As is customary, I am presenting my analysis of the Club’s HF nets for the year now ended for your consideration. By the end of 2022 the new cycle had begun to become favourable allowing the HF bands to gradually open for traffic.
I made the change from 20m back to 15m on the 8th January 2022 anticipating that 15m (where we started up so many years ago) would allow us to hold a regular net without too much QRM and this has proved to be the case so - I cut down my 20m loop to make a new 15m square quad loop with vertical polarisation and this has proved to be about as good as a simple wire antenna can be.
My findings on the two HF nets for the past year are as follows:
The Sunday Morning 80m Net (from 8:00 clock time on 3.742 MHz +/-)
14 MSARS members took part, 3 less than in the previous year and 13 non-members joined in, just one less than in 2021. Alain F4GHB was a very welcome participant again and Bob, N4XAT tells me that he heard us via an SDR once or twice even at that time of the morning!
Sean and I completed another year celebrating our 2000th contact on the 20th February when we were joined by 11 others for a 13-member net on that occasion. Our latest total is now at 2040 having completed another 47 contacts last year (well he did go to Friedrichshafen so missed a couple of weekends). We have had a couple of face-to-face meetings and plan to continue our weekend chats on Sunday mornings for the rest of the year at least.
Several of our members took advantage of the remote working facility now available to us, Phil ‘UDU calling in from Portugal one morning using the Cyprus Hall Flex radio and we also had contacts using the Worthing remote several times.
The Weekday Lunchtime 15m Net (13:30 clock time on 21.345 MHz +/-)
A fall off in attendance this year since only 18 MSARS members called in compared with 21 in 2021, but as predicted in last year’s review the new antennas were built and installed during the year allowing members to access the Cyprus Hall facilities and call into the lunchtime nets from a variety of different localities. Phil G4UDU called in from CT1 using the new remote mode and Steve GJ6WRI also contacted us from his home in Jersey and Norway using a LA prefix. Dick G0LFF used several locations mobile and /M during the year as did Mervyn M0WVE.
49 non-members joined in compared to 34 the previous year now that the band conditions have improved, amongst them of course being David WB1EAD and Barry SA7GDB now both very regular. We also had three callers from the Ukraine showing how amateur radio transcends all boundaries.
We had a surprise when G4KEI Chris Gaston reappeared after years off the air. Chris, who some of you may remember as G8FBR was a friend of Tony Bailey G3WPO and was a member of MSARS from 1970 until 1982. Welcome back Chris, I hope we can hear more of you soon.
The new Digital modes would seem to be keeping some members from joining us on the HF nets but the VHF and HY nets continue to flourish. After all, it really does not matter which mode you use as long as you keep in touch with other MSARS members and read the website regularly to keep in touch.
Finally, I would like to put on record my grateful thanks to Bernie M0XYF and Phil G4UDU who have spent so much time and effort into designing, constructing, and installing the Flex radio and the new antennas at Cyprus Hall and continuing to improve these to the benefit of all of us. Bernie has also masterminded the website in his spare time. We are lucky to have members so talented who give so readily of their talents.
Me, I’m getting older day by day but will continue to run the old-fashioned steam radio HF nets for as long as I can. Remember, as I have said before, MSARS is your Radio Club and it’s all about antennas.
73, Ken G3WYN
