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Firstly, I'm thankful to everyone that rallied around behind the scenes to get the ball rolling on the new shack radio.
Having the fund, and seeing the graphic totalizer on the website really does help to focus people's minds on what's required, to generate healthy discussion about the club shack itself, as well as elevating club ambitions in general.
We should hear from Burgess Hill Town Council this month (October) as to whether we have been successful in our grant application, and I have absolutely no insight into how that might go, so we can only be hopeful. Applications are open twice a year, and I will keep submitting applications in support of our various contributions to the local community now the club is growing again and pushing forward on all fronts.
What I would like to express in particular is my gratitude for the donations that have already come into the club to fund a new radio. I'm not privy to the details of individual donations, but I do know that the majority of the truly active members have contributed, and that's heart-warming. Whilst that spirit is alive and well in the club, we'll do OK.
If you haven't donated yet, then please consider it. We have even had sizeable donations from more than one non-member. Amazing.
Watch this space for further updates out of the committee meeting this evening, and get yourself down the clubhouse tomorrow night if you want to see something a bit special happening. Things are really moving quickly now.
Berni M0XYF
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Stella has kindly published an October issue of the newsletter, which is available for download below:
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Interesting lunchtime net today, and I thought I'd provide a quick update on the club's KiwiSDR usage.
All four primary slots were filled today at 13:30, and all tuned to the lunchtime net - myself, Barry, Bob and Russell. There were also three additional 'campers', so seven people listening at the same time - a record for our SDR as far as I'm aware. 'Campers' are users who have no control over the receiver settings per se, but can piggyback onto one of the four primary audio output channels. I'm not 100% sure of how many campers are possible in total, but I believe it's three per primary user in this 'mode', which would give a maximum of sixteen users, but don't quote me on that - it may be less.
Beyond the basic maths of the chosen schema, there is a practical limit on the bandwidth of both the device itself and the maximum combined upload capacity of the Internet connection at the hall. I doubt very much whether we're approaching the latter, but the former is an unknown.
Just to recap briefly on previous articles, the Kiwi can be set up in one of three modes. One is an experimental high-quality audio only mode, which is great, but limits the number of users to just three. Not much use to us. The second mode is what it's set to right now - four users with regular audio quality and all with the graphical waterfall display.
The third mode is eight concurrent users. Whilst this mode allows eight primary users, only two of them (first come, first served) get the nice waterfall display. As we're regularly seeing more than four users wanting to access the SDR at a time, I'm going to switch it to this mode and see how it works out. It's just a trial, but if it works well and usage levels continue as they are it's probably the best option, above limitations notwithstanding. This mode will be switched on this morning (Saturday 1st October). I'm not sure how many campers this mode will support but I guess we'll find out as the club's SDR becomes ever more popular.
Other than that, I hope everyone's enjoying the new facility.
Band conditions were relatively good on Friday, with Bob (5&3 QSB) David (5&5 QSB) and Barry (4&3 QSB) all breaking through the KiwiSDR/Wellbrook noise level from time to time. I'm very happy with how it's performing generally speaking.
On other topics, I can hook Bob up occasionally for remote access to my Yaesu, but more often than not, I'm either testing developmental data modes and software on another band, testing other hardware SDR's on one of my loops, or using LoRa devices on ISM bands - none of which are compatible with 100W of HF out of the FTDX10. Remote operation of my HF station also requires exclusive use of the radio's single USB connection, which means I can't simultaneously run raw data or even standard digimodes etc. Hope that clears that up. That's why I'm often also listening on the SDR.
If any other full-licence-holding member wishes to book a slot with me to experience how it works, give me a shout. You'll need a Windows 10 or 11 PC with enough horsepower and enough disk space to install the SCU-LAN10 software.
As a final aside, there are another two contributions to the SDR transceiver fund incoming, so if you haven't donated yet, please consider helping to speed us on our way to the target.
I'm glad David likes the website too, by the way. Thank you for your kind comments.
Berni M0XYF
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Last Friday evening at the club, (live-streamed on our usual Zoom link) John Berry gave a talk on the fascinating world of Sporadic E.
Sporadic E (often abbreviated Es) is an unpredictable event that can happen at almost any time. It does, however, most often develop around seasonal peaks and normally during the daytime.
It's an unusual type of radio propagation which occurs within the E layer of the Earth's upper atmosphere at a height of between 50 and 100 miles, and can give rise to surprising long-distance communication opportunities for those radio operators that are ready to take advantage on the 2m, 4m, 6m and 10m amateur bands.
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A wonderful afternoon of proper outdoor radio fun, interesting chat and beautiful scenery, not to mention the evocative soundtrack provided by the steam locos snorting their way north out of Horsted Keynes station on the Bluebell Railway.
The weather was entirely cooperative and it was very comfortable sitting around and chewing the fat in shorts and a t-shirt. A few circular dog-walks, the melodic sounds of a reasonable tribute band wafting up occasionally from platform one to our elevated position in the top field (apart from the murderous rendition of Wonderwall, for which I reported they guy for breach of copyright, it was that bad).
Oh, I forgot to mention that the chaps from DRG (Downland Radio Group) from who we received a gracious invite for the weekend, worked their way relentlessly through a pile-up for the entire four hours I was there. Excellent!
A few MSARS members made their way into the log on the day, including Adrian, Ron and Rob that I heard. Maybe a couple of dozen other ROTA stations too. Later in the afternoon, continental stations outnumbered the GB stations, with QSO's predominantly on 40m. Really good results from the 66' inverted V doublet.
I chased them down from my shack on Sunday too, and left my mark in their log at 7.170MHz.
A huge thanks to Gavin for the invite, and to the other members of the DRG for their hospitality and good company. I was at their last ROTA in 2019, and as long as we're invited back, I'll definitely be making it a regular reservation in my diary.
You can find out more about the SES GB0BR (Bluebell Railway) on QRZ here: https://www.qrz.com/db/GB0BR and on ROTA in general here: https://rota.barac.org.uk/
A great day catching up with a handful of old friends, and making a few new ones too.
Berni M0XYF
