Spring 2019 Ragchew

GB5WOR – WADARC CELEBRATES ITS 70TH YEAR GRAHAM G4FNL REPORTS ON A DXPEDITION TO LES MINQUIERS

Plus JONATHAN G1EXG’S SHORT CIRCUIT PRESIDENTIAL PONDERINGS CHAIRMAN’S CHATTER WHAT IS ー ?

RALLIES

Spring 2019

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

E-mail: info@wadarc.org.uk President: Chris Smith G3UFS WADARC meets every Tuesday at 20.00 in TS Vanguard, 9a Broadwater Road, Worthing BN14 8AD. All who have an interest in radio communications and associate subjects, whether a licensed amateur or not, are welcome. WADARC can also arrange training courses for the radio amateur Foundation, Intermediate and Advanced licences.

The WADARC Committee 2017 – 2018 Chairman Alan Baker G4GNX Vice-Chairman Leslie Sampson G3JSU Secretary Andy Braeman M6RFE Treasurer Roger Ferrand G7VBR Raymond Ellett M6IKO Norman Jacobs 2E0RKO Ian MacDonald M0IAD Alex Slee 2E0UMD These Committee and Members have volunteered to accept the following responsibilities: Membership Manager Ian MacDonald M0IAD Ragchew Editor Roger Hall G4TNT Website Andrew Cheeseman G1VUP / Alastair Weller M0OAL Special Events Stations Peter Head G4LKW Online Content Coordinator Alan Baker G4GNX Outside Events Coordinator, Facilities and Bookings Norman Jacobs 2E0RKO Training Coordinators Alastair Weller M0OAL / Andrew Cheeseman G1VUP Exam Secretary Alastair Weller M0OAL Press and Publicity Coordinator Les Sampson G3JSU Quartermasters Andy Braeman M6RFE / Raymond Ellett M6IKO Club Calendar Coordinator Alex Slee 2E0UMD Weekly News Email Phil Godbold G4UDU, Alan Baker G4GNX, Jonathan Hare G1EXG

WADARC Club Nets (all times are local) 07.30

Sunday

3.725MHz ± QRM SSB

19.30

Monday

145.425MHz (V34/S17)

11.00

Thursday

7.106MHz ± QRM SSB

CONTENTS Editorial .................................................. 4 Presidential Ponderings ......................... 6 Chairman’s Chatter ................................ 8 GB5WOR ............................................... 10 Correspondence ...................................... 17 DXpedition to Les Minquiers ................... 19 Short Circuits by Jonathan G1EXG .................... 31 Rallies ..................................................... 34

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EDITORIAL

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elcome to the Spring 2019 edition of Ragchew. Yes, it is still (just) officially Spring although as I’m writing this, it seems far from it. It’s pouring with rain and pretty cold even though June is just a couple of days away. At least the forecast for the start of Summer this coming weekend is for a couple of days of sunshine so it looks as though it might be a nice day for the monthly Club Breakfast on Sunday June 2nd. As Chris G3UFS mentions in his column, it’s usually not as well attended as it used to be so if you’re up and about then, do pop along and enjoy a chat and a very tasty freshly-cooked breakfast.

Inside This Month It’s a bumper issue this time thanks to some excellent contributions, for which I am truly grateful. It makes the job of producing Ragchew so much easier when I’m sent interesting articles and this issue is packed with them.

As someone who spent many years repairing televisions, I found Presidential Ponderings brought back many memories. In these throwaway times, it seems hard to imagine repairing them down to component level but that’s what we did then because they were so expensive. Nowadays, when entire panels are usually changed instead of components, the price of the parts and labour involved in a repair can be more than the cost of buying a new set.

In Chairman’s Chatter, Alan G4GNX covers several interesting topics and ends with a plea for more participation from members. Please read it and try to turn up at Club meetings whenever you can, especially when we have a guest speaker. There has been a distinct lack of events and speakers recently but that will be changing soon so keep an eye on the Club’s website for forthcoming events and try to come along.

In GB5WOR – Celebrating 70 Years of WADARC, Jonathan G1EXG and Graham G4FNL report on the special event station that was set up to celebrate the Club’s 70th anniversary. Judging from the comments of those who took part, it looks as though it was a fun weekend and it certainly raised the Club’s profile throughout the world.

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C In Correspondence, Jonathan G1EXG wrote in to ask about the strange Morse character ー that appears to mean many things or nothing.

What does it mean to you?

In DXpedition to Les Minquiers, Graham G4FNL reports on his trip with the Cray Valley Radio Society to the uninhabited Île Maîtresse in Les Minquiers, a few miles off the coast of Jersey. Despite its relative proximity to the UK, it can still be windswept and desolate and Graham’s account of the trip certainly shows the work that goes into organising DXpeditions. If it takes that much to organise a relatively local one, I can only imagine what it takes to set up a station on some far-flung rock thousands of miles away in the middle of an ocean.

This time in his Short Circuit column Jonathan G1EXG covers bandpass filters. He describes what they do and explains you why after putting time and effort into improving your antenna setup, you might find you need one of these if you then find your receiver is not working as well as it could.

Thank You I would like to thank everyone who contributed to this time. As I said earlier, it’s made my job a lot easier and it’s been a pleasure putting this issue together.

If you read something you like, please mention it to the contributor so they know their work is appreciated. The figures on the PDF download and the page-turning websites show that lots of people read Ragchew so please let the authors know you were one of them.

