SSB Field Day 2013 G1EXG’s Short Circuits GB1SCW Special Event Station
March - April
Worthing & District Amateur Radio Club Established 1948 Website: www.wadarc.org.uk
E-mail: info@wadarc.org.uk President: John Slater G8FMJ
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 2013 - 2014 Phil Andy Dawn John Jonathan Peter Norman Andrew Andrew Peter
G4UDU M6RFE 2E0ESK G8FMJ G1EXG G4LKW 2E0RKO G1VUP 2E0TCB 2E0FVL
Chairman Secretary Treasurer President Ordinary Member Ordinary Member Ordinary Member Ordinary Member Ordinary Member Ordinary Member
WADARC Ex Officio 2013 - 2014 Publicity Membership Manager Awards Manager Contest Manager Ragchew Editor Website Training Officer
John Peter Chris Graha m Roger Andrew Andrew
G8FMJ 2E0FVL G3NDJ G4FNL G4TNT G1VUP G1VUP
WADARC Club Nets (all times are local) 07.30
Sunday
3.725MHz +/- QRM SSB
19.30
Monday
145.425MHz (V34 or S17)
11.00
Thursday 7.106MHz +/- QRM SSB
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CONTENTS From the Editor’s Keyboard....................................... 4
Presidential Ponderings ........................................... 6
Chairman’s Chatter .................................................. 7
SSB Field Day .......................................................... 8
Rallies ....................................................................... 17
G1EXG’s Short Circuits ............................................ 18
GB1SCW Special Event Station ................................ 20
Club Diary 2014 ........................................................ 24
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FROM THE EDITOR’S KEYBOARD
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elcome to my first edition of Ragchew. I’ll start with the usual plea you’ve heard from every editor – please contribute! Anything you can do to help me fill these pages will be greatly appreciated, not only by me but also by all the other members who enjoy reading Ragchew. Without your input, there wouldn’t be a magazine. If you have anything that you think might be of interest to club members, whether it’s a recent event you’ve taken part in, interesting contacts from your log or just something you’d like to share, please send it in to roger@radiouser.co.uk Many WADARC members stick to operating on their favourite amateur band so some band reports with details of contacts, openings and so on would be of interest to others who might be thinking about taking up that band. The rally season will be starting soon so a report on your visit to a show could help others decide if it’s worth them making the trip next year.
talks in the club. He said that when he’d spent some time talking to members, he’d found that most of them had led interesting and often surprising lives and he thought that other members would be like to hear about them. I agree because I know some members’ life stories are fascinating and I’m sure they would make great talks. However, I also know that standing up in front of an audience is the last thing some people want to do so I’m going to suggest an alternative. I would like to introduce a Member’s Profile page – a page that outlines the background and life of an individual member. It would, I’m sure, help us to get to know one another better. If you’re interested in taking part, please let me know. It can be as detailed or as brief as you want. Contributing If you’re thinking about contributing something and you’re at all worried about spelling, punctuation or grammar, please don’t be because that’s what editors are for. I think you’d be surprised by how many very famous authors can’t spell, punctuate or even string a sentence together but they can tell a story and all they needed to
Profiles I was chatting to Norman 2E0RKO at the Club a few weeks ago when he mentioned an idea he had for
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Content Finding enough to fill Ragchew has always been a problem for its editors so I’m hoping to make it easier in future by enlarging the content. I’m going to introduce articles and snippets that are nothing to do with the Club but which are relevant to the hobby. If you have anything you think would be appropriate, please send it in.
become successful was an editor to hone their work. Ideally, contributions should be produced in Microsoft Word but if you don’t have that, anything will do, even just the body of an e-mail. I can convert most formats so however you send it in will be fine. As well as words, I need photos. Now that we have an electronic version of Ragchew, we can reproduce photographs in full colour, which always helps brighten up the pages.
This Issue We have some interesting articles in this issue, including an excellent report on SSB Field Day from Graham G4FNL, another one on the GB1SCW Special Event Station from Howard M0HJF plus the start of a great new regular series on simple electronic circuits from Jonathan G1EXG.
