex Downs Contest Group G4FNL/P......... 8 Memories of a B2 ............................................. 15 Jonathan G1EXG’s Short Circuits .................. 18 Aviation Advice ................................................ 21 Committee Meeting Notes ............................... 22 Rallies ............................................................. 24 Club Calendar for January ............................... 26

EDITORIAL

W

elcome once again to the latest edition of Ragchew. It is, as usual, a little late but I’m hoping this will be the last time and my aim is to get Ragchew back in sync with its publishing schedule. I spend a lot of time pleading for contributions, waiting for articles to come in and chasing people for stuff they’ve promised. Each one of these causes delays and the last few issues have been very late coming out. Now there’s a chance that will change because I’ve been told the Committee has appointed a member who will be responsible for content and it is his job to allocate the task of reporting the various club events and special event stations. If it all goes according to plan, each event will have a dedicated reporter who will send in photos and words that I’ll collate, edit and publish, which should make for a better, fuller and more timely Ragchew.

Inside This Issue Graham G4FNL has provided an excellent report on the 2015 SSB Field Day. He took part as a member of the Sussex Downs Contest Group and not the WADARC team because he wanted to try his own way of operating to see how it compared. A while ago a Club member told me that reading Graham’s reports is almost as good as being there and I have to agree – see what you think, starting on page 8.

Bryan G3GVB wrote in with some interesting reminiscences about his time with a government surplus B2 set. He offers a glimpse into his early years and an explanation for the total lack of DL callsigns in his logbook (which, unlike Stan Boardman, is nothing to do with them trying to bomb his local chip shop).

Jonathan G1EXG‘s Short Circuit column this time covers diodes and transistors and he describes a very simple circuit that demonstrates the gain of a transistor.

As well as providing his usual Presidential Ponderings, Chris G3UFS also sent in some humorous but sound advice for budding aviators.

My thanks go them all for taking the time and trouble to send in their contributions.

73, Roger G4TNT

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PRESIDENTIAL PONDERINGS

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is Christmas time again, the season of excesses. I wonder what our waistlines will look like in the New year – I’m seriously hoping mine will shrink some but I doubt it will!

I think the Club has had a very good year. Weekly attendances have been excellent, mainly thanks to the selective programs we have had and the very good speakers that have given us a range of subjects to get and keep us thinking. Our thanks must be given to them.

We have also had several new members and thanks to Andrew (our new Chairman) and his trainers (people, not shoes) many have become licenced, which is, of course, one of the aims of the club.

It will be a very good thing when we are able to get our new antenna, a Windom, erected across the roof of the Parish Hall. Unfortunately, the Councillors seem to be taking an inordinately long time making up their minds whether to agree to it or not.

In addition, there is another problem, that of co-use of the hall. Trying to operate a transceiver in a room where others are taking part in a discussion is a recipe for disaster. Personally, I can’t come up with a solution, other than putting the transceiver in the kitchen and operating it from there but that would mean that the member operating would be isolated from the rest of the meeting! I’ll leave you with this conundrum, which really should be solved as soon as possible because we have very good equipment that members need to know how to operate come Field Days and so on. This is something that was mentioned recently during an inquest on last year’s Field Day results.

I know there is something I should have mentioned earlier – thanks must be given to our previous Chairman, Phil. He worked very hard providing speakers and subjects for our weekly meetings. That on top of a full time job was an exacting task. I’m sure that Andrew and the new Committee will be up to the challenge for the coming months.

We had a very good Christmas Party on December 16th, although I think the numbers were down a little on last year. As usual, Joy did a marvellous job providing the food, which seemed to disappear remarkably quickly, probably in part to Norman’s healthy appetite! Thanks must also be given to Ron G3SKI for producing a superb Christmas cake, much adorned with a colourful model radio. It was a real traditional Christmas cake.

Right, I think I’ve waffled on for quite long enough, I wish everyone in the Club a very happy and, if possible, prosperous New Year and I hope to see all of you at our Club meetings in the future.

