wythall radio club

“All in all a terrific little Package”..

”The 817 is a super little package.. it changed ham radio.”

“The 817  was sublime”

 Two of Wythall radio’s geographically distant members have recently been paying tribute to the  amazing  (but now sadly discontinued) Yaesu  FT 817 radio. This little radio was first introduced in 2004 and has remained amazingly popular with radio amateurs all around the world for its versatility and suitability for QRP (low power) and mobile operation.

Our south coast correspondent Kevin Tatlow  G4XLO, has recently acquired one (left) and is excited at the prospect of portable operation out on the moors on Dartmoor in the Spring; a trial at his local allotment in Torquay is imminent! Not only that the amazing potential of this little radio on really low power has  enthused Kevin to stick with QRP for a while.

Meanwhile down in South Wales Darren GW7HOC reveals that he has two of these superb radios  and owned one of them for 20 years, working all over the world , including remarkably Australia (VK) from a tent in Devon on 20m. He has also worked the USA on 0.5 and 0.25 watts on CW much to the amazement of the high powered USA stations at the other end !!

The word that keeps recurring with the Yaesu 817 radio is ‘Fun’:  a comfortable fit for the Wythall Radio Club oft repeated motto:

 HAVING FUN WITH RF

PHOTO: https://www.pauloxmanpublishing.com/On-The-Antenna-Again,12804.html

Twenty-four members were active during Wythall Radio Club’s 7-day Christmas Contest.

Our members operated on all bands from 160m to 23cms, from home, mobile and portable.

We used SSB, CW, FM, FT8, Zello and digital voice modes, including the Club’s GB3WL repeater when necessary.

Martin G8VXX/M made lots of QSOs from his canal barge moored at Wootton Wawen, while Clive M7OCB was active /P while walking his dogs.

Ian M0IDR won the Jim 2E0BLP ‘Voice of the Midlands’ Trophy for his top score in the 2m/70cm FM section.  Great work from his QTH near Evesham – not an easy path to Club members who are mostly located in Redditch and south Birmingham.

However, he alone worked Simon G4TVR/P who was on his handheld in Ross-on-Wye, and Kev G4XLO/P on his day-trip to south Worcestershire.

Miles 2E0YZW and Sylwia M3SSP came second and third in the 2m/70cm section, and Sylwia was also the leading Foundation licencee is this category!

In the all-modes and bands section, Don G0NES retained the Reg Brown G7OBO Trophy helped by picking up all the band, operating and mode bonus points (left, receiving trophy from Mike G4VPD, Club President). 

As happened last year, Don G0NES made a special trip by car to make his 23cms FM contact for those extra 50 bonus points!

Chris G3YHF and David G7IBO were second and third, separated by only 5 points!

The leading Foundation licencee in this category was Clive M7OCB, who came fifth – an excellent result with his 10 watts and limited antenna.

The Club’s DX members were also active during the contest.  Kev G4XLO in Torquay provided valuable points on 40m FT8.  Dave GM3YXM was worked on Top Band SSB by several members.

50% of the Club’s members made Contest QSOs – 2E0BLP 2E0EGP 2E0LRV 2E0NCO 2E0XET 2E0YZW G0EYO G0HVN G0MTN G0NES G3YHF G(M)3YXM G4TVR G4VPD G4XLO G7IBO G8VXX M0IDR M0IFT M0LQY M0PPX M3SSP M6OTN M7OCB

Click here for the full results.

“HF band conditions are improving!” show the results of Wythall Radio Club’s 2022 DX Challenge.

21 Club members participated, working over 240 DXCC entities (countries) during the year. 

Our top scorers in the full licence category reached 236 (Lee G0MTN) and 202 (Dave M0IFT) countries. 

Lee used a mix of CW (Morse code), voice (SSB) and data (FT8) to reach his total, but amazingly worked over 150 countries on each of these modes! 

Meanwhile, Dave was only 3 short of his total on FT8 alone, the balance being made up with SSB contacts.

SSB-only Tim M0URX achieved an impressive 142 countries.

The Foundation and Intermediate licence holders were not to be left out. 

In the former, Tim M6OTN made a magnificent 106 countries, 104 of these using data modes, while John M6KET was CW-only and had QSOs with 80 countries.

Jim 2E0BLP was top of the Intermediate table with 96 countries.