Changes Speaking of pages, I’ve made a few changes to their look this issue. It’s nothing major, just a bit of fiddling with the headings and typefaces. I’m currently doing it in Microsoft Word, which doesn’t give me many options. Eventually, I hope to be able to use Adobe InDesign because that is a professional typesetting program and it will let me do it properly but it takes time to set up the grids and templates I’ll need so in order to get this issue out as quickly as possible, I’m using what I have to hand. Please let me know what you think of the changes I’ve made so far. If you don’t like them, just let me know. Similarly, if you have any ideas for layout changes you’d like to see, I’ll be happy to incorporate them if it’s at all possible.
Finally There’s far too much from me this time and I promise not to take up so much space in the next issue. I’ve only written this much because it’s my first issue and I wanted to appeal to you for material. Also, it’s a lot harder to write concisely. It takes time to cut out all the extraneous bits and I’m hurrying to get this issue out. As the mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote, “I am sorry to have wearied you with so long a letter but I did not have time to write you a short one” 73, Roger G4TNT
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PRESIDENTIAL PONDERINGS
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ell overdue, I know, but at last the production of Ragchew is back on track. Our grateful thanks go to Roger G4TNT for taking on the task. It’s difficult to know where to start this time as so much has happened since the last edition. We held an AGM and with that came the election of a new Chairman Phil G4UDU and some new committee members. The only static thing is that you are stuck with me as your President for yet another year. From my perspective, the club has gone through some dramatic changes for the better. After lengthy delays, we finally opened a new bank account and it’s good to see that a number of members are now using it to pay their subs directly into the bank, saving our Treasurer both time and paperwork. My thanks go to Andrew G1VUP for encouraging other members to join the training team and we now have licence training courses that are working very well. It’s been a real boost to the clubs image, as is the revamped website, another of Andrew’s projects. We are very lucky to have him as a club member and as a very proactive committee member, many thanks OM. Following on from our successes in contests last year, I hope that we can get the same level of support and enthusiasm this year for both the PW QRP and SSB Field Day events. I am sure that Graham will be chasing things up in the fullness of time. We now have the dates for the various special event stations for this year. Windmills, Lighthouses, Fire Brigade and the Selsey Lifeboat are the main ones but they all promote the club to the general public. We also hope to have some hand-outs to give to anyone who expresses an interest in the club and its activities, which in turn could result in some new members. I would like to express my appreciation for the work carried out by Chris G3NDJ who, although he’s not been in the best of health at times, not only reads the news for us most Sunday mornings but also finds the time to run the Monday 2m net and the Thursday 40m net, both of which seem to be going from strength to strength with him at the helm. Chris and I also shared the duties for the Christmas Day 2m net, which was great fun – thanks Chris for doing such a sterling job. Club meetings are as popular as ever. There was some doubt about keeping them weekly but the level of support seems to have justified the decision to continue. Let’s do our best to keep the momentum going. For my part, I will try to keep the programme as varied as possible – any suggestions for talks or topics for discussion are always very welcome. To sum up, the club is in very good shape and hopefully will continue to be so for many years to come thanks to the ongoing support from you, the members. Thanks and 73, John G8FMJ
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CHAIRMAN’S CHATTER
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ello and welcome to the new look Ragchew. There have been a few problems with producing it recently and I would like to thank Roger for stepping in and editing it for the club. I know this will result in a professional publication and this, together with the online page-turning version, will give the club a positive image. Now I have the Chairman’s responsibilities, it is my intention from the start to take the club forward. We have a good committee with positive ideas that are aimed at not only maintaining the interests of the existing membership but also bringing in new members. John G8FMJ has been working on booking talks for forthcoming meetings and we have a busy calendar over the next few months but we do need a few special subject lectures to fill in the gaps. We would like to see as many club members as possible giving a presentation – it only needs to be half an hour on an item you are interested in. If each of us could do just one every couple of years, we would have a full schedule. I think it is most important to keep the general discussion evenings. They are always busy and very informative and we often have 20 - 25 people, which, when compared with other clubs in the area, is far ahead on numbers. The club website is becoming the focal point for everything that is happening with WADARC. It’s frequently updated and it will have links to Ragchew’s articles on club events, plus there will be areas with information on important dates of meetings and outside special event stations that we will be running. We now have a very busy training schedule. As