73, Chris G3UFS

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CHAIRMAN’S CHATTER elcome to my first Chairman’s Chatter. First, I want to thank our previous Chairman Phil G4UDU for the wonderful job he did while he was in office and second, I would like to thank Alan G4GNX for taking part in the election at the last AGM. It made it a real contest and I know that him being elected to the Vice-Chairman’s role will be a great asset to the club.

I believe that WADARC lives and dies by its members and we have to attract new members and retain our existing ones if the club is going to survive over time. This is not going to be easy because our hobby now has rival attractions in the form of computers, the internet and online games. These are now the havens for the ‘Super Geeks’ who, in the past, would have been attracted by the cutting edge technology of radio.

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New Committee Roles Times have changed and the club has to change with it. With that in mind, I described at the AGM how the roles of the people on the committee will change so that they become coordinators, each with a clearly defined role. They will not necessarily have to carry out the jobs that they are responsible for but they will coordinate the efforts of those who are actually doing the work to make sure those jobs get done.

These Committee roles can be grouped under the headings Outside Events, Equipment, Training, Publicity, Content and Membership and, effectively, we are splitting the effort into two areas, “What we have” and “What about us attracts new members and keeps our existing ones”.

What We Have The “What we have” section covers Members and Equipment and we have to manage both of them well. Luckily, these roles are in the capable hands of Peter 2E0FVL and Norman 2E0RKO respectively.

Peter has been doing an amazing job over the last two years, keeping the membership process running smoothly. We are going to help him this year by building a better process for managing the membership.

Norman is going to build a process to help club members borrow, use and have fun with club equipment. We have some cool stuff that hardly gets used, which is a shame because the club equipment is there for members to use.

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CC What About Us Attracts…

The “What about us attracts new members and keeps our existing ones” section will be handled by the other committee members and their roles will include helping WADARC advertise itself and attracting new members.

Each committee member will focus his or her efforts in their role areas, helping WADARC raise its profile with UK radio amateurs and the local Sussex community.

Some of the things we have planned are: • • • • • • •

Better signage and literature for events.

A revamp for the website.

More training.

More outside events.

Better liaison with the local press.

Better communication of what is going on.

Continue having great Wednesday night speakers.

I realise we all have commitments, with that in mind Alan, Andy and I will be providing extra pairs of hands to help with each of these roles.

Alastair and Bodie will also be mucking in, sharing their roles between them.

We are going to have Committee meeting every month, with every second meeting being a virtual meeting via Skype. You will find all the meeting dates published in the online diary – please get involved, ask questions of the Committee or submit ideas. Talk to any of the members at Club evenings or e-mail committee@wadarc.org.uk These changes are just formalising what is important and what we have been doing to keep WADARC going for another 50 years and I really want WADARC to shine in the forthcoming years. I think these small changes help it to do so.

I do hope that this will help you understand what the changes are about.

73, Andrew G1VUP

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CONTEST Sussex Downs Contest Group G4FNL/P A report on SSB Field Day 2015 by Graham Bubloz G4FNL

J

ust after the previous contest in 2014 with the Worthing Club, I made the decision that for 2015 I would like to take part in SSB Field Day ‘under my own steam’ to see how I would get on. I wanted to prove to myself that some of the operating techniques that I had been expounding and pushing others to use were actually worth pursuing and advantageous. Rather than attempt this completely singlehanded, I asked a pal of mine Peter G4BVH, who operates alongside me in the CW Field Day, if he wanted to join me for the contest in September. Fortunately, he agreed.

Planning I like to be reasonably organised so we had several pub sessions during the winter months of 2014/15 to plan exactly what we would need to get ourselves ready. First, we had to agree what section we were going to enter. Whatever the section, the rules require that all the equipment, antennas, power and so on must be set up no more than 24 hours prior to the start of the contest.