Almost all the stations used simple wire antennas or verticals.

Great work and congratulations to everyone.

The 2023 Challenge is already underway.

As the bands are now open more frequently to the US, we are also running a ‘Worked All States’ Challenge – let’s see if anyone can report a QSO with those difficult to reach states of Hawaii and Alaska!

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL RESULTS

A cold misty mid-December afternoon.. an undisclosed destination on the fringes of South Birmingham (a safe house?).  Three mature males from Wythall Radio Club stagger their arrivals (to avoid suspicion?) and are ushered into a radio operating room the likes of which this scribe (John M6KET) has never experienced before. **

After the understated 40-watt light bulb atmosphere of last week’s QRP operation, here we are confronted with a console of modern DX and contesting equipment: Yaesu FTDX5000, keyboards, morse keys, headsets, linear amplifiers, Optibeam OB6-3M antenna rotator, computer screens showing automatic logging programmes, the global grey line and much else besides.

Yes, it was the second day of the ARRL 10m SSB/ CW contest and Lee G0MTN had kindly invited Chris G3YHF, Clive M7OCB and John M6KET into his beautifully designed ‘shack’ to operate the specially allocated call G5AT, celebrating the first European Amateur contact with the USA back in 1922.

No such challenge with contacts this afternoon as on a busy band QSO’s with our USA cousins flowed.  DX contacts included Chris making an effortless contact with Aruba and John had no trouble in reeling in Halesowen!

Clive was soon into the action with SSB and when both John and Clive faltered in the white hot heat of contest pressure Lee was on hand to keyboard us out of panic from a back seat!!

On one occasion scrambling for his usual pencil and paper on the desk in front of him, John was surprised and spooked to hear his contest CW QSO completed with his hands nowhere near the key- magic indeed.

Watching the skill with which Lee worked was an education in itself as he reeled off a string of points and contacts at astonishing speeds and I believe by the end of the afternoon some 150 contacts had been made.

The beam and power obviously helped but the legerdemain of the operator’s fingers on the keyboard is impressive (particularly if you are a one finger keyboard typist!).  One can only imagine the levels of concentration and endurance required when operating a full contest over 36/48 hours.

Our thanks to Lee and family for their hospitality, mince pies and coffee and this much appreciated opportunity to dip  into the contesting world on one of the major weekends of the season.

** Apologies this week to John le Carre

Two men approach Wythall House early on a cold misty late November evening.  About their persons they carry equipment that would fool the most vigilant security, reports John M6KET.

As they walk the deserted streets televisions screens flicker through half drawn curtains. 

But not even the England-Wales World Cup match can deflect these two dedicated operators from their goal: the operation centre of the Wythall Radio Club QRP HQ – the Dart’s Room in Wythall House. **

Yes, Tuesday night saw the Wythall Radio Club QRP night, an event that would bring to a close eight days of QRP operating to see: ‘How Low You Could Go’.

Once in the safety of the Darts Room at Wythall House a range of small, (mostly) portable radios was revealed to include (photo left) the tiny QCX+ mini 17m cw rig and the magnificent Discovery 500 radio, last seen operating from the summit of Bredon Hill. 

Also on show was the Elecraft KX3 and the older but very venerable K2 (photo right, with John M6KET operating).

The few QRP QSO’s made that night were really the climax of the 10 days that went before. 

Lee G0MTN, despite being fatigued, powered down to 5 watts and worked some 85 DXCC countries in two hours during the ARRL CQ WW contest at the weekend, including a memorable and recorded QSO with VK6T on 20m CW.

5 watts and 12000 miles .. as they say in the States “Do the Maths”.

Meanwhile, Chris G3YHF heroically rose from his bed at ungodly hours at the weekend, and using his doublet and 5 watts on 80m CW achieving 160 QSO’s with 39 DXCC countries in 8 different zones.

He worked, amongst others PJ4K Bonaire (1468km per watt!) (photo top of page), 10 Canadian and American stations and 3 African stations.

Columbia HK1MW was a close call but escaped and New Zealand was heard for around 20 minutes in the Winter Dawn Grey Zone (when dawn and dusk coincide across the world).

In sunny Torquay, Kevin G4XLO had fun with his 5 watts on FT8/FT4 working mainly European stations, Madeira Island and the USA.  His signal was also decoded in Brazil and Australia (photo right).