this is another of my club duties, I am very aware that I should try to be at every meeting and I should also get to the training sessions on the same evening. Andrew G1VUP has set these up and we can now offer training as an important benefit to those new club members who are either joining with the intention of getting started in amateur radio or those with existing licences who are looking to upgrade. Starting in March, I intend to run some lessons on Morse code, beginning with the basics. I will be able to teach you to beyond the old requirements of the Post Office test at 12wpm send and receive and then, if you decide you have a passion for the targets of high speed CW operating, we will be using Graham G4FNL’s skills to take you to 30wpm and beyond! Finally, I would like to ask club members to be busy on the radio bands and always to mention the club because this will bring interest from other amateurs and encourage them to join us at meetings and on the regular club nets. 73, Phil G4UDU
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SSB FIELD DAY A Report on SSB Field Day 2013 Graham Bubloz G4FNL
The G3WOR/P Team from L-R: Dawn 2E0DSK, Gerry 2E0WGB, John G8FMJ, Rod M0RDV (with Phil G4UDU behind Rod), Pete G4LKW, Norman 2E0RKO, Andrew G1VUP, Graham G4FNL & Roger G7VBR. Missing from the photo is Edmund 2E0MDO
T
he SSB Field Day contest, which took place over the first full weekend of September 2013, has now become a firm fixture in the Club’s calendar. As in previous years, we decided to enter the Restricted section of the competition. This was definitely a team effort and thanks to a planning meeting in July and an advanced team setting up the station on the Friday afternoon before the weekend, the whole event went pretty much to plan. Last year, we had two stations operational but for a number of reasons, this year we decided that we would have one fully competitive station running, using the Club’s callsign of G3WOR/P.
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The advanced party, consisting of John G8FMJ, Phil G4UDU, Pete G4LKW, Andrew G1VUP, Rod M0RDV, Dawn 2E0DSK and Gerry 2E0WGB, met up at 3pm (local) on th Friday September 6 at our usual Field Day site near Adversane, West Sussex. They got busy and within 2½ hours there were two masts, two tents and the 40m doublet antenna suitably erected. Things were looking good.
The first mast goes up…
…followed by the second one – with Pete G4LKW, Andrew G1VUP and Rod M0RDV
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In the meantime, Rod had managed to put together a rudimentary kitchen in the large white marquee tent that the club owns and after the main equipment was erected, a well-earned cuppa was enjoyed by all. It was starting to get dark and so it was felt that enough work had been done and any further activity could safely be left until the morning. A few brave souls camped on site overnight and kept an eye on the equipment. The weather had been good – at least it had not rained – and the wind was down to a pleasant light breeze. Fortunately, that weather continued into Saturday and the start of the contest at 1300z. Last year, our score put us in fourth place, which was good, but we were all keen to try to improve on this if at all possible. Now, WADARC is a typical radio club with a few members who are keen on the competitive element of the hobby but the vast majority of the team just enjoy getting involved in putting up a temporary radio station in the middle of a field – without any infrastructure or utility services – and operating the radio in an environment where there is very little man-made noise and where simple antennas seem to work so much better than from an urban location. As most of you will know, we are not a contest group and, consequently, operating the equipment in a contest environment is a little bit foreign and unusual for most members. My concern was that to try to improve on fourth place was going to be a tall order for operators who are not so familiar with HF SSB radio.
The Station The main station equipment consisted of the Club’s Icom IC756Pro Mk3, running 100W PEP with a matching Icom auto-tuner, which was connected to the doublet that was 15m high. This was the same setup as the one we used a few years ago but with the antenna supported so that its overall average height was slightly greater than before – even small improvements are sought to try to get a competitive edge! We used the Club laptop computer and the N1MM contest logging software program, which had been updated by Andrew G1VUP to the latest release of the program software. One other important piece of equipment that we had was the ‘mult bell’. This would be proudly rung each time we worked a new country (a ‘multiplier’). Our catering was again competently managed by Rod M0RDV, with Edmund 2E0MDO only available to come up (very early) on Sunday morning to help him. We were anticipating needing to cater for up to 12 people at each mealtime but in practice fewer people were around and, thankfully, the overall workload was reduced.
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The station setup with two keyboards and two screens for logging contacts and the all-important mult bell.
Saturday Saturday morning arrived: the morning before the contest start at 2pm (local) time. This meant that we had plenty of time to spare, which allowed us to check that the computers and internet connections were working and to grab a few test QSOs to make sure that we had no RF problems. Fortunately, because of our combined experience, we found that there weren’t any issues and we were ready to go with approximately three hours to spare. So, we decided to do a little bit of training and remind everyone of the things to look out for and how to operate the software.
