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Last month (23rd June) Chris M7VJE and I set up the Special Event Station GB0BH at St John's Park in Burgess Hill for Burgess Hill Town Day (aka 'Summer Fayre').
We got there in plenty of time, and had no problems getting the gazebo and table layout organised. We had quite a few bits of radio gear to demonstrate to the public, including two remote setups - one from my laptop back home to my Yaesu FTDX10, and the new club laptop configured to operate the club Flex 6400M just behind us in Cyprus Hall.
Chris also had his classic Yaesu onsite connected up (eventually) to Phil G4UDU's helically-wound 1/4 wave vertical, as seen in the background below. We also had plenty of handies, DMR radios etc. and some Meshtastic kit. We made good use of the club's 100Ah LiFePO4 battery and EE 4G LTE hotspot to connect everything together, which worked extremely well.
The day was not really about making loads of contacts, but raising our profile and trying to generate some more interest. We had several notable visitors during the day, including two potential new members and Dave Rowntree, drummer with the band Blur, candidate for the Mid-Sussex seat in the recent general election, and full amateur radio licence holder, as indeed is his partner!
Alan and Stella turned up on their return from a trip away and spent the afternoon with us, finally helping pack up and transport everything back into storage.
We also had a visit from club member Phil M5BTB and Terry M0TPJ, whose Sunday morning net we rather rudely interrupted from our very noisy park location!
See you at the next one, where we will hopefully be positioned further away from the plate-smashing stall :)
Berni M0XYF
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Following further testing today by a handful of members, the evidence is fairly conclusive that two-way communications are far easier on the 40m band than the 80m band right now, and so the Sunday morning HF net will switch to 7.085MHz starting this weekend. We'll continue to monitor the situation, but the change will remain in place until further notice.
Please note that this means that the Wednesday 40m net will NOT become a permanent fixture and will cease immediately.
Ken commented that Sean, Gerry, Phil, and Mervyn enjoyed the relatively good operating conditions this morning, with Sean at 5/8 rather than being unreadable on 80m. It will be intriguing to see what other MSARS members make of it on Sunday. Sean did comment that after a year on 80m in 1977, the net temporarily migrated to 40m for similar reasons, and It will be interesting to see how many MSARS members manage to make the band change on Sunday morning.
73, M0XYF
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Operationally, I have still been using FT8. As an experiment, I logged a short dash one lunchtime. Mostly Europe, there were just short of 25 in the first half hour but a few fewer in the second - but over 30 contacts and 24 DXCCs in the hour.
DX activity has been a bit slow this month, probably due to the summer 'E' layer absorption, however those working the higher bands have had some Sporadic E to play with.
As part of my reminiscing during the D-Day celebrations, I was reminded of Harry Patch, the oldest surviving veteran of WW1. The attached QSL shows him with Viv G4PLY, who operated a station in his memory.
I am also reminded of more peaceful times with this E40VB card from 2012.
This autumn sees the 100th anniversary of the first 'proper' DX between ZL4AA and 2SZ.
I was fortunate enough to have worked and confirmed both ends of this during the 90th anniversary. At the time of writing there are plans to repeat the celebration, so watch out nearer October.
I had another small bit of luck when the postman dropped a heap of envelopes on the mat with hundreds of bureau cards. These cards should give the 'newbies' a taste of things to come. Cards are ideal for showing friends what you have been up to in the shack, as well as being the proof needed for the major award schemes. Some of the pictures give spectacular views of far-flung corners of the globe and would make a great geography lesson for youngsters.
The photo shows just some of the recent cards from Germany!
This has also re-triggered my interest in the IOTA programme. I did a quick search of my log and found 54 contacts that had not been confirmed, so I have started to catch up on cards, ClubLog and hopefully LOTW (as it has just been restarted). My list shows 14 Oceana islands that need cards, so I’ll be busy for a while!
Don’t forget we are nearing the peak of the sunspot cycle - so make the most of conditions while they last, especially the DXpeditions that are only active for a short period.
Cheers & Good DX
Chris
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After my ever-so-slightly disparaging remark earlier this month on the cadence of TX Factor releases, just like busses...
Episode 31: https://youtu.be/Zqrcvr9GTyc
This episode covers:
A review of the new Icom IC-R15 Communications Receiver (Scanner)
The Anytone BT-01 Bluetooth Microphone
QO 100
The first geostationary amateur radio transponder (P4-A) on Es’hail-2 is a joint project by the Qatar Satellite Company (Es’hailSat), the Qatar Amateur Radio Society (QARS) and AMSAT Deutschland (AMSAT-DL).
There is a 500kHz Narrow Band Transponder which amateurs can use to communicate via USB or narrow band digital modes. No FM, AM or other wideband modes are permitted. 2.7kHz is the maximum bandwidth permitted. There is also an 8MHz wide transponder for DVB Amateur Television and other experimental digital modulation schemes. Uplink is in the 2.4 GHz band and downlink in the10GHz band.
DX Patrol Groundstation 2.0 (Part Two)
Based in Portugal DX Patrol have been manufacturing and selling QO100 suitable up-converters, down-converters and amplifiers for some time.
Designed for those without previous microwave experience in mind, their Ground Station 2 is a one-box solution for the generation of uplink signals by transverting up to 2.4GHz from a standard amateur transceiver and also transverting the downlink for reception. They also supply modified LNB’s and helical transmitting antennas for QO100 use.
The TX Factor website has a list of previous episodes here: http://www.txfactor.co.uk/episodes.html
Berni M0XYF
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As you may or may not have realised, the Sunday morning 80m net has been suffering from the effects of poor propagation of late, and it has therefore been decided to add a new weekly net on 40m.
The Sunday morning net will continue to run as normal (as will the 15m Lunchtime net), but from Wednesday 3rd July, there will also be a 40m net on 7.080MHz LSB from 08:00am. It will run until further notice, but may just end up becoming a seasonal thing. If it works out OK, I'll add it to the regular MSARS 'Net' schedule.
Sure, this frequency sits toward the bottom of the band, mixing it up with some of the 'recognised' digital mode frequencies, but at this time of the morning in the summertime, it tested fine earlier this week.
That could just be fortunate though, as 7.078MHz USB is the frequency nominally recognised as the JS8Call frequency, so be prepared to slide up the band five or ten Kc's if you can't hear anyone, or you can hear loads of digital wailing and squealing. You will also be just above FT8 on 7.074 USB too of course.
I believe that Ken G3WYN, Phil G4UDU. Sean EI7CV and Gerry EI9DZ are likely to be 'founder members', so if you're neither working nor having a lie-in, jump on 40 and call in.
'Nor' is a great word by the way, and greatly underused in my opinion.
73
M0XYF