John, M6KET, spent the week using anything from 5 watts CW to half a watt, a K2 and the infamous 90’ dog-leg doublet. 

He was amazed how far 1 watt and then half-a-watt could reach with QSO’s with Switzerland, France, Andorra, Sweden and Hungary.

5 watts saw John make good QSO’s with the Bahamas, Belize, Central African Republic, Roderiguez Island and Antigua and Barbuda, all worked in the week leading up to the weekend contest.

There may well be others we have not heard from for QRP operators are notoriously modest and self effacing. 

But like the two agents mentioned above, they move under the radar with quiet efficiency, getting the most out of their simple but well designed equipment and having a lot of fun doing so.

Try it some time!!

(** With apologies to Ben Mcintyre)

TX5N – where’s that?

It’s the remote Austral Islands in the Pacific Ocean, activated by the Perseverance DX Group earlier this year.

And it’s kept Wythall Radio Club member Tim M0URX of United Radio QSL Bureau busy processing QSLs for their 50,000 plus QSOs.

This is the same group that activated VP8PJ, South Orkney Island in Antarctica earlier this year, for which Tim also supplied QSL management.

There’s a nice write-up about the TX5N DXpedition and Tim’s role in November 2022 QST – the ARRL magazine.

How can you put out the best signal on HF? And make a good score in HF contests? 

This was the theme for Wythall Radio Club member Lee G0MTN’s talk at the RSGB Convention 2022 and at an evening session for Club members.

What can we do with a modest sized garden?  

Is it only possible to achieve a good contest score with multiple multi-element beams? 

How can antenna theory help us? 

Lee covers these questions and more.

You can watch his talk by clicking on the picture.  

Bright sunshine and warm weather graced Wythall Radio Club’s autumn field day.

Over a dozen Club members and friends had fun with RF at Wythall Park, our home QTH, and we worked several more members ‘on-the-air’.

While some erected masts and strung wire antennas from trees, and Kev 2E0NCO got the generator running, Phil 2E0WTH put the kettle on and got the bacon and eggs cooking!

Operating from the field gave us a chance to get some big antennas out – from ex-military verticals and a DX Commander to a Buddipole. 

There were also SOTA linked dipoles, vehicle-mounted HF and VHF antennas and a Moxon.

We’d like to thank all those amateurs with whom we had QSOs, helping us have a great day out.

At the field day were:  Phil 2E0WTH (thanks for arranging the venue), Clive M7OCB, Kev 2E0NCO (flight controller!!), John M6KET/2E0XET, Jim 2E0BLP, Warwick G4WMH, Martin G8VXX (thanks for the loan of the genny), Lee G0MTN, Les 2E0LRV, Don G0NES, David G7IBO and Chris G3YHF, our members who called in ‘on-air’ – Chris G0EYO, John G3VRF and Milo 2E0YZW, and visitors Mike 2E0ILX with spaniel Brambles, and SWL Richie.

The historic Morse code keys donated to the RSGB National Radio Centre by the family of Colin Baker G6ZDQ (SK) are now on display.

NRC volunteer Mervyn G4KLE has been trying them out and demonstrating them to visitors.

The keys were recently donated to NRC at Wythall Radio Club, where Colin was a founder member.

A collection of historic Morse keys has been donated to the RSGB National Radio Centre by the family of Colin Baker G6ZDQ (SK)

Colin was a founder and much respected member of Wythall Radio Club (photo below left, operating in the Club shack that he helped to construct).

Examples from the collection will be displayed on rotation at the NRC. 

A keen CW operator, he built up a collection of vintage keys including the ‘Bathtub’ used by the RAF in World War II and a Chad Valley Signaller.

The international collection includes straight and paddle keys from Japan, Russia and Australia. 

The donation was accepted by Richard Horton, G4AOJ, the Chair of the RSGB Board (third from right) from Colin’s partner Janett Beer (centre) and daughter Anna Gifford (second left).

Also present were Wythall Radio Club members who knew Colin well – Anita Richards 2E0DUO, former chairperson of Wythall Radio Club (far right), Club President Mike Pugh G4VPD (far left), Phil Newth 2E0WTH (third from left) and Pete Richards M5DUO (second from right).

The collection was catalogued and researched by Chris Pettitt G0EYO, Wythall Radio Club’s Training Coordinator.