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Twitter Feed Previously, Andrew G1VUP had been wondering about the problem that had been raised in the past: how to tell WADARC members the band or frequency that G3WOR/P is on during the contest. The intention was to let our members know so that they could follow our progress. Fortunately, just a day or two before the contest, Andrew had exchanged e-mails with our resident website editor, Martin M0ADY, and Andrew managed to obtain agreement to implement a Twitter feed on the main page of the WADARC website, which was how we did it. This was a great example of teamwork and it showed that social media could be used for something quite new.
Getting Ready As ever, the contest always coincides with the All Asian contest, where your own age is part of the contest exchange. This year, WADARC is 65 years old so that would have to be stated each time we worked a station in Asia. I had ensured that ‘script cards’ with the typical contest exchanges for both the All Asian and for the SSB Field Day were printed and put out on display in the operating tent for the operator to use as an aidememoire. A couple of hours beforehand, we worked a few stations – testing the antenna and radio setup on all bands – and we seemed to be getting out well, especially on 15m, where we managed QSOs with a numbers of stations located in Japan and Asiatic Russia. However, we did not hear any signals on SSB on 10m. Lunchtime on site was marked by the traditional fare of beef burgers or hot dogs in a bun and, of course, plenty of tea and coffee was available on tap too.
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On the Air When 1300z on th Saturday September 7 arrived, we were ready to go. Andrew G1VUP and I were in position and we kicked off proceedings. We stuck mainly to 15m with just a few occasional visits to try out 20m. Unfortunately, whenever we looked at 10m it seemed to be dead and despite many CQs on that band and frequent visits, we never Gerry 2E0WGB logging and Pete G4LKW operating. actually made any 10m QSOs throughout the whole of the contest, which was most unusual. After the first hour we had 33 QSOs logged – which was seven up on the previous year. Things were starting to look good. I was surprised at radio propagation and conditions generally. The SFI was at 110 and the K index was around 5. Consequently, I was not anticipating many DX QSOs, but how wrong could I be… I was amazed that using 100W and the doublet antenna, albeit at 15m high, at just how often we could call and work many Japanese, Chinese, Middle Eastern and Asiatic Russian stations on 15m with reasonable ease. Our signals were not as strong as other European stations but with some deft calling, we did manage to break through a few pile-ups. An eye was frequently kept on 10m but as I mentioned before, there was no apparent propagation. We attempted to generate some activity by calling CQ on the hour each hour of daylight but soon realised that it was fruitless. We generally had two operators in the operating tent at all times – one to operate the radio and the other to log the contacts. Separately, Rod M0RDV was in charge of the mess facilities in the larger white marquee tent. After the first couple of hours, we swapped operators. There was a roster showing operator duties – which we used as a guide – but actually it was much more informal and we swapped whenever people wanted a break.
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After two hours, we were up to QSO number 108 and we had maintained our lead on last year’s tally at the same time. This was most encouraging. Not only is the QSO rate important but accuracy of logging the correct callsign and exchange details are equally important. One further complication, which makes a significant difference to the score, is the requirement to work as many ‘multipliers’ – stations who are in new DXCC countries that we had not already worked – as possible. At the end of the contest, these multipliers are totalled up and multiplied by the QSO points to create a final score. By this time, in an attempt to improve our rate, we had moved on to 40m. On this band, and with the propagation in the middle of the afternoon, we seemed to have a strong signal around the UK and Europe. As a result, we stayed on this band, calling CQ and ‘running’ stations for another three hours. This burst of activity allowed us to be on serial number 171, which was 30 ahead of last year. We cycled around the bands again, trying to nab a few multipliers wherever possible or any QSO on the HF bands, but it was not as easy to make QSOs and hence the QSO rate began to fall. At 18:50z, we moved to 80m. John G8FMJ was in control and maintained a healthy rate. He got us to QSO number 411 at 22:00z. We carried on looking at the LF bands throughout the night. On 40m at 01:30z we managed to work a few East Coast North American stations. Frequent QSYing between 80m and 40m throughout the darkness period carried on until 03:00z. At this point signals started to appear on 20m and we even managed to break the pile-up to 3B9EME (Rodriguez Island) at this time. However, our overall QSO tally was slightly down on the previous year and, therefore, it became apparent that we needed to try to improve things. This included several more cycles around 80m and 40m during the early hours of the morning. By 07:00z we were slightly down on our QSO total compared to last year but our multiplier total was slightly higher. More contacts were going to be needed and it got progressively more difficult to find stations that we had not already had a contact with before. It needs dogged determination to constantly search and find new stations. We did have a legitimate connection to the DX Cluster, which enabled us to quickly move to new stations and multipliers as they appeared on the band map display on the logging PC. By 12:00z – with just one hour to go – the rate had again started to tumble. We were fortunate that John G8FMJ then sat down to operate and managed to exploit conditions on 40m, despite us having flogged the band throughout the entire contest, and made a further 58 QSOs in that final hour – a fantastic achievement.