Finally If you have anything you’d like to contribute to the next issue or if you have any thoughts you’d like to share on the future of Ragchew, please do get in touch with me at ragchew@wadarc.org.uk 73, Roger G4TNT

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PRESIDENTIAL PONDERINGS i, it’s that time again, the time when I have to wrack my brain in an attempt to find something to write about that I hope you will find interesting. Unfortunately, I’m finding this task is becoming increasingly difficult as my sphere of activity these days is mainly one of close support to my partner because she is getting more and more frail. This has curtailed nearly all my amateur activity as I spend probably six days a week at her place, looking after her.

However, the one interest I have rekindled is the 09.30 WADARC Sunday Morning Breakfast at Morrison’s by the bridge in Worthing, just along from our new clubroom. I do now look forward to this every month.

The one pity for me is that too few of our members now attend. A normal monthly meet nowadays consists of on average four people! That’s why I would like to hereby request that more Club members should try to attend to help keep the Club spirit alive and kicking!

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Thinking Back I have recently been thinking back to my working days with television rental companies. I started at Tansley and Cook Ltd/Colourvision Rentals, a local company, which was then sold to Domestic Electric Rentals (DER) Limited. This was one of the many television rental outlets owned by its parent company, Thorn EMI UK Rentals Limited. I stayed with them for 32 years.

Driving I think back to the number of hotels I stayed at all over Britain and the amount of driving I had to do. I used to cover some 30,000 miles a year in those days. Now, I only do about 5,000 miles! Sadly, it seems to me driving standards have worsened over the intervening years and in my opinion, this is probably due to little or no presence of traffic police.

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C I believe driving on some roads is positively dangerous these days. For example, I think undertaking is one of the most dangerous things a driver can do but now it seems to be perfectly acceptable. I suspect that many drivers have grown up watching car chases on American television shows where, of course, it is lawful and normal practice to pass on either side.

Maybe this is what’s making UK drivers think that it is allowed here or it could be something else that’s reinforcing that belief. Or is it me? Is it that I just don’t understand how things are done these days? Whichever, I am really glad I don’t have to do all the mileage I used to do on today’s roads.

Hotels The staying in hotels part was, of course and in the main, very enjoyable, especially when my boss, the Service Director of DER, decided he needed to visit one of our branches and he wanted me to go along as well.

We would then normally stay at a Five Star hotel and eat well and, of course, this was all paid for by his expense account.

When I was travelling on my own, I would normally stay at a Trusthouse Forte hotel. These were Four Star and very pleasant. However, I do remember one trip when I didn’t do that and it didn’t go well.

I had to go to Workington and the local Branch Manager had arranged for me to stay at a local pub, which was fine, apart from the bed. It had uneven legs and it wobbled so badly I spent most of the night trying not to fall out. Looking back now, it was laughable but when it had just cost me a night’s sleep, it didn’t seem so funny then.

All in all, I had a very happy time while I was at Thorn EMI and I was very sorry to have to take early retirement. My department was moved to Reading and I was asked to relocate there, something I didn’t want to do, but that’s a story for another day.

73, Chris G3UFS

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CHAIRMAN’S CHATTER t’s almost the end of spring and it certainly seems to have been a better one than last year. Here’s hoping the coming summer will also be as good to us as it was then so that the Club can enjoy a few outdoor events and we will be able to expand our antenna farms at home if we need to. I know I do. My VHF/UHF setup is due for an update, probably with the addition of a 23cms Yagi and the replacement of my current collinear to give that 23cms capability too.

On the HF side, I have now installed the LZ1AQ double mag-loop system and it is proving to be effective for reducing local RF noise. I’m now planning to install an active noise canceller as well, which should make the system even better. I’ve heard of radio amateurs who were on the point of giving up on HF until they successfully installed this combination.

If you’re suffering from noise issues (aren’t we all?), you might like to consider that you’ve probably spent many hundreds of pounds on a transceiver so isn’t it worth spending a couple of hundred more to be able to actually hear weak stations on it? If you want to find out more, you can read about it here: http://active-antenna.eu/amplifier-kit

I

TS Vanguard Perhaps the previous issues at Lions Hall in Lancing have actually done us a favour because they forced us to look for another QTH to meet and this time I think we really fell on our feet with TS Vanguard and its ‘real’ parking. That move along with a change in meeting night seems to have proved to be very popular and we have now actually gained a few new members. The TS Vanguard ‘management’ are very amenable and have given us permission to do more or less as we like for the Club shack, as long as we don’t wreck the building! Bryan G0SIU and Graham G8BZL have taken on the task of refurbishing the old radio room and Phil G4UDU is organising replacing the poles and HF antennas. Norman 2E0RKO is also sourcing a pump-up mast that will be mounted on the front corner of the building to carry VHF/UHF antennas.

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C 70th Anniversary To mark the 70th anniversary of our Club’s foundation, Graham G4FNL led a team in setting up a special event station at Sussex University. It used the callsign GB5WOR and it was very successful despite lousy band conditions. Quite a few Club members were able to operate there and for some it was their first foray into HF with high power. It’s amazing what can be achieved with a little enthusiasm and co-operation.

Last Spring, I suggested a competition for a special QSL card for our 70 years but there has not been a single submission so I’m afraid that idea is now dead in the water. It’s a shame because many amateurs around the world had QSOs with the Club’s 70th anniversary callsigns and I feel they would probably have been pleased to have received a paper confirmation in the traditional (non-electronic) manner.

