wythall radio club

Warwick G4WMH offers his reminiscences following the RSGB President’s comments on the passing of its Patron HRH, The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, particularly with reference to his support for the Society’s 75th Anniversary Convention in 1988.

GB75AC was a Super Station to celebrate the RSGB’s 75th Anniversary Convention.  We operated for 10 days from a temporary “cottage” located next to Pendigo Lake in front of the NEC. 

The station was supported by all of the major importers and many UK manufacturers with peripherels and amplifiers etc.  We also had Icom, Kenwood and Yaesu rooms.

The station had the capability of “all HF bands plus 2m & 70cm” and many mode operation for 24 hours a day.  There was a very impressive antenna farm with 100′, 80′ and 60 ‘ towers and lots of wires. 

We waved some 2m & 70cm satellite antennas, but lacked the manpower to make any satellite contacts.

The camera shot was not wide enough to pick up all the antennas, some of which were quite a distance from the station including the verticals and wires.  

The signal flags in the outside shot spell out GB75AC – they were full size navy flags – very heavy with lots of windage so we did not fly them high.

We were inundated with visitors, including foreign royalty, government representatives, presidents and officials from many overseas societies, some celebrities and at least one astronaut, not to mention many DXers from around the world, many of whom wanted to operate the station. 

This was a time when RSGB Conventions were huge.  In those days we knew the NEC well and amateur radio operation was common from a wide variety of public and trade shows.

There was great teamwork.  Working closely with the RSGB, the station and the Prince’s broadcast was pulled together by an enthusiastic team from midlands clubs – Bromsgrove, Midland, Solihull, South Birmingham, Sutton Coldfield, Wythall and others. 

Guest operators from around the country signed-up to join the team, bringing amateur and professional expertise and borrowed kit to the station. 

One thing was definitely missing – there was no computer logging in those days.  Despite valiant efforts from team members we never got a stable network (or data).  However, conditions were pretty good at the time and we really did work the world!

A great challenge was the planned live broadcast of the Patron’s speech which we actually achieved on time – simultaneous transmission which we broadcast to the world on 80, 40, 20, 15, 10, 2 and 70cm.  What a pile up of call-ins once it was finished! 

To make the broadcast we required a high qualty cable link from the centre of the NEC, running through underground passages and under road culverts to get from the exhibition to the station.  And we had to get the very expensive cable undamaged back to the contractor who loaned it, ready for their professional installation just a few days later!

The next challenge (soon after the broadcast) was to exchange grettings messages between the Duke and Windsor Castle.  We had media pressure for this to be an exchange between His and Her Royal Majesties.  It seemed like a good idea at the time!!

We considered all sorts of options, including some fancy encryption technology, which was great fun to play with but even the professionals could not guarantee that it would work on the day.  We considered that it would be a nice thing to do but we only needed a nutter or two to ruin everything! 

The solution was two fold: 1. The Duke would pass greetings with a representative of the Society who would be located at Windsor Castle and who would return the greetings and thanks for his patronage. 

We were still concerned about unwanted interuptions and hit upon solution 2: We would not use an amateur band – we selected an “obscure” military frequency.

The Duke was standing in front of the then latest Yaesu showing a 40m frequency, whilst the microphone was actually connected to my trusty FT902DM in another room, with a separate antenna on the roof and controlled by me using a hand PTT and prompting the overs. 

It all went very smoothly with a nod of approval from the Duke!

Andorra, Albania and the Azores were amongst the countries contacted by Wythall Radio Club members in their Winter DX Challenge. 

The aim was to have two-way contacts with other radio amateurs in as many different countries as possible on the  40 and 160 meter short wave bands.  This Challenge ran through February and March.

With his Foundation licence, Tim M6OTN showed what could be done on 40m, working 90 different countries.  All this with low power and a vertical antenna (photo).

On Top Band (160m), Lee G0MTN worked 85 countries – great going with a mix of digital and CW modes. 

Club members had lots of fun talking to people in other parts of the world.  They used digital, voice and Morse Code transmisions at all times of the day and night.

Here’s a list of countries we contacted.

Ian M0IDR has been working on one of these classic rigs…….

The Yaesu FT101z or FT101zd are classic Hf transceivers from the 70’s and really solid made.  They feature a valve PA and driver and with the zd, a digital display of frequency. 

Photo left: Front of the transceiver which is a Mk1 the D in ZD denotes factory fitted digital frequency display. You will see this is missing as it is in pieces on the repair bench.

With some TLC these can be ready for another 40+ years of service.  Having sorted out one for a ham near Stratford,which had been stored for years, it spurred me on to find another example for myself.

The weaknesses in these rigs are: digital display issues, audio amplifier failure, connector issues, driver to PA capacitor leakage and dry joints on some circuit boards. 

