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- Written by: Maintenance Guy
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Spent a fun afternoon up at Jack & Jill on Friday. Checked into the Lunchtime Net at half-one, and when that was done, I set up my new (old) SGC SG-230 antenna tuner on the roof of my car, and attached it to about 8m of wire held aloft by a 10m fibreglass pole, itself supported by a drive-on mount.
I picked up the tuner off eBay a while ago, and although most of them seem to be cream-crackered in 2025, this one still works pretty well, though like most of us old folks, it does seem to need a little RF up it's coax to warm up before it'll behave properly.
Another antenna system to add to my growing collection. My long-suffering wife now refers to my car as the 'radio van'.
Anyhow, 2 hours operation on FT8, 39 contacts made on 9 bands. Yes, 9 bands I tell you!
My last article on POTA raised a little bit of interest in a couple of members, so come on you lot - get to a park near you soon!
Berni M0XYF
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- Written by: Chris G4ZCS
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In my experience February is usually a quiet month. Following on from the new year rush and before the equinox propagation changes. January finished with 116 DXCCs in my log.
So, it has been a good time for rag-chewing and discussing the merits of Whippet racing! On the 7th after a net with poor conditions, Gavin picked up a WA1 call and had a story swap about the old days. When they finished, I jumped in and discovered that Rich and myself also had much in common. His station is a top of the USA range one, located on a man-made island in Eastern Florida surrounded by salt water and the island is covered with ground rods permanently below sea level. No wonder he has a good signal!
'Race to the Top'
Uploading my log to ClubLog on a regular basis, I noted that there are several other club members doing the same. One in particular, George - G4PTJ, seems to lead the pack most of the time. I have been leapfrogging with Rob M0KPD/M up to 100 DXCCs for this year. I recognised several other locals, some of whom are thought to be 'big time DXers'.
Having spent some time on the WWW, I have joined some nets. One of these gives advance notice of DX activity. Using this information, I picked up a very rare island - AS-161 off the west coast of Kerela state in India. Just a few days of activation, and hopefully the team will work from more rare ones soon. Amazingly the very next contact was with a VK9 on Norfolk Island. Just 100W on CW! Now to get the card?
Retirement
As I mentioned last month, I have been thinking of retiring my K3 for some time, well, I did it!
I now have a shiny new rig - an Icom IC-7610 - that has reminded me that I’m a real Dinosaur. Gone are all the mini-buttons with half a dozen functions each, and in, is a glossy screen with loads of menus. I’m sure that I will get to use some of the obscure functions eventually, however the improvement is dramatic and makes me wonder why I delayed the update for so long!
At the time of writing, I've had a week of fun setting up all the functions I always wanted or needed, however there remain several small niggles that are being obstinate to fix. In fact after a week of frustration not being able to get FT8 audio out of the computer and into the rig, I discovered that I am not alone. There is a bug interacting between JTDX and Windows. Apparently, it affects WSJT-X as well. If anyone else has this problem please let me know the fix.
Back to the DX chase, on the 18th I worked W1AW for the first time this year followed by a string of US stations with interesting calls. W1SE, W0W, and W0RLD. Not to be out done the Russians have R1CE and many more like it. On the 24th I managed VK9XU on Christmas Island, this was the first time since 2012 I had even heard them.
The postman has been busy again with the first card in from a string of rare Indian islands. This one, AU2S, Sagar Is’l on AS-153 from late last year.
Targets? I have decided to aim for 300 DXCCs as I am just over halfway already.
Condolences & Remembrance
As the month draws to a close, we remember Val Nelson who kept us fed & watered at many a junk sale and amongst many other occasions supporting the club, she will be sadly missed. Our thoughts are with Russell G7TMR in this time of sadness.
[Webmaster] I echo Chris' remarks, and know that many members are indeed thinking of Russell, also a long-term supporter of the club of course. Deepest sympathies.
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As you may or may not be aware, 2025 marks the 25th anniversary of the passing of Louis Varney.
The MSARS committee think it appropriate that his famous callsign, G5RV (bequeathed to the society by Louis' widow Nelida) is activated more often from this year.
Society members have already given the callsign several outings since January 1st, and indeed MSARS have implemented a procedure by which any UK-based member may use it to celebrate Louis' achievements in (and lasting contributions to) amateur radio. It is unashamedly also a way to help promote Mid Sussex Amateur Radio Society going forward.