Participation Despite an increase in membership and some great events, talks and practical sessions, meeting attendance is still averaging between 15 to 20 people. I believe this is still not a good situation, especially when we arrange talks. I know we’ve had a few issues with the programme but Chris M0VUE has come up with quite a few ideas for meetings and there is also the incentive of the new shack, where we will soon be able to use some first-class equipment with capabilities from Top Band to 70cms.

For the Club to remain healthy and survive, members should accept it’s not just a matter of ‘pay your money and enjoy the show’, participation is necessary, so here’s yet another appeal for folks to please rally round and support the Club by turning up at meetings and not just leaving it to the faithful few. A few words now and again on the Club reflector is not active Club membership so I hope to see you at TS Vanguard ... regularly!

73, Alan G4GNX

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FEATURE GB5WOR – CELEBRATING 70 YEARS OF WADARC Jonathan G1EXG and Graham G4FNL report on GB5WOR, the special event station set up to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Worthing and District Amateur Radio Club.

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he weekend of January 19th and 20th 2019 saw WADARC set up an 'around-the-clock' two-day station to celebrate the 70 years since the Club was started. The special callsign we used was GB5WOR and we operated from the radio shack at the University of Sussex in Falmer. What follows is a short account of this fun and inspiring weekend of radio activity.

The Idea for a Celebration Station In November 2018, Graham G4FNL suggested we should celebrate WADARC’s 70 years with an activity weekend. Phil G4UDU helped with the paperwork required to set up the notice of variation (NoV) application to OFCOM to use GB5WOR (GB70WOR was unavailable).

Graham suggested using the University of Sussex radio club room as it was in the WADARC area, has a very good antenna setup and a relatively low noise level.

The next step was to call for volunteers to man the station and help with the setting up. The response was excellent and we ended up with several Club stalwarts who took it in turn to operate the station around the clock.

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C Setting Up There was, of course, a lot to organise and arrange for a whole weekend of activity. Phil and Graham set up the radios on the Friday evening and sorted out the club laptops to run logging software, which was analysed after the weekend of activity (see summary section).

Alan passed on some historical information to Bodie who then wrote an information page that was shown on the shack monitor throughout the weekend. This provided a continuously scrolling summary of interesting facts about the Club to use while 'on air'.

Roger and Brian provided much needed hands-on equipment lugging skills as well as providing water, anglepoise lights and other essentials (including home cooked cakes! Thank you Roger).

Before the weekend Alan had repaired the Club’s Tokyo Hi-Power HF amplifier (four final FETs had blown).

The Radio Shack and Gear The radio club at Sussex University is situated on a hill a little way above the main campus near the sports pavilion. To the south west are the campus buildings while to the north east is mostly open space farm land. The shack location is surrounded by tall trees, which make good high dipole supports. There is considerably less electrical noise at this location than in towns and cities.

The equipment we used was: • 2 x Elecraft K3 transceivers (Graham’s and the Club’s) • Log4OM for logging • 2 x Yamaha CM500 headsets • 2 x HF amplifiers: an Alpha 89 on the LF bands and the Club's Tokyo HL-1.2K on the HF bands • We also used a set of switchable transmit bandpass filters made

by Dunestar between each radio and amplifier in order to protect the receiver front-ends.

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C In addition, we used these antennas: LF Bands • 265ft doublet on 160 and 80m, 20m above ground • Half-wave dipole for 40m, 25m above ground • Half-wave dipole for 30m, 13m above ground HF Bands • 3-ele tri-band (20/15/10) Jaybeam TB3 Yagi, 20m above ground • Half-wave dipole for 17m, 13m above ground The two K3 transceivers were set up so that two bands could be operated at the same time. As each of these would be running near the full legal power (with the linear power amplifiers) and with fairly close antennas, it was important to use good filtering on the receivers. Graham borrowed some bandpass filters and they were very effective, allowing us to work both transceivers at the same time with no noticeable interference or loss of receiver sensitivity.

Headphones, boom microphones and foot switches were used so that each operator could work his transceiver with minimal distraction and we had the option to relay audio from the receivers to additional headphones and external loudspeakers so that others visiting the shack could hear what was being worked.

Operators Edmund planned to stay on site for the whole weekend, 'camping out’ in a tent in the storeroom attached to the main radio room. The rest of us made our way in by car or train every day. There was a small amount of parking at the site.

A rota was established so that we had (almost) continuous 24-hour activity over the weekend and we were often able to operate on two bands simultaneously. Ideally it would have been good to have had a few more operators, especially in the early hours of the second day, but we still managed to achieve respectable results – see Summary.

Judging from their comments, everyone who was there seemed to enjoy the event – here are a few of them.

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C Edmund M0MNG "The shack and antennas were superb.

Hardly any signals I heard were weaker than 57, most were 59, and a significant number of those were +10 to +20dB over. Many stations reported that we were the strongest signal on the band.” “... the station was universally well received on the air and it was obvious how much the operators enjoyed being on the air. At times Norman had the biggest smile on his face that I've seen on any person for quite a while!"

"We had several major pile-ups and when I made the mistake of trying to speak a bit of German (badly) we suddenly became really sought-after in German speaking countries on 40m" "On Sunday morning I woke up around 06.00 and emerged from my tent. In front of that was my suitcase and a rodent was on top. It was standing on its hind legs and giving me a rather puzzled look. If it could have spoken, then I would have expected to hear ‘What on earth is going on here?’ ... or words to that effect."