For many years, the Worthing Club has wisely sent an advance team to get the station ready on the Friday Graham G4FNL on the ‘run’ station. afternoon prior to the weekend. For several reasons Peter and I were unable to do that and hence we needed to get our equipment set up on the Saturday morning.

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C The contest starts at 13:00z so we decided that with the limited available time we could really only manage to implement a station for entry in the ‘Restricted’ section (restricted in the sense that only one antenna with only two 15m high masts to support it and one transceiver can be used.

No linear amplifiers are allowed.)

We’d managed to secure the The masts and doublet antenna with the English Channel on the horizon. use of the site that we use for CW Field Day which, as you can see from the photograph, has an elevated position. We also knew from our previous visits it’s usually electrically quiet and generally a pretty good HF location.

For many years (for the CW event) we used my old caravan as the shack and this worked very well. We can’t do that now because I sold it some years ago so we now use a hired Ford transit van, which is equally good but, of course, more expensive.

To be honest, neither of us really fancied taking part in a 24-hour contest using a tent for shelter and certainly not during the notoriously unpredictable weather that we ‘enjoy’ in the UK during September. For the contest weekend (5/6 September) we were fortunate and had dry weather with a little light breeze. However, during the wee small hours of Sunday it became very cold indeed – and we realised that having no heater was something we would need to resolve if we ever repeated this exercise again.

Setting Up We arrived on site at 08.00 on the Saturday. We both read through our prepared plan that went step-by-step through the process of erecting the masts and getting the single wire antenna (which was a 40m long doublet, fed with an auto ATU at the bottom of the open wire feeder) up aloft. Within two hours we had the masts and antenna up and then we concentrated on organising the generator and assembling the operating

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C position inside the van. This The mobile shack – getting things ready. took a further hour of tinkering so by roughly 11.00 we were ready to go, with only a few teething problems left to resolve.

When the contest kicked off at 13:00z, both myself and Peter were in position, operating in the ‘big knob, little knob’ way. We started on 15m but we soon moved on to 20m.

We would have exploited 10m if propagation had allowed but the band was pretty dead. Note: the phrase ‘big knob, little knob’ refers to the way in which extra QSOs can be made by dovetailing contributions from two rather than one operator into a common logging programme.

The ‘big knob’ operator is in control of VFO A and the ‘little knob’ guy is on VFO B. For this contest we used my Elecraft K3 radio which has two identical receivers so we were actually able to listen on VFO A on one receiver whilst we were also listening further up the band on VFO B on a completely separate receiver, with each of the Peter G4BVH (left) and Graham G4FNL (right). operators picking

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C off stations while paying particular attention to working the all-important multipliers. A multiplier is simply a new DX Centuries Club (DXCC) station that is a new country, as worked in the 24 hours of the contest.

For each contest QSO you have, you score points depending on several factors such as whether the other station is portable, outside Europe and so on. The end score is the QSO points multiplied by the number of DXCC countries worked per band. It sounds complicated but it is easily calculated by logging software programs.

The Station Our station consisted of an Elecraft K3 (with a second receiver) with an adaptor to allow two Heil Proset Plus headsets to be connected so that each headset’s earphones The station, an Elecraft K3 and two laptops for logging. were connected to its own receiver.

We used two laptop PCs that were networked along with the N1MM logging software and a connection to the internet that allowed us to be connected to the DXCluster spotting facility.

Finally, we had a Logikey Digital Voice Keyer to allow repeated CQ calls to be made. This enabled the operator to take a quick drink and it saved our vocal chords a bit.

On The Air By the end of the first hour, our outgoing (i.e. sent) serial number was at 032, which was the same number the Worthing Club (G3WOR/P) had achieved in the previous year. This year, radio propagation was poorer and making QSOs on the HF bands with 100W and a wire antenna was very hard work. Quite often, it would take several calls to work even some ordinary stations (in places such as Scandinavia, Europe and Russia) on 20m and 15m. The only comfort that we took from this was

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C that we knew that the propagation would be similar for everyone else in the UK. An added interest was that we also knew that the Worthing Club was also taking part in the same section and contest as us. By the end of the second hour we were up to serial number 76 and things were looking promising. During the contest, we became aware of other G stations that were obviously taking part in the contest and we mentally noted their outgoing serial number and compared it to ours. The early signs were that the strategy of using the ‘big knob, little knob’ seemed to be paying dividends.