Having found an example that looked decent, I already was aware that the S-meter and BFO dial lamps were intermittent and it blew fuses.  Well, it blew fuses because the fuses that were used were 2amp whereas the rig needed 3amp ones!  Correct fuse installed, receive works fine and fuse does not blow. 

It is so important to use the correct rated fuse, in this case a 3A fuse of the quick blow variety.  An example was the one I repaired for my Ham friend.  It had blown the fuse, and the replacement was a piece of lighting flex wrapped around it with a 13A fuse in the plug.  Yes it was “”fine”” on receive, but as soon as the PA valves warmed up there were fireworks inside the mis-matched PA valves with one of them dead short-anode to ground.  How it did not take out the anode choke remains a miracle.

However, after several hours on receive, the audio suddenly cut out just leaving the S-meter registering signals but no audio.  I assumed it was the audio chip that had failed.  I checked and failed to find an audio signal at the input to the audio amp. 

Photo right: A view of the underchassis showing just showing complexity of the audio and demodulation board with one of the power supply boards to the left.

The troublesone audio chip is on the rectangular aluminium heatsink.

However, this rig has the following external audio jacks: rear panel – line audio in;  front panel – phones jack and unlike other 101zds the phone jack also has a line out and switches both the output to the speaker and audio input to the amp.  Well,phones socket clearly had seen better days but was so buried in wiring that the only way to access it would be to remove all the controls and front panel.

Fortunately several insertions of a suitable 1/4 inch Jack plug cleared the problem. 

It is crucial to have service data with full schematics available together with diagrams of signal routing on receive and transmit to progress fault-finding logically.  In this case it helped but the wiring of the audio signal through the headphone socket to provide a audio line out was undocumented and unusual especially considering there was already a line out on the rear panel!

Dense component replacement makes voltage readings difficult and generally measurements are taken from the multi-way connectors which are plentiful on the chassis.

Photo right: The PA and bandswitching

Not shown in the photos, but above chassis there are 2 more circuit boards which have these white multi connectors and (fortunately) for the RF circuits, the boards plug in to multiway interfaces which are chassis mounted and make removal and replacement easy.

Spares are still plentiful and are usually sourced from rigs which have been parted out.

The electrolytic capacitors used in these rigs  in general are really good quality and although there are incidents of them failing,they are relatively few and far between.

Most rigs are parted out because of physical damage through being dropped, mains transformer failure, a PA meltdown or bizarrely frequency display failure.  Display failure is common and there are now “kits” to replace the readout with a LCD screen which can save the day!

Happy Days!

Wythall Radio Club is pleased to announce a new section to our website.

Training & Beyond can be found here or from the Training menu at the top of our homepage.

Divided into 3 sections, General, Training and Operating Resources, there is a veritable cornucopia of web links to really useful resources and information – all to help you in your Ham Radio journey.

Compiled with care by Chris G0EYO & our training team, we hope you enjoy them.

Our special Wythall Radio Club DX Challenge yielded lots of activity and fun.

Held over December and January, the aim was for members to work as many countries as poossible on the High Bands (20m-10m), Low Bands (30m – 80m) and Top Band (160m).

There was lots of activity on Top Band CW and FT8, with Lee G0MTN working 75 countries – and he also had the most unique countries across all three categories with 102 worked.

Chris G0EYO did well as usual, working 60 countries on the High Bands and the most countries across the three categories.  Kevin 2E0NCO was top of the Low Band table with 75 countries. 

FT8 was the preferred mode of Chris and Kevin, but members also used SSB and CW.

Our members have different equipment and antennas, some very restricted, so it’s more of a personal challenge to see what DX can be worked. 

Countries worked in this challenge include Malaysia, Tajikistan and Kenya.  You can find a full list of countries worked here.

Wythall Radio Club will be running their next online Foundation Training course starting on March 1st 2021.

The course lasts 8 weeks and candidates can book their own online, remotely invigilated, examination direct with the RSGB.  There is no charge for the course but there will be a limit to how many candidates we can accommodate.

The Foundation course is delivered via a virtual learning experience (VLE) software called EDMODO which is free to use and has gained world-wide acceptance as a safe and easy way for tutors to connect with their students at home via the internet.

Basically you sign up for the course and you get notifications via e mail that the course material and quizzes are available for you to download.

This will take place over an 8 week period with two lessons per week in the comfort of your own home and in a time of your choosing. We will deliver all the course material you need to complete the course but you will have to purchase the RSGB book “The Foundation Licence Manual” from the RSGB shop https://www.rsgbshop.org/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Training_19.html

You will also have to book and pay for your remotely invigilated examination (£27.50) direct with the RSGB but we will advise on how to do this when you register to do the course.