"A positive vibe and sense of enjoyment was palpable" Norman 2E0RKO "I wish to pass on my sincere thanks to all those involved with our Special Event Station. On a personal note I really enjoyed ‘Doing my Bit’. I’m sorry that I missed this evenings feast kindly supplied by Roger, the catering manager. One thing I have learnt is that I need to improve my own station’s antennas.

An experimental doublet washing line I think is in order. I wish ..."

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C Jonathan G1EXG “Saturday 19th Jan 2019 – Get up about 04.45, shower, eat a bit of breakfast and get the 05.45 train from London Road station to Falmer then walk up to the University of Sussex radio club shack. It's dark, cold and drizzling a bit but as I get near to the radio hut, I see a welcoming light with Bodie and Edmund standing outside. I’m getting in early in the hope of catching a bit of DX on 80m but, alas, the band is not in great shape. However, by 07.30 the band is full of Europeans and there is a steady stream of contacts coming through, which is good fun. Around that time Graham very kindly offers to swap over my 80m band for his 20m band 'seat' and setting the 3-element beam SW he suggested ‘I might want to work a bit of DX’. At first things were a bit slow but suddenly a JA appeared and then I am working my first ZL (New Zealand). Followed by a few PY (Brazil) and CX (Ecuador) .... all I can say is wow!! 20m long path ... it made my year!”

“Sunday 20 Jan 2019 – It's a later start for me as I don't have to be in the shack till 08.00. I get in about 07.30 and have a coffee and set up. The gear has been left on the 40m band and set for 40m. On changing the antenna (40m dipole to 3-element beam) and bandpass filters, I find I can’t get 20m working. I carry on working 40m for a bit then Phil drives over especially to sort things out for us (thanks Phil). He finds the antenna port on the K3 has been set to Ant 2 (not Ant 1) and a few button presses later everything is working again – easy when you know the rig, of course! 20m was a bit quiet but around 08.40 JA2FDX calls and I have a nice QSO with him for about five minutes. About an hour later, ZS1OPB calls and I have a chat with him. As I have been to South Africa a couple of times, it was an interesting chat. The rest of the morning was mostly working Europeans switching between 20m and 40m. Overall it was a great couple of days for us all and nice to use great gear :-)"

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C Graham G4FNL

"... I knew that the Susses University site was a good radio setup. I was confident that we would 'command' a frequency on several bands."

Alex 2E0UMD

"The location really helped a lot. Minimal noise on the bands"

A Great Weekend All of us who were involved had a really great time and we all appreciate the hard work of the entire team.

Our 70-year Club celebration station – GB5WOR – was obviously widely and enthusiastically received all over the world as well as being great fun for the Club members. Some of us had to deal with exciting, noisy and energetic 'pile-ups', perhaps for the first time, as well as the odd bit of DX that low 'sun-spot' propagation would allow.

It was a fun and inspiring weekend – more please!

73, Jonathan G1EXG & Graham G4FNL

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C SUMMARY Over the weekend, we made about 1080 QSOs to Europe, North and South America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. The greatest distance was New Zealand at around 18,500km. However, most contacts were in Europe with almost 1,000 QSOs in the 2,000km range (on the 80m and 40m bands).

We made 909 SSB (84%) and 171 CW (16%) contacts on the 160, 80, 40 and 20m bands. The main bulk of the contacts over Europe were made on 80m (377, 35%) and 40m (456, 42%) but 20m also provided some welcome DX. The top-ten countries worked were England (196), Germany (170), Italy (111), Poland (48), Ukraine (37), European Russia (32), USA (32), France (31), Scotland (30) and Spain (30).

There were 350 contacts outside these countries, including Japan, South Africa, Ecuador and New Zealand.

GB5WOR also had an online presence, creating 110 spots on the DX cluster and our QRZ.com page was looked at over 4,200 times.

VIDEOS GB5WOR YouTube video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxBbsXu3Xqo GB5WOR YouTube video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxWkFeeNURs Edmund’s GX1WOR video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkLyDYkJ0jM 16

CORRESPONDENCE Jonathan G1EXG wrote in with some interesting comments on what can be seen as either a meaningless or a multipurpose Morse character.

A Meaningless Morse Character?

F

or the last couple of years I have been practicing receiving Morse code using an MFJ Morse tutor. It's a really useful little device that allows me to practice away from the radio while travelling around for my work. Of course, I also find tuning around HF and listening to beacons (on HF or VHF) a good and fun way of practicing receiving Morse.

While practicing, I’ve found it strange how the brain can find the odd Morse character more difficult than others. I have a bit of a block with the '/' character, as in G1EXG/P, for example. The '/' (or slash as it’s usually called) is dah di di dah dit (ーー). It's one of those characters that, for some reason, I really get stuck on when I hear it and it sometimes throws me enough to miss the next character. I have been trying to find alternative ways of learning/remembering (no slash pun intended) in the hope that if I try different techniques, it will 'go in' better and I will start to recognise it more easily. Even writing this might help!

With this in mind I recently did a quick Google search to learn a bit more about 'dah-di-di-dah-dit'. What came up was a little unexpected until I realised the search had actually brought up 'di-di-di-dah-dit' instead.

Google had sent me to eHam.net and what I read there was so interesting I thought I would pass on some of the comments here. ー On the eHam site, VK5EEE said, "The most unspecific character in Morse code is the di-di-di-dah-dit (ー). It's a nice character that can be used

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C in a number of ways. How do you use it? ... there is no right or wrong way of using 'di-di-di-dah-dit' so we can only speak of our own usage and experiences of it. In Germany it may have been used as ‘VErstanden’ (understood). But certainly since I've been active in the 1970s onwards, it has not generally been used that way. From my experience, it’s used as a sort of ‘throat clearing’ or ‘ahem’ at the start of transmission."