We carried on, not breaking for a meal as such but each of us taking it in turn to have something hot to eat during Saturday evening while the other operator carried on making QSOs. We had been calling CQ Contest on 40m with little response so at around 21:30z, we moved on to 80m to try to provoke some more QSOs on that band. Unknown to us, our friend Kevin VK6LW had been listening to our plaintive CQs on 40m and had actually made a short recording of our signal. Quite by chance, he moved on to 80m just as we also moved to the band so he made a further recording of our signal. He subsequently sent us the recordings and while we weren’t very strong on either band, we were amazed to find that our signals were quite audible and of reasonable signal strength on SSB on the LF bands.

(Those of you who know the sunrise times of Australia in early September will realise that 21:30z is around sunrise in Perth, Australia.)

By 0000z we were on serial number 456, which was slightly below the rate that G3WOR/P achieved in 2013 when Worthing won the contest.

Through The Night I would like to be able to stay up all night without having to sleep but I just can’t. So, earlier in the day, while Peter was getting the IT and radio equipment set up, I put up a small tent in which I placed an airbed and a sleeping bag and through the night we took it in turns to each have three hours sleep, which was a great help.

As a consequence, we managed to keep the station on the air throughout the night. However, the QSO rate did take a fairly steep dip in the wee small hours (at around 03:00z we only managed 12 QSOs in

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C a whole hour). Fortunately, once daylight started to peek through, the HF bands began to open and our QSO rate started to pick up again. As ever in this contest, on the Sunday morning we ended up cycling around and around the bands, trying to work stations, anyone who we hadn’t worked before.

Surprisingly, the hourly QSO rate remained stubbornly low at an average of around 26 per hour. However, the multiplier (or “mults” for short) was a better figure than had been achieved at G3WOR/P in previous years, which was a good sign.

During the final hour (12:00z to 13:00z) on the Sunday, we had a fantastic run and bagged another 52 QSOs during that period.

Scores The contest ended at 13:00 on 6th September 2015 and our final QSO tally and score was: Band 3.5 7 14 21 28 TOTAL

QSOs 263 272 123 47 6 711

Points 1162 1148 431 149 24 2914

DXCC 26 35 37 19 2 119

Claimed Score = 346,766 points We had a great time taking part in this SSB contest for the first time as a duo and we may well do it again. I would like to thank Peter G4BVH for his help in enabling this operation to take place and also to Jonathon G1EXG for the extended loan of his Heil Headset for the contest.

As I write this article, the claimed scores show that by QSO numbers only we have the leading QSO total but there is very little in between us and the next station. As ever, accuracy and multiplier totals will be an important factor in the end results. We just hope that we have done enough…

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C Finally, the site we use is actually part of a sheep farm. You can see in this photo just how fascinated the locals found one of our masts.

73, Graham G4FNL

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MEMORIES The Sadness of a B2 Bryan G3GVB

M

y first amateur licence arrived in August of 1950, just five years after the end of WWII. Did I celebrate that day? No I didn’t because I didn't know it had arrived at my father's house in Wales – my official station address – while I was far away in the army at an Officer Cadet Training Unit (OCTU) near Beaconsfield.

The next day the licence reached me by post and the callsign written on it was GW3GVB. As soon as training for the day was over, I unwound the primary of an old mains transformer to provide the wire for a crude end-fed antenna (I didn’t then know about softdrawn copper).

On a recent leave I had managed to acquire a government surplus B2 set which was originally designed by Lt. Brown of SOE, the organisation that parachuted agents into occupied territories in WWII. He’d designed it to provide them with a means of reporting back to HQ. It is wrong to call it a transceiver because it’s a receiver and a separate crystal controlled CW transmitter.