So, if you or someone you know wants to do this course then contact Chris G0EYO our training co-ordinator on g0eyo@blueyonder.co.uk as soon as possible to get your name on the list.

Wythall Radio Club are proud to unveil the newly named ‘Voice of the Midlands’ Jim Tonge 2E0BLP Trophy.

The Trophy will be awarded to the winner of the Club’s Christmas Contest 2m/70cm section.

Jim is a longstanding member of Wythall Radio Club, and has been a great supporter of our events and social activities.

Like many other members, he arrived in amateur radio from CB.

Jim has won the Club’s Christmas and Easter contests several times.  The photo shows him receiving the David Dawkes G0ICJ Easter Contest all bands/mode section shield. 

He has also proved particularly hard to displace from the top spot in the 2m/70cm sections of these contests – and although still keen to score points, it’s his son Kevin 2E0NCO who now regularly tops the score board! 

And as you can see from the photo below, one of his duties is brewing up at the Club’s field day (with Tim M6OTN).

It is because of his commitment to the Club and amateur radio – and hearing his distinctive Brummie accent on air – that we are delighted to name the ‘Voice of the Midlands’ trophy after him.

There was keen competition between Wythall Radio Club members over the festive period in the Club’s annual Christmas Contest. 

Over 1500 QSOs were made between the 46 members who were ‘on air’ for the 7 day event. 

Contacts were made using FM, SSB and CW as well as various digital modes including FT8 and D-Star, and the Club’s Zello channel.  There was even a RTTY (radio teletype) QSO!  

Chris G7DDN’s brand new RGO ONE rig also made an appearance (photo)!

And all bands from 160m to 23cm were activated. 

The contest brought together local members with those in Wales, Devon and Scotland.  Unfortunately, band conditions didn’t allow the hoped for 23cm contact with Darren GW0HOC.

However Mike G4VPD did reach Australia and New Zealand on 10m using FT8 (photo)!

Even the snowy weather didn’t discourage Kev 2E0NCO and Ian M0LQY (photo) from operating /P (socially distanced) from the Lickey Hills , and Chris G3YHF conducted some pushbike /M QSOs.

In the 2meter/70cm (VHF/UHF) section, Kevin 2E0NCO repeated last year’s success ahead of Miles 2E0YZW and Ian M0IDR.  Kevin retains the 2m/70cm Trophy – now renamed the ‘Voice of the Midlands’ Jim Tonge 2E0BLP Trophy.

In the ‘all bands/modes’ section, Simon G4TVR was first, and following close behind were Don G0NES and Ian M0LQY.  Simon receives the Reg Brown G7OJO Trophy.

The leading Foundation licencees received awards: Clive M7OCB in the 2m/70cm section, using a handheld, and Juliet M6RSC in the all modes section.  

Don G0NES received a certificate for making the most contacts using digital voice modes and John 2E0XET for making the most Morse contacts.  

Cheers to all participants (I’m told it’s just water!)!

The bands have been buzzing with Wythall Radio Club members’ DX activity!  And the results of our annual DX Challenge table are now available.

The leading Foundation entrant – in fact, the only one in 2020 – was Tim M6OTN, who contacted radio amateurs in an impressive 106 different countries (see map below – green indicates countries worked). 

One of the contacts was with Alberto, HC1DAZ, in Quito, Equador (see map right). 

Others were with Greenland, the Falkland Islands and China.

Tim used a mix of SSB (single sideband voice) and FT8 digital mode from either a Kenwood Ts 530 or a Yaesu 450d to a 1974 vintage pre-used ground mounted Hy-gain 18 AVT/WB – S vertical.

Nice going Tim, with a score that compares well with those in the other licence categories who are able to use more power!

There was a close result in the Intermediate licence group, with John 2E0XET pipping Kevin 2E0NCO by 100 countries to 94. 

This is all the more impressive as John was operating 100% CW (Morse Code) with a wire doublet antenna and often using very low power, while Kev was 100% FT8.

Lee G0MTN had a commanding lead in the Advanced licence group with 160 countries worked.  Tim M0URX was in second place at 123 countries, again impressive as these were all worked using SSB.

With conditions on the HF bands picking up, the score for the 2021 DX Challenge is already taking off!

Contacts in 179 squares across 3 bands put Mike G4VPD in the lead in Wythall Radio Club’s 6m and up squares challenge. 

The Challenge ran through the latter part of 2020, and shows that there was plenty to work on 6, 4 and 2m.

Most contacts were on FT8, but cw and ssb were also used by our 4 entrants. 

Although long distance contacts were dependent on the occasional ‘openings’ on these bands, there were plenty of European contacts to be had – especially on 6 and 2 – under normal conditions.

We look forward to the results – and plenty of openings – in 2021.