JS6TMM said he thought it meant, "I'm trying to think of something to say".

K3STX said, "I do it a couple of times before I send to remind myself of the speed of the dits on my bug. I did not know it was ever used for anything else".

ZL1BBW’s comment was, "I always understand it meant 'opps', or the equivalent".

VK5EEE added, "... sometimes it's used as 'opps' other times as 'ahem' (as in clearing the throat to say something, i.e. the starting signal, but not dah-di-dah-di-dah though), other times as a filler ... I think it's the only character that doesn't have any clear meaning but it has come to mean any or all of those things."

73, Jonathan G1EXG

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DXPEDITION Graham G4FNL reports on his trip with the Cray Valley Radio Society to an uninhabited island in Les Minquiers in July 2018.

DXpedition to Les Minquiers

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here were six Cray Valley Radio Society members who went on a sevenday trip to Île Maîtresse, which is the largest of a reef of rocks known as Les Minquiers, or colloquially ‘The Minkies’, located 9 miles south of Jersey. The group consisted of Giles M0TGV, Martin M0MDR, Chris G0FDZ, Toby M0TBS, Graham G4FNL and we were led by Nobby G0VJG. We met up on the Saturday prior to our trip to distribute the gear, food, water containers – in fact, just about everything we would need for a week away on an uninhabited island. This was to be squeezed into three cars.

Logistics planning was down to Chris G0FDZ. He ensured that we kept strictly to the agreed equipment list because we would need to hand-carry everything to the final destination. However, he and Giles also allowed a small amount of extra provisions and water just in case we might be stranded – waiting to be picked up at the end of our week. Nobby and Giles between them expertly undertook the organisation and negotiations associated with the travel and use of the island.

Setting Off We had an early start on July 25th. Giles set off at 04.00 and collected Toby from Surrey and headed towards Poole. Similarly, Nobby collected Chris and left Crayford at 04.30. I left Brighton a little later at 05.00, heading for the same

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C destination with a car full of gear. Martin rather sensibly flew directly from Gatwick to Jersey so he left home at a much more comfortable 08.30.

CVRS members had previously visited Les Minquiers in 2014 to take part in the IOTA contest, which takes place on the last weekend Evidence of a previous visit. of July each year. Most of the members who were on that trip made the return journey. The new boys this time around were Martin and me but we had all been together in the A25UK DXpedition trip the previous year, which meant that we knew each other well.

I was the first to arrive at Poole Ferry terminal, followed minutes later by Giles and Nobby. All seemed to be going well. We’d arrived together, having driven from different locations, and we were even an hour early for check-in, and we hadn’t forgotten anything – good planning.

However, as we were going through security I was asked the usual questions about packing my bags myself and so on and then came a question about carrying Camping Gaz bottles. All was okay, I thought, because both Giles and I had written to the ferry company a few weeks earlier to query their policy for carrying gas bottles and we’d each received separate confirmations that we could each carry one gas bottle. That’s why I was so surprised when the agent declared that she would need to check whether I could take one on board.

There followed a 40-minute delay followed by the decision that I was not allowed to take it. As you can imagine, I was astonished – especially as I had provided advance notification, received confirmation and then still to be informed that I couldn’t take the bottle.

That left us with no option other than to leave it at the quayside and to buy another new one when we reached Jersey. You might be wondering why Giles didn’t get stopped and searched. I suppose it was just good luck that he didn’t because if he had, we might have needed to buy two new bottles at £92 each. I guess I was just unlucky.

I have since written to the Ferry company asking for a refund for the lost gas bottle and I’m currently still waiting for their response.

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C Anyway, once that unpleasant incident was past, we continued our journey. It was a lovely crossing on a fast catamaran and we arrived at 15.00 in St Helier, Jersey to be greeted by glorious afternoon sunshine.

We quickly left the ferry terminal and headed into the main town area with Chris and Nobby looking for somewhere to buy a replacement gas bottle. Giles, Toby and I collected Martin who was waiting for us after his flight and we headed to the nearest shop to buy some refreshments and to fill the water containers.

We were on a tight schedule because we had to get to the Albert Pier by 16.00 where the Coastguard would be waiting for us.

We had to transfer the gear from the cars to the Coastguards boat and that involved several journeys up and down a very steep ramp with a heavy trolley, and it all needed to be done before 17.00. We just about made it Getting ready to load. in time!

Having securely stowed all our equipment on board, we then headed for our one night’s little bit of luxury in the The ramp. nearby West Hill Country Hotel The Crossing The following morning (Thursday) we were up early and had a specially laid-on early breakfast at 06.00. Then it was off to meet up with the Coastguard for an 08.00 sailing from St Helier bound for Île Maîtresse.

After an hour or so, we arrived at our final destination at 09.29 on July 26th. All the equipment was off-loaded into the Coastguard’s Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB) to enable us to make

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C the transfer across the shallow waters to the small concrete pier of the island. The good news was that there was no one else there.

(However, the island becomes quite a popular tourist day-trip destination as we were to discover later on in our trip.)

Taking the RIB to the island.

Setting Up The first job was to set up the masts and antennas. Nobby and Giles erected the 10, 15 and 20m Vertical Dipole Arrays (VDAs) which are simple half-wave dipoles oriented vertically with the coax feeder pulled away from the centre to form a bow-and-arrow shaped system. This strange shape ensures a good 50Ω match.