It’s often contained in an innocuous suitcase, together with a key, headphones and a metal oxide rectifier to provide HT. I’ll skip the technical details as they can be found on the internet, as can pictures, for instance at: www.museumoftechnology.org.uk/expand.php?key=21 www.cryptomuseum.com/spy/b2/ In Europe, it had been found that a cunning trick of the Germans was to DF transmissions and once they’d narrowed down the signal to a street of buildings, they would wait until a transmission was in progress

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C and then switch off the power in each building in turn until the transmission suddenly ceased, which told them the building the transmitter was in. That’s why later versions of the B2 were fitted with batteries – they provided a very short lived supply that lasted just long enough to allow the transmission to continue briefly without pause, thus defeating the devious b******s.

I left my pals to go out for the evening by themselves because who, on the first evening it was legal to send signals, would waste time going out to drink beer and leer at buxom barmaids? Tuning up the Pi tank circuit enabled me to directly feed the long wire and in no time I was being told off by a local station for using the GW prefix while I was located in England!

Sad Spectator The next evening, the door opened and in came a field officer whom I had hitherto seen only from afar although I did know his name and reputation. He had been walking through the building and was intrigued by the faint sound of radio noises coming from one particular room. A decent man, he put me at my ease and I began explaining the various controls but when I looked up from operating, I was utterly astonished.

There was this officer in full kilted uniform of a major in the Black Watch with a chest full of medals, including the MC, the son of a Lieutenant-General and an heir to a title and a seat in the House of Lords, with tears trickling down his face. At a loss to know what I should do, I looked away and went on twiddling the tuning. He quickly got control of himself, mumbled something about memories...brave men who had gone to soon…deaths and so on and off he went.

Seemingly, the sight of me hunched over a B2 spy radio had brought back to him his wartime experiences when men whom he knew had parachuted into occupied territory, been captured and never seen again.

After that I saw him only in the distance. Out of respect for a war-time hero, I have never mentioned a word of what I witnessed for 65 years,

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C until today. By the way, there are no DL stations in my life-long logbooks because I never seem to hear them. The technical explanation for this can be found at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2535926/Prosecutors-charge-88year-old-man-1944-Nazi-massacre-Oradour-Sur-Glane-642-villagersshot-burnt.html Some three years later, when I was a student using the B2 as the club station for G6UW, I read in a newspaper that Major the Earl Wavell MC had been killed fighting Mau Mau terrorists in Kenya and I came near to weeping myself.

After College At the end of my college days I was so hard up that I had to sell not only my motorbike but also the beloved B2 to pay various fees. I think I got £25 for it.

A year later I landed in Malaya. I was still broke but I had a well-paid job to go to. I became licensed as VS2FD and hung lots of wire among the rubber trees. These operations were somewhat hampered by being armed to the teeth 'just in case' but the communist terrorists in the area left me alone and I never fired a shot in anger.

While I was in Malaya, I worked a man in Southwick on 15m phone AM and when I got back home, I called in to see him at his TV shop in Portslade. He was Al Slater G3FXB and while we chatted there was a small boy running around in the shop. He later grew up to became WADARC President: John G8FMJ Recently I thought I would like to own a B2 again only to be told on a VMARS type 80m net that even if I were lucky enough to find one, it would now cost around £3,000 – it's a funny old world!

73, Bryan G3GVB

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G1EXG’S SHORT CIRCUITS This time Jonathan Hare G1EXG takes a look at diodes and transistors and describes a simple circuit that demonstrates the gain of a transistor.

Short Circuit No. 8: Diodes and Transistors

T

he semiconductor technology of chips, transistors and diodes has revolutionised electronics – here is a bit of the basic background to these useful devices. Materials such as diamond or plastics are insulators. The nature of the chemical bonds between the atoms mean the electrons are not free to move through the material, not until they reach high temperatures. As a result, these materials don't normally conduct electricity at room temperature.

