A fair few members congregated at Jack & Jill Windmills public car park last Friday evening to celebrate the 56th anniversary of the formation of Mid Sussex Amateur Radio Society.
Those that got there early (I think I was there at around 18:45) enjoyed some early evening warmth from the sun, but as the evening crept on, caps and hoods were increasingly donned and collars turned up against the chilly wind. Maybe a dozen of us were present, and it was nice to see a couple of other interested folks who turned up to chat and admire the views. Bob N4XAT also joined us via a video app. on Dicks phone, which was excellent, and we all had a turn chatting to him. It was obvious that he would dearly have loved to have been up there with us in person.
Merv M0WVE had bought his little Tarheel which was mounted on a tripod. He had succumbed to the overwhelming truth; that the path of least resistance is to control your radio and squirt some data back and forth with a Windows laptop and a USB soundcard. Yet still it was not straightforward, and we all stood around pointing and shouting at various Control Panel options before finally shuffling away in defeat. I suppose we really should have checked that the radio audio input and output cables were connected round the right way. Never mind. I'm sure it will all be sorted for Town Day on Sunday.
I got to the car park early because I wanted to do some more testing on the wee Amphenol Procom wideband antenna currently on loan from Phil G4UDU. I'm testing a number of options for consideration as a 'fit and forget' receive-only antenna for Cyprus Hall such that we can run WebSDR's and the like from the club shack. I'll produce an article on how that's going soon, but suffice to say for now that it performed remarkably well up on the Downs. Unfortunately, at home it happily pre-amplified more spurious noise than you can shake a stick at. My next testing location is going to be the public car park behind Cyprus Hall. That will be pretty telling I think. Lets hope I don't get arrested for hacking again.
Anyway, a pleasant evening was had, even though I seemed to be the only one observing the shorts-and-T-shirt dress code. I can see that next year we'll have to have bouncers on the gate.
73's
Berni M0XYF