Nobby is the expert on these. The 20 and 15m versions are shown in the photos. You The 20 and 15m VDAs. can see the proximity to the sea and whilst we were operating, we could actually hear a noticeable improvement in signal levels and could reliably predict when it was high tide.

Whilst the HF band antennas were being erected, Toby, Martin and I set about putting up Toby’s 40m quarter-wave vertical, shown left. The base of the vertical was at 20ft and there were 16 quarter-wave elevated radials. It worked extremely well. Chris and Giles turned their attention to getting the other LF antennas up: a broadband 80m half-wave dipole and a separate 40m half-wave dipole just beneath at 30ft in the centre.

Toby’s 1/4 wave vertical.

80m broadband and 40m dipoles.

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C For the WARC bands on 10, 18 and 24MHz we had a set of half-wave nested dipoles that were supported inverted-vee style from the flagpole which was on the tallest point on the island. We set this antenna up on the day after we arrived because we ran out of time doing other activities. As requested by the coastguard, we also erected a Jersey States flag for the duration of our stay.

Finally, for VHF we had a smaller WARC bands nested dipole and Jersey flag. mast that had Yagis for 6 and 2m that we rotated using the ‘Armstrong’ method.

Soon after getting the antennas up, we set up the station. We used the coastguard’s cottage for the week of our stay as our shack. It has no power or services but it made a great shelter from the weather and there was even an upstairs area where two of the guys could sleep.

8-element 2m and 4-element 6m We continued with other basic necessities with Yagis.

Giles, Martin, and me putting up our small tents on an exposed piece of ground near the shack. Nobby sensibly placed his tent a little further down from the hilltop in a more sheltered position. Chris and Toby had opted to sleep in the upstairs area of the shack.

Nobby’s tent.

Tents for Graham, Martin and Giles.

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C By late afternoon, Chris had set up the power generators and we had three stations set up: an Elecraft K3, a Yaesu FT450 and a Kenwood TS2000 for spotting.

Operating On July 26th I made the first QSO as GJ3RCV at 18.37z Nobby G0VJG and Graham G4FNL with UA3GVV on 20m CW. After fixing some antenna problems, Nobby got another radio running and at 19.51z he made our first SSB QSO on 40m with DM9JH. We carried on for a few hours mixing CW and SSB on 20m to 80m. We hadn’t managed to get the WARC bands antennas up at this stage. Deliberately, we did not take anything to operate on 160m. Given the time of year and the restrictions with space on the Martin M0MDR and Giles M0TGV island and in our packing cases, I think that it was a good decision. 80m was hard work, even on CW. We were limited to 100W output and with the high QRN levels, it was especially hard going. Our proximity to the UK made it a difficult path to work into the UK on most bands – with the exception of QSOs with some GM stations on 20 and 40m. At 22.38z we made our last QSO of the first day on the island. We had clocked up 441 QSOs. Having been on the go all day, we decided to get to bed and start again the following morning.

Friday morning arrived and Nobby was up and about and made the first QSO of the day at 04.37z on 20m SSB. Conditions weren’t too good so he moved onto 40m to try to get a higher QSO rate.

Not too long afterwards, others arrived in the shack and had some breakfast, taking it in turns to keep the station on the air. There were some other tasks too, one of which was a fairly regular job of collecting some buckets of sea water to use to flush the toilet that’s on the island. (The latter is a permanent building at has the distinction of being the most southerly building of the British Isles!)

We also put up the WARC bands nested dipoles and flew the Jersey flag.

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C During the morning, we had our first visitors to the island from Jersey Seafaris, a travel group that takes tourists from Jersey for day-trip visits. Chris did a magnificent job of liaising with these folks and many others, including a group of Jersey police who were on a fact-finding mission to the Minquiers and also two Jersey government officials who were involved in an environmental study of the island.

We saved one bucket of sea water to cool the beers – but none of us really liked the salty flavour that would inevitably accompany the taste and eventually we gave up and decided luck-warm was preferable to salty tasting beer, hi.

We carried on operating throughout the day. We tried to get on the band and mode that would give us the highest QSO rates. After 17.5 hours of operating we’d added another 1,234 QSOs to the log. We then went QRT because of increasing QRN levels and the general thought that we had a 24-hour contest in front of us so an early-to-bed policy at around 22.30 was a sensible decision.

Later in the night, the weather started to deteriorate. At around 03.00 on Saturday July 28th, as I lay in my small tent, I was awoken by the sound of the strong winds blowing. The wind got stronger and then it started to rain, soon becoming torrential. I can recall thinking that if I were to get out of the tent, it might blow away so I stayed put, listening and wondering when it would end?

At around 04.30 I heard Nobby shouting for us all to get up.

He’d got up a bit earlier to see the state of play. Some of what greeted him in the dim early morning light is shown in the photos: we had lost the 40m vertical and both VHF Yagis were lying on the ground, severely bent. The mast holding the 40m and 80m dipoles was just about standing but we’d also lost the 20m and 15m VDAs. We all immediately got up and Giles thoughtfully found some large rocks which he used to stop the small tents from blowing away. We all went to help resurrecting what we could from the damaged antennas. Toby was already up and about and considering how to fix the vertical whilst Nobby and Chris were concentrating on the VDA repairs. We realised that the VHF Yagis were so bent that we couldn’t repair them. Anyway, the propagation during the previous day

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C had been so poor that it wasn’t worth the effort. We straightened and re-guyed the mast that were holding the main LF dipoles which, remarkably, had survived.

