wythall radio club

There is a section of the Ham Radio hobby, the fastest growing we are led to believe, which is known as “Radio Sport” or “Contesting”. The idea is to make as many contacts (exchanging the correct information of course!) within a specified time period. It is a very big part of the hobby of many a Radio Amateur!

To get Wythall Radio Club members in the mood to have a go at a big contest, our “top gun” Radio Sportsman, Lee G0MTN, is putting together one of his famous presentations to enthuse us to all to have a go at the next worldwide event, the CQ Magazine World Prefix Contest (known as CQ WPX) on the last weekend of this month.

There will be plenty of big gun stations like OH8X on the air!

You could try it out from home or even from our well-equipped club shack.  It is not too difficult to achieve a DXCC award (100 countries contacted) in one weekend during this contest!

So if you have little or no idea what the “contesting” bug is like, why not come and catch it at Wythall House, Silver Street, B47 6LZ this Tuesday at 2030?  Lee will be giving an introduction to all-band HF contests in general as well as this contest in particular.

There is even a rumour, that to encourage participation within the club, there may even be a “contest-within-a-contest” that we’ll run, just for fun, to encourage members’ activity in the WPX contest.

I wonder if there will be a prize in the form of a liquid refreshment for the winner? :-)

This evening has seen the announcement of the Wythall Radio Club Christmas Contest results and what an exciting evening it has proved to be!

Chris G0EYO receives the G7OJO Trophy

Participation in this event has gone through the roof again and for the 3rd year running all records have been broken.

The overall winner in the Open Section, and thus the winner of the Reg Brown G7OJO Trophy for 2013 is Chris G0EYO. David G7IBO finished in second place and Chris G7DDN picked up the 3rd place certificate.

Lee G0MTN presents Stu M0NYP with the 2m FM Trophy

In the 2 metre FM section, it was Stu M0NYP who came out on top, just pipping the “Voice of the Midlands” Jim 2E0BLP into second place. Third was a very creditable showing from Ian M0IDR, as he lives a long way from the club near Evesham.

Over 50 club members were on air during the contest making this the most inclusive event ever in the Club’s History.

Our thanks to Lee G0MTN for sterling work on the organisation, adjudication and software fronts – and for putting adjudicating our contest ahead of some small event he also helps adjudicate called “CQ Worldwide”!!!

Every year between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day, Wythall Radio Club holds its Christmas Contest.

Club Member Sylwia M3SSP
A rare multiplier in the Christmas Contest!

Designed to encourage activity between our 70+ members, it has become a firm favourite with just about everyone. Indeed some people have been known to join the club just to take part in this event!

It is designed as a relaxed fun “party” exchanging serial numbers and generally having fun on air in keeping with our club motto. It has to be said though, it does bring out the competitive side in more than a few!

There are two trophies up for grabs as well and this Tuesday at 2030, we have our “Results and Presentation” evening. Adjudicator Lee G0MTN has been very busy wading through 40 or so Excel logbooks (designed by club members just for this event) and he will have come up with two winners. They will be presented with the G7OJO Trophy and the 2m FM trophy this week. Other certificates will be given out too.

This is one of the most anticipated evenings in the Wythall RC calendar so space is likely to be limited – an early arrival is advised! Tuesday 29th January at 2030 at Wythall House, Silver Street, B47 6LZ. Visitors, as always, are very welcome!

The results are out for the RSGB Club Calls 1.8 MHz Contest and it’s great news for the members of Wythall Radio Club!

51 Club Teams from across the UK took part and Wythall Radio Club’s ‘A’ team of G7WAC, G3YXM, G7DDN & G4WAC finished in overall 3rd place. A great effort and winners of the certificate pictured!

Our ‘B’ team of Pete M0COP, Don G0NES, Jim 2E0BLP & John G4MTG finished 16th and even our ‘C’ team (we were the only UK club with a ‘C’ team!) of Pete M5DUO, Barry M0DGQ, David G7IBO & Alf G1MJO finished 40th out of the 51 entrants!

In the individual scores, 3 of Wythall Radio Club’s stations finished in the top 10 (from 73 entrants) with G7WAC (operated by Callum M0MCX, Jon M0JMM & Stu M0NYP) ending up in 6th place. Dave G3YXM was 8th and Chris G7DDN came 9th.

In the Club table, G4WAC (operated by Lee G0MTN, Mike G4VPD, Stan G4JGV, Mark M0RKX & Phil 2E0WTH) finished 9th out of 33 Club stations.

The full results are tabulated at the RSGB’s HF Contest Website. Meantime our congratulations go to the 18 members who took part on air, plus the support teams who helped out with food, drink and in so many other ways! Special thanks to Dave G3YXM who co-ordinated all the efforts.

Great fun and we will be back next year!