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Weather The weather over the weekend had been generally good – light winds on the Friday and Saturday – but overnight on the Sunday morning we were greeted with quite a thick mist. Unfortunately, later in the morning the weather changed again and by the time we had started to pack gear away, the rain had just started to spit a little. The rain came and went throughout the morning but we just about managed to pack away all the gear in the dry. The operating tent and doublet antenna.
A panoramic view of the Field Day site.
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Statistics At the end of the 24 hours continuous operating period, and with a tired team, we ended up with the following QSO statistics: BAND
QSOS
POINTS
MULTS
3.5
300
1216
19
7
387
1470
32
14
100
372
38
21
43
138
20
28
0
0
0
Totals
830
3196
109
348,364
This compares very favourably with the scores we had from previous years. Of course, propagation is different each year, as are the scores from other teams. As this report is being written, the closing date for logs has passed. As ever, the adjudication process takes some weeks to complete but just going by the QSO total alone, G3WOR/P has the highest claimed QSO total in the Restricted section, which is a fantastic achievement. The accuracy and multiplier figures may negatively affect our total score and we shall have to wait for the formal results to be published before we can open any champagne. [Since this article was written, it has been confirmed that for the first time in the Club's history, we actually won the Restricted section of the annual contest – Ed] I would like to thank all those who got involved this year. I was greatly heartened to see Roger G7VBR come along towards the end of the contest to help us take down the masts, tents and so on. Thanks also to Edmund 2E0MDO for getting up and on to site at about 6am on the Sunday morning to help Rod with catering – what fine fellows. Also, my grateful thanks to Rod M0RDV for organising and managing the catering for everyone, to Gerry 2E0WGB and Dawn 2E0DSK for help with operating and keeping the generator filled with fuel and to Norman 2E0RKO who, with his cheerful nature and enthusiasm, helped us along. We always rely on certain key people: Phil G4UDU, John G8FMJ and Pete G4LKW to help make this event happen. This year, it was made a bit easier still with the help and assistance of Andrew G1VUP. The photographs in this article were taken by Andrew, Dawn and John. Shall we do it again? 73, Graham G4FNL
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RALLIES MARCH March 1st – The Lagan Valley Rally Hillsborough Village Centre, 7 Ballynahinch Road, Hillsborough, Co. Down BT26 6AR March 2nd – The Exeter Rally America Hall, De La Rue Way, Pinhoe, Exeter EX4 8PW March 9th – The Wythall Radio Rally Woodrush Sports Centre, Shawhurst Lane, Hollywood, Wythall, Birmingham B47 5JW March 15th – The National Radio Flea Market Autotron Rosmalen, Graafsebaan 133, Rosmalen 5248, Netherlands March 16th – The Dover Rally Whitfield Village Hall, Sandwich Road, Whitfield, Dover, Kent CT16 3LY
APRIL April 6th – The Callington Rally Callington Town Hall, New Road, Callington, Cornwall PL17 7BD April 6th – The Norbreck Rally Norbreck Castle Hotel Exhibition Centre, Queen’s Promenade, Blackpool FY2 9AA April 13th – The Hack Green Bunker Rally Hack Green Secret Nuclear Bunker, French Lane, Nantwich, Cheshire CW5 8BL April 13th – The Kempton Rally Kempton Racecourse, Staines Road East, Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex TW16 5AQ April 13th – The South Gloucestershire Rally Woodhouse Park Scouts Activity Centre, Fernhill, S. Gloucestershire BS32 4LX April 20th – The Ripon and District Amateur Radio Society Radio Rally Hugh Ripley Hall, Ripon, North Yorkshire HG4 2TP April 27th – The Andover Boot Sale Wildhern Village Hall, just north of Andover (Grid reference SU350510), SP11 0JE April 27th – The Yeovil QRP Convention Digby Hall, Hound Street, Sherborne, Dorset DT9 3AA
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G1EXG’S SHORT CIRCUITS
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ay back in the 1980s I used to buy an electronics magazine called Hobby Electronics, which I really enjoyed and learnt a great deal from. Every month they would have a range of interesting projects that you could build. They also had very short articles called Short Circuits. These were basically a circuit diagram with just a few words of text describing the simple circuit. I really found these inspiring; there were simple radios and transmitters, a basic burglar alarm, a transistor tester and so on. They also had Short Circuits illustrating how interesting ICs or unusual components worked. They were pithy inspiring ideas to get you thinking and experimenting. I thought this might be a good idea for regular articles in WADARC Ragchew so every issue I will include another of my own favourite Short Circuits. Some will be for beginners while others will be more demanding – I hope you enjoy them, Jonathan G1EXG
Short Circuit No. 1: Calculating a Series Resistor for an LED
In the first of the series, we look at how we calculate the value of the series resistor you need to light an LED.