In conductors such as metals or graphite, some of the electrons are readily free to move throughout the material, even at low temperatures, and so conduct electricity well.

Semiconductors lie somewhere between insulators and conductors.

At room temperature there is enough energy to allow some of the electrons to move through the materials creating a small amount of conduction.

Impurities can be added to 'dope' them to enhance their room temperature conductivity. If an electron rich dopant is added, we call the resultant material an n-type (n for negative electron) semiconductor and if an electron deficient material dopant is added, it's called a p-type (the absence of an electron is called a hole, which looks positive, hence 'p-type'). Both n and p-type doped semiconductor materials conduct electricity well at room temperature.

If an n-type material is joined to a p-type, the electrons from one and the holes from the other diffuse into the junction between the two, creating an insulating region. The resulting device conducts electricity when wired in circuit one way around, while becoming an insulator when connected in the reverse direction (reversed biased). This is the famous p-n junction which is a semiconductor diode.

If we make a sandwich of three doped semiconductors, npn or pnp, we can create a transistor (the middle of the three needs to be physically thin).

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C A transistor, therefore, has three connections: (E) emitter, (B) base and (C) collector (Fig.1).

Figure 1: The equivalent circuit, the circuit symbol and the physical layout of a BC109, a typical NPN transistor.

In Use In use, a voltage is applied between the emitter and collector but as the transistor is essentially two back-to-back diodes, one is always reverse biased so no current flows and the transistor is OFF. However, if a small voltage (just over 0.6V) is applied to the base, current will flow into the middle region. Being very thin, it will pass across and cause a current to flow between the emitter and collector, turning the transistor ON. If the levels of the n and p doping have been carefully chosen in the design of the transistor, a small base current can be made to balance a larger emitter-collector current (because one current is due to electrons and one is due to holes). This current can be 'dropped' through a resistor to create an output voltage.

Typically, we can get 100 fold current gains in transistors which, with clever circuit design, can be used to amplify currents, voltages and, ultimately, create power gains.

Please note: you don't, of course, get this wonderful amplifying action by magic or for nothing. Ultimately, the power amplification is derived from the power supply in the transistors emitter-collector circuit. Therefore, a transistor circuit needs a battery or supply to 'power' it.

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C You can prove this for yourself with the following simple experiment. Wire an LED in series with a 560Ω resistor and connect it to a 9V battery – it will light brightly.

Break the circuit and add in your skin resistance (which will be about 100k ohms depending on humidity and how dry your skin is) by putting your finger between the resistor and the LED. Now the current will be about 1/100 required for the LED so it won't light.

However, if we now apply this tiny current into the base of a transistor (for example, an npn BC109 or BC550, which typically have x100-200 current gain) as in Fig. 2, it will easily turn ON and the LED will light.

Try it for yourself but for safety reasons only ever use a battery in this test circuit, don’t short the base to the positive and never use a mains power derived supply.

Figure 2: A simple circuit to test the gain of a transistor.

More details can be found on Wikipedia and my website at: http://www.creative-science.org.uk/transistor.html 73, Jonathan G1EXG

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HUMOUR Aviation Advice Some words of wisdom for budding aviators from Chris G3UFS ●Every takeoff is optional. Every landing is mandatory. ●If you push the stick forward, houses get bigger. If you pull the stick back, they get smaller. That is unless you pull the stick all the way back, then they get bigger again. ●The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire. ●The propeller is just a big fan used to keep the pilot cool. When it stops, you can actually watch the pilot start sweating. ●When in doubt, hold on to your altitude. No one has ever collided with the sky. ●A good landing is one you can walk away from. A great landing is one after which they can use the plane again. ●Learn from the mistakes of others. You won’t live long enough to make all of them yourself. ●You know you’ve landed with the wheels up when it takes full power to taxi to the ramp. ●Stay out of clouds. The silver lining everyone keeps talking about might be another airplane going in the opposite direction. ●Also, reliable sources report that mountains have been known to hide out in clouds.