Wythall Radio Club’s Chairman Mike Pugh G4VPD is celebrating today with the release of a new set of contest results. Mike has been our stalwart performer and has hit the top spot in the RSGB’s 144MHz UK Club Activity Contests throughout 2012.

Taking place every first Tuesday evening for 2.5 hours, the idea is to make as many contacts as possible within that time-frame. Mike won outright the “AL” Section of this event where only low power and one antenna may be used at any one time.

As the RSGB’s Contest Website reports… “G4VPD was the run-away winner scoring 7976 (points), topping the table in seven of the twelve sessions”. Even more remarkable is that Mike didn’t actually operate in all 12 events in the year – he actually missed January and December’s contest nights!

His scores and that of other members who took part lifted our club to 15th position out of 92 UK Radio Clubs who entered. We are very proud of these achievements and give our thanks and congratulations to Mike and all the other folk who came on during the year to get points for Wythall RC.

If you are interested in having a go yourself next year, click this link but be aware that the next session is on, wait for it… New Year’s Day! Will anyone be awake enough to take part?

Not long to go now before one of the events of the year in the Wythall Radio Club Christmas Calendar. Our in-house Christmas Contest started from small beginnings and is now a major part of the club’s calendar. Some amateurs have been known to join our club just to take part!

The G7OJO Trophy
& its little brother!

The idea is to work as many members as possible each day from 2000 on Christmas Eve till 2000 on New Year’s Day. You are allowed to work stations each day for points but each station worked also counts as a “multiplier” to your total score. So to win, you need to work as many members as you can across the 9 days but also try to make lots of contacts with those members every day too! As if Christmas wasn’t busy enough as it is! Your best 5 days totals are sent in and the adjudication team sorts the wheat from the chaff and declares the winners at a presentation evening in January. They are presented with the G7OJO Trophy and another as yet unnamed trophy (for members using 144 MHz only.)

So why are we telling you this now? Well this Tuesday 18th December, there is a presentation by Contest Supremo Lee G0MTN on the history and development of the Contest and on the innovations introduced in recent years, which include more points for using more bands and modes and a fantastic logging spreadsheet which scores you automatically!

It will be a fascinating evening for sure. So be there at 2030 this Tuesday 18th December in the Club Shack. It will be full so arrive early!

Imagine your correspondent’s surprise when he received a large A4 size letter postmarked from the USA recently!

Not expecting anything from “across the pond”, it was opened with a mixture of anticipation and wonderment.  It turned out to be a certificate for a placing in the 2011 CQ Worldwide Contest for CW.

Now this was a surprise! I had forgotten entering this event, probably as I only operated for a short time and made just 19 contacts on just one band, 80 metres.  It turned out that I had won 1st place in England in the Low Power section for a Single Operator on 80 metres. OK, so I was about 4th from the bottom in the world, but as no-one else from England had bothered to enter that section, I won it! Rather a nice piece of wallpaper for the radio room, methinks!

See, it’s always worth submitting an entry to a contest. You never know what can happen!

We operated as G7WAC from 1,000 feet in the Cotswolds at about 2.5c. It was very cold but very amusing and great fun. A picture tells a thousand words so perhaps you might skip to the sequence below.

125 QSOs, FT1000MP, Full size inverted V 160m Dipole at 65 feet AGL. Dipole legs were cut at 37 metres each leg giving us a tune-up at 1.850. Ideally, the maths told me to cut another metre off, but we ran out of time to become operational just 6 minutes before the off at 19:54.

Operators, Stu M0NYP, Jon, M0JMM and myself Callum, M0MCX. Thanks for working us.

One of the perennial favourite contests in the RSGB Contest Calendar is fast approaching.

The “Club Calls” Contest, originated by the Verulam Radio Club, has always been a fun relaxed event on 160m. Wythall Radio Club started taking part in this contest a little more seriously over the last two years.  In 2011, our club station actually managed to finish in 3rd place and won a certificate!

This year the event is on the evening of Saturday November 10th (2000-2300) and we are hoping to try to get as high as possible in the results table, but it has to be said, we do treat the event as a fun event first!

Dave G3YXM (of “Olympics” fame – see the previous post) is our lead member when it come to this event and has been entering it in one guise or another for many years. This Tuesday at our regular club meeting he is going to tell us a bit more about the history of the contest, how easy it is to enter it and what we can do to improve our standings in the results table!

As always, it will be a fun event. 2030 in the Club Shack this Tuesday 23rd October, at Wythall House, Silver Street, Wythall B47 6LZ. See you there?

I am happy to report that SSB Field Day went according to plan. We entered the unrestricted section although with only a fan-dipole for 80, 40 and 20m at 45 feet. We did run an amplifier though. 811 contacts made with many more dupes than I can remember. Lots of fun, laughs and we even slept the night. The days of 24×7 operating finally over for the old duffers?

Pictures score more points than words. Check these out.