To view both previous and future activations of the G5RV call, please refer to the special 'G5RV On The Air' calendar at the bottom of our main Calendar page.
Members wishing to participate in activating the call, please check the calendar first. Anyone else who just wants to get the exclusive call in their log should keep an eye out here too!
Applicable rules for use are posted in the Members Section.
The G5RV logs will be uploaded electronically to QRZ.com, ClubLog.org and LoTW (Logbook Of The World). All files must be submitted to the club secretary in ADIF format (.adi files). No paper logs will be accepted from club members, purely because it causes extra work for our already overworked committee. The club are currently preparing an eQSL card, and also one which may be sent out via the Bureau. Exciting!
In related news, I've received some fantastic old QSL cards from Ken G3WYN.
Ken writes:
'Here are a couple of cards sent to me by Louis over the years.
One from his first ever contact from Ireland in 1978 when he an Nelida spent a week with Sean, Gerry and I in Ireland with our wives, and another sent in 1982 confirming a 10m contact with me whilst he (and Nelida) were in Uruguay on one of their annual South American trips'.
Wonderful nostalgia.
73,
Berni M0XYF
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Bob had kindly shared some of his personal photos - of times he spent visiting Mid Sussex over the years.
Hope you enjoy having a flick through. I'll post them a few at a time as he emails them over to me. These are apparently from April 2010.
Regards,
Berni M0XYF
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- Written by: Chris G4ZCS
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Welcome to a new year with the sun at or near maximum activity. Hopefully there will be some favourable propagation on the HF bands, and some on the 'magic' low VHF bands too.
I started off the year with no targets, so I have worked anything that comes along into my Christmas present - a new log book, No22. The first contact of note was with GB2HNY closely followed by Phil using G5RV. It must have been 10 years since it was last aired! Just a few days later Rob gave it a second session with great success.
Ignoring the USA as DX, the first one in the log was VU2MSA, in the evening I bagged ZD7CTO, D2UY, PY2AST, and 5 US calls. The 2nd bought more; BY0AB, TF3VE, J75K, J69DS, and HI8S all mixed in with many Europeans. The 3rd increased my DXCC score to 50 for the year, then the sun threw a wobbly that lasted the best part of a week, with rotten conditions. However, the 5th saw Rob (M0KPD/M) airing G5RV again. On the 6th I thought I’d try FT4 for a test and worked 9 DXCCs in just under half an hour.
The sun conditions finally settled, and on the 9th bought in No 75 for the year. Conditions have been far from favourable but there have been short windows of good DX, and on the 18th, I reached 100. Of note, as the hash subsided, I got VK8NSB, DP0GVN, and ZS4JAN. This gave me all 7 continents worked in just over 3 days.
I don’t know if anyone else came across these stations suffixed 'WWA' during January? A large group of stations created an activity that was to encourage band usage. I didn't try very hard to work them but did when I heard one. The award certificate shows that there were 153,539 chasers and I’m only No 8,114.
As the month came to a close, we had the sad news that Ken, G3WYN, our club president and master net controller has been forced to restrict his activities due to health issues. Ken has run the lunch-time net since 1979, long before I was licensed! A quick search of my log shows over 2,000 contacts with him. However, he is hoping to continue with the Sunday morning net so will be with us for some time yet.
As some of you might know my radio is an Elecraft K3 (an early one with a couple of updates) that was thought to be the best available at the time. Following a recent discussion about the latest offerings from Japan I thought I would look up my records - only to find that the K3 is 17 years old!
Looking at some of the newer radios on offer I decided that the K3 is now a bit outdated by comparison with the SDR base stations that have finally caught it up. Unfortunately, there is no longer any K3 manufacturer support in the UK, so a failure risks me being without a radio for quite a time.
One Japanese manufacturer not only has pretty coloured brochures on its web site, but a full back-up of technical manuals and reports as well. That, and a full importer’s support makes a change worth making. So, now is the time to look in the piggy bank and maybe a visit to 'The Toy Shop' before something goes 'pop', the shack fills with smoke and the XYL complains about having to scrape soot off the ceiling!
Good DXing,
Chris, G4ZCS