●Always try to keep the number of landings you make equal to the number of take offs you've made. ●You start with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience.

The trick is to fill the bag of experience before you empty the bag of luck. ●If all you can see out of the window is ground that's going round and round and all you can hear is commotion coming from the passenger compartment, things are not at all as they should be. ●In the ongoing battle between objects made of aluminium going hundreds of miles per hour and the ground going zero miles per hour, the ground has yet to lose. ●Good judgment usually comes from experience. Unfortunately, that experience often comes from bad judgment. ●It's always a good idea to keep the pointy end going forward as much as possible. ●Remember, gravity is not just a good idea – it's the law and it's not subject to repeal. ●The three most useless things to a pilot are the altitude above you, runway behind you and a tenth of a second ago.

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COMMITTEE MEETING NOTES The Committee has agreed to publish short notes taken from the minutes of its meetings in order to keep Club members up to date with its discussions.

Chairman’s Report.

The meeting started with the Chairman welcoming the new Committee.

He also said that there is now a requirement for action points raised by the Committee to be tracked to ensure they are progressed and he proposed using an application called Trello to achieve this.

Secretary‘s Report The Secretary also welcomed the new Committee members and he also mentioned the requirement for the tracking of actions arising from meetings, saying that it should be highlighted as a matter of importance.

The topic of circulating and publishing Committee meeting minutes was raised.

Treasurer‘s Report The Club’s accounts were presented by the Chairman in the Treasurer’s absence. Several matters concerning income and expenditure were highlighted and limitations in the use of the Club debit card were raised.

Programme of Events Matters discussed included the frequency of talks by both club members and guest speakers, the planning of surplus equipment sales in order to avoid conflict with sales by other clubs and what could be done about the irregularity of the publication of the club program by the RSGB in RadCom. Ragchew The continuing need for members to supply material for publication was discussed, as was the format of Ragchew. The Ragchew editor was commended by the Committee for his work.

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RALLIES Membership Matters discussed included the chasing of subscriptions from late paying members and part payments for new members who join part of the way through the membership year.

The Club membership currently stands at 66.

Website The layout of the proposed new Club website was presented to the Committee and various amendments to the format were discussed.

Publicity Matters discussed this month were the purchase of display flags for the promotion of the Club at public events, the production of promotional flyers and the purchase of Club branded merchandise, in particular, clothing bearing the Club logo.

Contests and Special Events The need for an operating rota at event stations to make sure all prospective operators could be allocated an operating slot was discussed this month.

So too were various methods for displaying live contact information at public events.

Training The Committee started by discussing the change of responsibility within the Committee for the future training program and then moved on to talking about the ongoing training program and the frequency of Foundation, Intermediate and Advanced courses and examinations.

Any Other Business Matters raised were the future of the Club D-Star repeater and the arrangements for the collection, storage and sale of equipment that has been donated or passed on to the club for sale.

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RALLIES 2016 JANUARY 17th – Red Rose Winter Rally The George H Carnall Leisure Centre, Kingsway Park M41 7FJ 31st – Horncastle Winter Rally Horncastle Youth Centre, Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6DZ

FEBRUARY 7th – Canvey Radio & Electronics Rally The Paddocks, Long Road, Canvey Island, Essex SS8 0JA 12-14th – Orlando Hamcation Central Florida Fairgrounds, Orlando, Florida, USA 13th – Ballymena ARC Winter Radio Rally 80 Cullybackey Road, Ahoghill, Ballymena BT42 1LA 14th – Mid-Cheshire ARS Radioactive Fair Civic Hall, Nantwich, Cheshire, CW5 5DG. 14th – Harwell Radio and Electronics Rally Didcot Leisure Centre, Mereland Road, Didcot OX11 8AY 28th – BRATS Rainham Radio Rally Rainham School for Girls, Derwent Way, Rainham, Gillingham, Kent ME8 0BX 28th – Pencoed Amateur Radio Club Table Top Sale Pencoed RFC, The Verlands, Felindre Road, Pencoed CF35 5PB

