wythall radio club

This weekend, 8th and 9th July sees one of the Radio Society of Great Britain’s premier contest events, VHF National Field Day. The idea is that stations take to the great outdoors and set up stations literally “in the field” and then try to make as many contacts as possible for 24 hours. Five Amateur bands are used, 50Mhz, 70 MHz, 144 MHz, 432 MHz and 1296 MHz.

Wythall Radio Club’s idea of a good VHF Field Day however, is to have as many members as possible on the park at Wythall House and play a mix of radio, both VHF and HF, heavy duty contesting and combine that with eating food, drinking beer and telling tall stories well into the night. (Sometimes even radio comes second to beer!)

Well, that’s our usual plan!  This year’s awful rainy weather has literally put the dampeners on our activities.  The state of the field is so bad that getting equipment onto it would prove too difficult and in addition, the forecast for the weekend is pretty grim.

So instead, join us in the club shack from 1400 on Saturday for a day of fun with RF and a takeaway in the evening, washed down with some suitable ales from the bar. We will still be working all the portable stations but in the so-called “sweeper” section of the contest. And after a few bevys, doubtless those tall stories will keep on coming…

144 MHz or 2 metres is probably the most popular amateur band for local or semi-local contacts.

However, tomorrow it will be full of low power or QRP stations trying to make contacts far and wide in the annual Practical Wireless 2m QRP contest.

 All modes from FM to SSB and CW are allowed and it’s a great opportunity to snag some new squares or work some hilltoppers. All you have to remember is that no more than 3w is allowed as your output power.

This is a great chance to get out onto some high spots for an hour or so too and see how many stations can be worked.

So if you are at a loose end tomorrow, why not take part? Even a small antenna such as a tiny yagi or halo for horizontal polarisation will work.  The usual antenna types for vertical polarisation will also give good results.

See  http://www.pwcontest.org.uk/144MHzrules.html for more details and remember, have fun with RF!

A few years ago, I decided it was time I had a go at a Morse Code (CW) contest.  Having picked a short evening event in the UK, I was surprised (perhaps I shouldn’t have been!) at how simple and formulaic the exchanges were.  Plucking up some courage and dusting off the straight key, I managed to complete my first faltering contacts using little more than my callsign and a few numbers!

With Wythall Radio Club’s “Morse Month” coming up this May, it seemed a good time for Lee G0MTN, one of our resident CW experts, to pop along and give us a short presentation, about how feasible it really is to make some excellent contacts on CW without actually knowing much more than how to read a callsign and send a few numbers!

There can of course, be much more to it that this, but nonetheless, it makes a jolly intriguing title for a talk, so why not pop along next Tuesday 17th April and hear for yourself how easy it can be to make contacts with just an initial limited knowledge of the code?

Who knows? You might even be tempted to take it further!

Amateur Radio operators around the Midlands might wonder what’s going on down at 145.225 FM most hours of the day and night. It’s the Wythall Christmas Contest. The rules are biased to encourage club members to work each other, every day over the Christmas break between Christmas Eve and New Year’s day.

There are two sections; the “restricted” section, which is 2m only and then the “open” section where bonuses are achieved for modes and band slots. Full rules here: https://www.wythallradioclub.co.uk/contest/xmas-contest-rules/

At the time of writing, late on Boxing day, over 50% of club members have been active and exchanged serial numbers with other club members. Serial numbers as high as 50 have been reported already.

A tremendous success!