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A typical red LED requires 1.8V at about 10mA (0.01A) to light brightly. If you wire up an LED directly to a 9V battery, you will very likely damage the device. A series resistor can be used to limit the current. From Ohms law we know that the value of the resistor should be equal to the voltage drop required, divided by the current that we want to flow. For the red LED on the 9V battery we should therefore have:
R = (9 – 1.8) / 0.01 = 7.2 / 0.01 = 720Ω In real life, LEDs will work on a wide range of currents (I have a hyper bright red LED that will light with only 0.1mA!) and so the value of the resistor is not critical. For 9V, the nearest preferred value of 680 or 820Ω will do. To light an LED on a 12V car battery, use 1kΩ, for the 5V output of an Arduino circuit, use 330Ω and for the 3V output of a Raspberry PI, you can use 120Ω.
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GB1SCW SPECIAL EVENT STATION
B
ack in June, while I was operating at Amberley Chalk Pits Museum GB2CPM with Pete Penycate, we discussed the idea of running a special event station from Shoreham Watch. It would celebrate the work of our coastal watch communities and the five-year anniversary of the Shoreham Watch based at Shoreham beach. This would also outreach and promote NCI and WADARC. With the closure of many coastguard stations (including the one at Shoreham), the NCI is restoring a visual watch over the UK coastline. Including Shoreham, there are more than 55 watches run by the NCI and many are open to the public.
The watch room already has at least five VHF radios being monitored so the running of a special event station actually in the watch room itself would have interfered with the watch duties. As Barrie Turner, Shoreham NCI Station Manager, had already made a presentation to WADARC about the National Coast Watch history and objectives, introductions had already been made and approval was duly given by the Watch committee in July for the 13-15th of September.
Approval I’m a qualified watch keeper so I approached the Shoreham NCI committee to get approval to run a station at the Watch in their training room below the watch room.
Operators John G8FMJ was approached with a request to have WADARC members run a special event station at the
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Bryan was also going to get the ICOM756 Pro Mk3 radio, speaker and power supply from John G8FMJ and bring it to the Watch on the Friday morning. Peter, Bryan and I planned to operate on Saturday 14th and on the 15th Peter would also attend to operate with Phil and Bryan coming to dismantle the antenna and take the equipment back late in the afternoon.
Shoreham Watch. This was discussed in an open forum and offers of support were made from the club members to supply equipment, set up the antenna and operate. It was noted that the chosen dates of September 13-15th were close to the earlier Lighthouses on the Air event in Shoreham Harbour. On Ofcom’s website I applied for approval for a notice of variation of an amateur radio full licence (M0HJF), authorising the use of an amateur station at a special event. I was given approval and assigned the callsign of GB1SCW (Shoreham Coast Watch). I had become both a radio special event station keeper and a watch keeper. I must say that the service I received from Ofcom was excellent.