MARCH 5th – Lagan Valley ARS Annual Rally Hillsborough Village Centre, 7 Ballynahinch Road, Hillsborough BT26 6AR 6th – Exeter Radio & Electronics Rally America Hall, De La Rue Way, Pinhoe, Exeter EX4 8PW 13th – Dover Radio Rally Whitfield Village Hall, Sandwich Road, Whitfield, Dover CT163LY 20th – Wythall RC Rally Wythall Radio Club HQ, Wythall Park, Silver St, Wythall B47 6LZ 20th – Devon & Cornwall Repeater Group and Callington ARS Rally Callington Town Hall, New Road, Callington PL17 7BD

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C 20th – Causeway Coast Glens ARC Radio Rally Bushmills Community Centre, 14 Dunluce Road, Bushmills, Co Antrim, Northern Ireland BT57 8QG

APRIL 10th – NARSA Exhibition (Blackpool Rally) Norbreck Castle Exhibition Centre, Blackpool FY2 9AA 17th – West London Radio & Electronics Show (Kempton Rally) Kempton Park Racecourse, Staines Road, Sunbury on Thames TW16 5AQ

MAY 1st – Dambusters Hamfest Thorpe Camp Museum, Tattershall Thorpe, Coningsby, Lincolnshire LN4 4PE 2nd – Dartmoor Radio Club Rally Tavistock College, Crowndale Road, Tavistock, Devon PL19 8DD 8th – Lough Erne Amateur Radio Rally SHARE Centre, Lisnaskea, Co Fermanagh, Northern Ireland BT92 0EQ 15th – Newton-Le-Willows ARC Rally Newton Boys and Girls Club, 19 Haydock Street, Newton le Willows WA12 9AB 21-22nd – Dayton Hamvention Hara Arena, Dayton, Ohio, USA 22nd – Black Country Radio Rally Portway Lifestyle Centre, Newbury Lane, Oldbury, West Midlands B69 1HE

JUNE 4-5th – Sussex Electronics and Radio Fair (SERF 2016) Eastbourne Sports Pk, Cross Levels Way, Eastbourne, East Sussex BN21 2UF 5th – Central Scotland Amateur Radio Mini-Convention Crofthead Community Education Centre, Templar Rise, Livingston EH54 6DG 5th – Spalding & DARS Annual Rally The Sir John Gleed Technology School, Halmer Gardens, Spalding PE11 2EF

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CLUB CALENDAR JANUARY 2016 3rd ........................... Monthly breakfast at the Lancing Harvester 3rd ........................... 80m SSB Net 07.30 to 08.00 3.712MHz ±QRM 4th............................ 2m Simplex Net 19:30 to 20.00 145.425MHz 6th............................ On The Air Evening 7th............................ 40m SSB Net 11.00 to 11.30 7.106MHz ±QRM 10th.......................... 80m SSB Net 07.30 to 08.00 3.712MHz ±QRM 11th.......................... 2m Simplex Net 19:30 to 20.00 145.425MHz 13th.......................... Soldering Workshop 14th.......................... 40m SSB Net 11.00 to 11.30 7.106MHz ±QRM 17th.......................... 80m SSB Net 07.30 to 08.00 3.712MHz ±QRM 18th.......................... 2m Simplex Net 19:30 to 20.00 145.425MHz 13th.......................... Connecting Things to Your Computer by G1VUP 21st .......................... 40m SSB Net 11.00 to 11.30 7.106MHz ±QRM 22-24th .................... Frosty Camp GB4BBS 24th.......................... 80m SSB Net 07.30 to 08.00 3.712MHz ±QRM 25th.......................... 2m Simplex Net 19:30 to 20.00 145.425MHz 27th.......................... Discussion Evening 28th.......................... 40m SSB Net 11.00 to 11.30 7.106MHz ±QRM 31st .......................... 80m SSB Net 07.30 to 08.00 3.712MHz ±QRM

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