The support masts for the VDAs had broken but were relatively straightforward to fix. Finally, we set about the repairs to the 40m vertical. Again, the support pole for this antenna was broken and we needed to almost ground mount it.

Every member of the team was involved in re-erecting this antenna.

Fortunately, with the team’s engineering experience and can-do attitude, particularly from Toby, we got it back up in the air.

Our main concern was that we needed all equipment and antennas to be working prior to the Islands on the Air (IOTA) contest start time of 12.00z later that day. Luckily, the weather improved and although there were still strong gusts of wind to contend with, the rain had stopped so we were hopeful.

However, our run of bad luck continued a bit longer. A little later, after the antennas were fixed, Giles’ FT450 became intermittent on transmit. We didn’t have time to investigate the reason so we switched things around and got out Toby’s spare FT897 to be the search station radio, configured the K3 as the run station and the TS2000 as the multiplier (or ‘mults’) station. This combination worked well for the rest of the DXpedition. We protected the front-ends of the transceivers by using the Club’s Dunestar bandpass filters.

Back on the Air Finally, at 08.07z on the Saturday morning, we got our station back on the air.

There were still some other jobs to do such as running cables and fixing guys that kept us busy until the start but, at least, we were ready for the contest.

We kept the frequencies ‘busy’ using GJ3RCV until just before the start and then we swapped the log over to use our special MJ8C callsign. At 12.00z on July 28th we started operating in the 2018 IOTA Contest from our unique island number EU-099. The run station was on 40m SSB. As the only CW operator, I knew that I was likely to be busy throughout the next 24 hours but, at the outset, I was on the highest open band searching for mults. Fortunately, 10m was open around Europe and I was picking off as many new countries as possible. I then handed over the reins to Giles to continue looking on 10m SSB. The run station had exhausted 40m and moved onto 20m SSB. We continued hopping around the bands trying to get the maximum run

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C rate and picking off multipliers and by the end of the first hour, we had 47 QSOs in the log. Our rate grew and for several periods we had QSO rates exceeding 100 per hour. Our best hour was when we worked 136 stations between 18.00 to 19.00z and our least busy period was early on Sunday morning between 06.00 to 07.00z when we bagged just 24 stations.

QSO rate isn’t the only important factor. Accuracy and working the IOTA multipliers is also key. On taking a quick look at our log after the contest, we couldn’t spot any silly logging mistakes but we shall see how well we did once the results are published after a few more months.

Propagation for the weekend was not very good and, of course, we are close to the sunspot minimum so making QSOs throughout the contest was generally quite hard going, especially when considering the relatively low power and simple wire antennas.

The contest ended at 12.00z on Sunday. The highlight for me was being called

by Hawaii AH6HY at 14.35z on 20m CW. We worked a couple of JA stations and a few stations in the USA but, surprisingly, no VK or ZL appeared in our logs.

Analysis After a little analysis, I can see that we made a total of 1,862 QSOs with 56% on SSB and 44% on CW. The top 5 countries that we worked were Germany, Italy, UK, Russia and Croatia in that order. The chart below shows the breakdown of QSOs per band.

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C The last time MJ8C was operated from The Minkies in the IOTA contest was in 2014. This time we increased our QSOs (up from 1,693 to 1,862) and mults (up from 267 to 348) and, hence, we are hoping we will be higher placed when the results are published.

Immediately following the contest, we took a small break from the competitive arena and allowed ourselves a small celebratory drink and had some lunch. We had a great menu throughout our stay thanks to Giles and once again he excelled with a Sunday lunch of lamb shanks and mashed potatoes.

It wasn’t too long before we returned to the two radios and continued with the DXpedition as GJ3RCV. Toby fired up on 17m SSB and started logging calls at 13.24z.

You can see the overall split of QSOs per band on the chart below. This chart shows QSOs made on the WARC bands. There was a similar QSO breakdown to the contest period and once again 20m was the most productive band.

Over a period of five days and excluding the QSOs made in the contest as MJ8C at the weekend, we made a total of 4,299 QSOs operating as GJ3RCV. Of these, 2,728 were on SSB and 1,571 were on CW. In total, we worked 87 DXCC countries, not bad considering the poor HF conditions and our 100W to simple wire antennas.

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C Throughout our stay on the island, we could occasionally receive a cellular signal from Jersey or France but it was intermittent so we were unable to upload our log to LoTW or Clublog until later in the week.

In fact, Toby, our IT expert, managed to upload the log on the return ferry crossing from Jersey to Poole on August 1st, probably a first for the club.

It wasn’t all radio during the week even though it was certainly the major part of our combined activity. For instance, Nobby (pictured) took along some fishing tackle and some of us decided that we could benefit from a swim so we had a short dip as the tide was receding. The sea was beautifully clear but despite it being the middle of summer, the water was still icy cold and we had quite a shock when we got in.

Our Return We were due to be collected by the Coastguard at noon on Tuesday August 31st so we decided to dismantle the station on the Monday evening. Our last QSO was with R2DLU on 40m CW at 21.33z on July 30th.

The weather had returned to being sunny and warm The ‘High Street’ and the return trip went without incident. We then had one last evening together in St Helier where we shared a meal and discussed the overall trip. We all agreed that it had been great fun and despite the occasional weather and gas bottle issues, which we had managed, we had no cross words but plenty of leg-pulling, which just goes to prove what a great club and members we have.