Setting Up On the morning of September 13th, I logged on at the Watch station with WADARC members and shortly afterwards Phil’s red truck turned up in the fort car park, followed by Bryan soon afterwards. We manhandled the antenna supports over to the Watch with the wire antenna, radio and so on. Assembly of the antenna was easy. Phil had designed the system for us and so that he could evaluate its use by Adur Communications. The main 8m support was strapped to the iron railings surrounding the station and the inverted V trapped dipole laid out north to south along the harbour wall. It could not have been much closer to the water so we expected to get a good take off. The dipole ends were supported about 2m above the top of the harbour wall on conveniently positioned posts behind a security fence.
Preparations During August, the QRZ.com and eQSL websites were activated and GB1SCW promoted within the NCI, in RadCom and Practical Wireless and through WADARC. On the September 11th at the club’s Wednesday meeting, the final arrangements were put in place. It was decided to keep the radio setup simple, working without an amplifier at 100W max. Working at this power should prevent any problems with breakthrough on the marine VHF radios used at the Watch. Phil and I decided to meet at Shoreham Watch at 0900 on Friday 13th to erect the antenna.
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We were soon working a new station every few minutes until 1400, when we took a break. During that session we logged 78 QSOs, most sent and received at 59 with 17% at 59+. At 14.51 we started again, working mainly England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Germany and the Netherlands. Due to XYL commitments, we closed at 1700 UTC, by which time another 59 had been logged. Also, I must not forget to mention that Andrew operated the station for about an hour and I should also offer my apologies to any members who attended the station in the afternoon and found we had closed down early. On Sunday 15th the weather was fair to start but the forecast was for
We took the supply cable in through a side window in the training room and connected it to the radio. Within a couple of minutes we had transmitted successfully on 20m and 40m. Phil then left to do a job for the Mid-Sussex Radio Club. Bryan and I then transmitted using the GB1SCW callsign, making some contacts on 20m before disconnecting the antenna, locking up the Watch training room and logging off the station with the watch keepers at noon. On Saturday 14th, with fair weather and low water due at around noon, at 0802 UTC Peter started calling CQ on 40m, settling on 7.184MHz SSB, with Bryan and me on the crayon.
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off from the Watch. During the event several of the watch keepers showed an interest and came down to view the station. At least two of them expressed an interest in attending WADARC meetings. We identified at least five radio contacts from other costal watch stations keepers. Reports from the watch committee members have all been positive and running the event next year as Coastal Watches on the Air is a thought. It certainly promoted NCI and WADARC and it was good fun. It was comfortable too – Peter commented that the NCI Watch was one of the few venues that offered an en-suite.
rain, poor visibility and gale force winds in the late afternoon. At 0742 UTC Peter made the first QSO with Peter completing the log. As on Saturday, QSOs came every few minutes with a high percentage from Germany in the first hour. We received excellent reports, similar to Saturday. During the day the Fort ran an event involving chasing after a marque behaving like a kite and firing antique weapons. By 1439 UTC Phil was on station, keen to get the antenna down and with a full gale and rain we reluctantly agreed to stop operating. We had achieved 136 QSOs in seven hours, with a total of 273 contacts for the two days. We have had responses too, 21 requesting an eQSL reply and 11 asking for QSL cards from the Bureau. We are currently getting cards printed. Not surprisingly the antenna dropped down easily with a gale helping it along. All of the equipment was taken safely away by 1530 UTC, when we logged
Howard M0HJ
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CLUB DIARY MARCH 1st ............................. Advanced Course Exam 1st ............................. Foundation Course Exam 2nd ............................. Monthly breakfast meeting at the Goring Café 3rd .............................. 80m CC Data Contest 5th .............................. A Day in the Life of a Highways Traffic Officer ................................... by Norman 2E0RKO 12th ............................ Discussion Evening 12th ............................ 80m CC CW Contest 19th ............................ Fixing the Top 10 Things That go Wrong With Your PC ................................... by Andrew G1VUP 20th ............................ 80m CC SSB Contest 26th ............................ EGM and GX3WOR On-The-Air evening ...................................
APRIL .................... 6th .............................. Monthly breakfast meeting at the Goring Café ...................................
MAY ...................... 11th ............................ Mills on the Air ...................................
JUNE ..................... 15th .............................. PW QRP Contest ...................................
JULY ..................... 26th ............................ Worthing Fire Brigade Open Day
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ITEMS FOR SALE If you have any equipment you would like listed here, please send me the details via e-mail (roger@radiouser.co.uk).
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