News
- Details
- Written by: Maintenance Guy
- Category: News
- Hits: 56
A quick update for anyone wondering how we got on at the weekend.
Blessed by the weather once again, I turned up at about 10am with a car full of stuff and the keys to an actual windmill!
I'd scoped out the site both on satellite maps and in-person a couple of weeks before, and discovered that there was really nothing to attach an antenna or mast to anywhere. Not to be deterred, I figured that if push came to shove, I'd just run a Hamstick on the car, or a vertical 17' stainless telescopic quarter-wave and loading coil. I'd already decided that I was going to focus almost exclusively on 40m to keep things simple. Anyway, the short version is that I spent most of the day either chatting to people, or putting antennas up and down. That's just the way it goes sometimes. Two members from the mill society showed up and were both really nice chaps (Chris and John), and were genuinely glad that the mill was being activated again. My pleasure, and it was an honour.
40m wasn't really playing ball, coming and going as it does some days.
I went with the telescopic whip to start with, as it's easy to deploy with a handful of radials, but with the site layout as it is, I had to run 20m of RG8 coax out the door of the windmill and into a 'safe' corner where I could tape-off the area and put up all the blessed safety signs. I know. I spent more time putting up warning tape than anything else.
Turns out, that hidden in the trees in an adjacent garden was a power distribution pole which destroyed reception on the band. I eventually gave that up as a bad job, but then Chris M7VJE turned up, which made things much easier - and we managed to get a sort-of-ok EFHW up by utilising a distant tree and a 10m mast on my drive-on mount. A bit sketchy, but the interference was gone.
Unfortunately, so was the general reception. I did work about a dozen stations on SSB with the help of George G4PTJ, who called in, and then spent a while spotting us on the cluster and relaying messages from stations that could hear us, but which we were totally unable to decipher sufficiently. Thanks for trying George.
Chris stayed around for a few hours, and then Dick G1AFU turned up. We chatted for quite a while, and then at about 5 o'clock I decided to start clearing up and packing away.
Once I was left with just the antenna up, I changed my mind and decided to work on into the evening, as I really wanted to get the SES callsign for Gavin on the air properly and into some logbooks. I switched to FT8 and stayed until the light started going at around 8:00pm. I'm glad I did, and I finished the day with 65 QSOs, which I was happy with.
I had a fun day in the sunshine, and that's all that matters really. Thanks to everyone that checked-in or stopped by for a chinwag.
73,
Berni M0XYF
- Details
- Written by: Maintenance Guy
- Category: News
- Hits: 48
Bob N4XAT sent in this reminder a couple of days ago, and I thought it was something that some of you might be interested in - and maybe having a go at?
Remarkably, Bob informs me that 102 museum ships have already registered for the event (which is just for fun, and not a contest).
The list is pretty impressive, and can be viewed at the Battleship New Jersey ARS website here: https://www.nj2bb.org/museum/
The event runs from midnight to midnight UTC both days.
- Details
- Written by: Maintenance Guy
- Category: News
- Hits: 52
Well, they've really dragged their heels over rubber-stamping their prior decision to remove the deeply unpopular evening parking charges in Burgess Hill, Haywards Heath and East Grinstead, but Mid Sussex District Council have finally implemented this change today, Monday 11th May 2026 via a statutory notice.
You can read more about it on the BBC Sussex website here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn5px20452do
From what we understand, this simply revokes the prior extension of charges levied (between 18:00 and 20:00) made 18 months ago, but does not affect the charges on a Sunday. We'll have to wait until they update their website https://www.midsussex.gov.uk/parking-travel/parking/ and erect the expensive new signage in the car parks themselves to know for sure. What a waste of our time and money.
Still, at least we can go back to attending our club on a Friday night, parking in the Cyprus Road car park, and not having to pay for the privilege.
A win for for common sense and the pressure of local elections!
Berni M0XYF
- Details
- Written by: Chris G4ZCS
- Category: News
- Hits: 78
First a quick note to those who do not have access to RadCom. The May edition has an obituary for Peter Rhodes. His design for an auto ATU became a club project, mine served me well for many years especially as I did some mods during the building phase. Can you remember the PicaTune?
As mentioned last month I have been experimenting with datamodes.
Because I have difficulties speaking for more than half an hour and my wrist is too tight to operate a Morse key at any sensible speed, I have been using FT8 as my main mode. It is ideal for DXing as the exchange is call plus grid reference and signal strength.
A while back, a new version was released, FT4. This runs at twice the speed of FT8 and the programs in use are stable and relatively bug free. In mid February another version was released for testing, FT2. This Italian program runs at twice the speed of FT4 and 4 times that of FT8. At the time of writing there are two programs to chose from; Decodium Ver 3 and WSJT-X v3.1.0. Both perform in a similar fashion so anyone trying this out can take their pick.
As an aside, the Dinosaurs among us will say that CW is just as fast so why bother? Having tried FT2 I would say the two are very similar, so watch this space for further improvements and possibly an increase in take-up to a 'mainstream' mode.
Over Easter weekend I tried running FT2 in 'auto CQ' mode. It works well but sitting staring at the screen as calls are automatically logged doesn't seem right.
The May edition of RadCom has a descriptive article on the operation of FT8. I found that it answered several questions such as how does it decode so many signals in such a short time? I think that Joe Taylor, the author of this mode, needs a vote of thanks.
Now on to my activity. The month started with 155 DXCCs in the log. Tea time on the first saw 1A4F in the log. Scam? Possibly, but there is a confirmation on EQSL. Also on the 1st I worked TJ1GD/P on AF-095 - one of the rare islands off Cameroon. And I got S21WD for IOTA AS-140.
On the 2nd I was called by VK2WN from OC-001. On the 6th I had a surprise as I had a voice contact with D60DX on Comoros Isl's. Africa is still giving up its secrets with 7Q9BK from Malawi and 3X3A from Roume Is'l in Guinea for AF-051
As I write this I have just worked the following on 20m FT8; C5D The Gambia, JA7DXX Japan, 7P8WR Lesotho, JA1PPW, and JH7CVM, both on AS-007. Not bad for a bit of blue wire & 200W!
And all in 15 minutes.
The QSL card is from Palau and came with a confirmation of Taiwan.
Cheers
Chris G4ZCS
- Details
- Written by: Maintenance Guy
- Category: News
- Hits: 78
Bring a project, a story, a packet of biscuits, a friend. It doesn't matter.
I'll be bringing my laptop and doing a brief demo of my latest build - a software development.
I'm writing a suite of programs to manage my radio activities, so on-air operations both in the field and back in the shack. It's a simple concept, designed to make managing my activations, QSO's and associated notes easy to capture, organise, view and share, and it works like nothing else that I know of.
The first part is a lightweight field-logging component which is easy to use and fault-tolerant. It's at the working prototype phase, and just needs a few minor changes but is fully working and field-tested.
I'll do a short presentation, and if there is any interest, I'll maybe do a proper talk on it later in the year. Here's a sneak-peek of the main operating screen:
Maybe see some of you on Friday evening.
73
Berni M0XYF