During our short stay on Les Minquiers, we worked many Cray Valley Radio Society members. I’d like to extend our thanks to you all for calling and working us if you did and for spotting us on the DX Cluster too.

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C Finally

One of the more glamorous aspects of the DXpedition, Graham and Giles collecting the flushing water for the most southerly building in the British Isles.

73, Graham G4FNL and the rest of the team.

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G1EXG’S SHORT CIRCUITS This time Jonathan G1EXG takes a look at bandpass filters and explains why you might need one if your receiver is not working as well as it could.

SHORT CIRCUIT NO. 21: BANDPASS FILTER

A

software defined radio (SDR) is typically a digital electronics circuit in a small box that plugs into a computer. It then uses the fast computational power of your PC or laptop to create a powerful and versatile wideband radio receiver. Fourier transforms and other digital signal processing (DSP) techniques provide razor sharp filters, often giving excellent results1.

Integrated Radios Both software defined receivers and transmitters are now available and some don’t even need an external computer. Instead, the computer is built into the radio box so they look and feel like a typical standalone radio transceiver – i.e. they have knobs on the box! Reviews of these SDRs are excellent but they usually come with a large price tag.

Cheaper Alternatives In addition, many simple low-cost SDRs are also available (for example, small units and USB dongles). They can have good sensitivity and they often work over a surprisingly wide range of frequencies such as a few tens of kilohertz up to several gigahertz.

However, one potential problem is that these less expensive SDRs can give a disappointing strong signal handling performance. Sometimes, one reason for this can be the very strong signals coming in on your antenna from the many broadcast stations present along with many others on the input circuitry. Your SDR could be struggling to cope with digitising all this information without distortion. Further to this, to provide a wide frequency range many of the cheaper and simpler SDRs have little or no filtering on the antenna input stage and this is often the cause of the problem.

One way to get the full potential of your SDR is to use a switchable filter between your antenna and the SDR. This is known as a bandpass filter (BPF) and it can be very simple but still provide worthwhile improvements.

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C

Homebrew Circuit A typical BPF is shown above and because it’s made up of passive devices it does not need a voltage supply. C1 and C3 along with the coils and coil tuning slugs adjust the filter centre frequency. C2 gives some control over the sharpness of the filter response. In general, for the HF bands, small values of C2, say 10pf, will provide a sharp filtering while larger values, say 47pf, will give a broader filter response. There may be some signal loss through the filter but SDR sensitivities are usually so good that in practice it won't be a problem. The advantages of the BPF far outweigh the losses.

Commercial Alternative If you don't want to make your own BPF, SV1AFM sells a well-made circuit that covers top band (160m) to 10m in nine BPFs and is just 140 x 60mm. www.sv1afn.com Each BPF is switched and selected with two (Mosfet driven) dedicated relays. (Note: even though the filters themselves don't need power, the Mosfet drivers and relays do need a supply to power them.) The device also has sockets provided so you can switch in your own attenuator or low noise preamplifier (after the BPFs, of course). You can use a wafer switch to select the relevant BPF or your computer could automatically select the correct BPF if you have the right interface and so on.

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C

The SV1AFM multiple BPF array provides switchable filtering from top band to 10m.

This type of filter is useful for all types of receivers, not just SDRs. For example, until recently I used a simple direct conversion receiver on 80m with a loop antenna and with it I could hear countries all around the world.

I have just swapped over from the passive loop to an LZ1AQ active magnetic loop antenna. I’ve found this is much more versatile for my other receivers because my original loop only covered a small range of frequencies.

Unfortunately, because of the wide frequency range of the LZ1AQ, my simple receiver is now getting a much greater range of signals coming in at the input and sometimes (depending on band conditions) it struggles with broadcast breakthrough. The SV1AFM BPF shown above has resolved this problem.

Finally, if you have an old radio that is getting a bit 'long in the tooth' but you just love using it, then the combination of using a BPF (and a preamplifier on the higher frequency bands) will give it a new lease of life.

73, Jonathan G1EXG

[1] Software Defined Radios, Andrew Barron ZL3DW, RSGB books, 2017.

ISBN 9 781910 193495

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RALLIES SPRING 2019 MAY 26th – Durham District ARS Radio Rally Bowburn Community Association, Durham Road, Bowburn DH6 5AT

JUNE 2nd – Spalding DARS Annual Rally Holbeach Community Sports Academy, Pennyhill Lane, Holbeach PE12 7PR 9th – Junction 28 Radio Rally Alfreton Leisure Centre, Alfreton, Derbyshire 9th – East Suffolk Wireless Revival (Ipswich Radio Rally) Kirton Recreation Ground, Back Road, Kirton IP10 0PW 15th – Rochdale & District ARS Summer Rally St Vincent de Paul’s, Caldershaw Road, Norden, Rochdale OL12 7QR. 16th – West of England Radio Rally Cheese & Grain, Market Yard, Bridge Street, Frome, Somerset BA11 1BE. 16th – Scottish Amateur Radio and Electronics Rally INTU Braehead Centre, Glasgow 21st to 23rd – Ham Radio Friedrichshafen 22nd – Bangor & District ARS Rally The Hub, Hamilton Road, Bangor 23rd - Newbury Radio Rally and Boot Sale Newbury Showground, next to M4 J13 29th – Houghton-Le-Spring ARC Free Radio Rally Dubmire Royal British Legion Club, Britannia Terrace, Fencehouses, DH4 6LJ

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