wythall radio club

Peter Waters G3OJV with WRC members Chris G7DDN, Phil 2E0WTH, Roger M0GWM, Peter G4LWF & Roy G0HDF

At the weekend, Wythall Radio Club members were celebrating again! We came runners-up in the National Radio Club of the Year Competition.

Club of the Year is run by the Radio Society of Great Britain and supported by Waters and Stanton radio retailers. Each year most clubs from around the UK compete to see who will be honoured with the title of Club of the Year.

Wythall RC has been the regional winner every single time we have entered, but we have never made it to the finals, until now!

Coming second to the excellent Essex Ham group is nothing to be ashamed of either. Essex Ham are probably the most progressive forward-looking Radio group in the country and are blazing a trail in how to re-invent such clubs for the 21st Century.

So we are very proud of our achievements and apparently we have a £250 voucher to spend in Waters and Stanton‘s store too!

What will we be getting next?

“How many different countries can you contact by radio?” That’s the challenge for Wythall Radio Club members!

Almost 700 amateur radio operators in 163 different countries have been contacted by Club members in the past month – and several of our operators have contacted 100 or more countries each. 

The map shows in green the countries one of our members has contacted.  Still a lot of countries in Africa and south east Asia to talk with!

Members are using voice, Morse code and digital transmissions in their quest to span the world! 

Some are having great success with simple antennas and low power – you don’t have to be high tech to work stations around the world!

Our Wythall Worldwide Awards competition runs for 6 months.  There are 339 different countries for amateur radio purposes so there are lots more opportunities for Wythall radio operators to reach around the world!

Wythall Radio Club was in full swing ‘on the air’ last weekend!

Members braved the hot weather to operate all manner of portable radio equipment and antennas and contact other stations around Europe on Sunday morning.  Operating from the field near our Club HQ, this ‘Plug and Play’ event is one of many activities Wythall Radio Club offers to its members.

Cool drinks and a camping grill kept the group hydrated and energised!

At the same time, two Club members were contacting stations around the world in an international radio competition – making over 13,000 contacts in a 24 hour period!  

Lee G0MTN and Jamie M0SDV used powerful radios and antennas on 60 foot towers, as part of the UK national radio society’s ‘M6T’ team based in Suffolk.  

Nine happy students passed their Foundation exam at Wythall Radio Club.

Congratulations to Terry, Tim, Marcin, Mo, David, Darren, Andy S and Andy W, and Paul!  We hope to hear them on the air soon with their new M6 call signs.

The photos show them completing their practical assessments, and three of the successful candidates – Paul, Darren and Andy.

We expect that some will want to progress to the Intermediate course offered by Wythall Radio Club’s training team.  And some of the graduates from this course have recently signed-up to study for their Advanced amateur radio licence!

Perhaps there are more aspiring radio amateurs out there who would like to study our on-line courses? 

Further details are on the Wythall Radio Club web site or visit the Club which meets every Tuesday evening from 8pm at Wythall House, Silver Street, Wythall!

Runners and Wythall Radio Club members are getting ready for Sunday’s Wythall Fun Run 2018.

Over 20 members of the Radio Club will be providing communications and helping to marshal the event.

The Fun Run is a big draw for local runners and families.  Radio Club members always turn out in force, and use their skills and equipment to help ensure a successful and enjoyable day for all! 

Wythall Radio Club is pleased to announce that GB3WL, our 432Mhz repeater is now back on the air. 

Thankfully the the flood damage was not too severe and power has now been restored. 

‘Chasing a DXpedition requires a certain amount of commitment!’ writes Wythall Radio Club member Tim Beaumont MØURX.  ‘A little studying of what the team’s priorities are, a close eye on the propagation to decide your best band choices and a little bit of luck along the way!’

Here’s his report of chasing 3B7A operating from the tiny island of Saint Brandon in the Indian Ocean.

‘Saint Brandon in the Indian Ocean was last activated 11 years ago in 2007 when we had similar low sunspot conditions and poor radio propagation.

So to contact 3B7A on high frequency (HF) I was going to have to work them either early in the afternoon or later afternoon around tea time. With no sun spots and a Solar Flux Index of just 67, propagation doesn’t get much worse than that!  

Saturday morning I had seen them spotted on DXCluster on 20m, 17m and 15m, but nothing was heard here. 

I came back after a couple of hours and they were still working North America on 15m phone.  Then silence….  Just a brief “3B7A – stand by 5 [minutes]”…. I set my transmitter 8 KHz up from their frequency and poised my foot over the radio foot switch, ready for them to get back on air.  

It seemed an age and I wondered if they had just changed bands or mode? I decided to stay put… then “3B7A listening all stations 5 to 15 up”. The adrenaline starts pumping…. “Mike Zero Uniform Radio X-ray” hoping that the DX was also listening on the frequency I was calling…. “M0URX you’re 59” . I reply quickly “59 TU [Thank you]”

Wow, it doesn’t often happen like that, right place right time and luckily the pile up was sleeping at the re-start. By 6pm 3B7A’s HF signal quickly dropped and was lost for the day.’

Read Tim’s full report here!

There was plenty of radio fun during Wythall Radio Club member Mike G4VPD’s recent holiday on the Costa Brava.  

On the way to a local Spanish restaurant he noticed a portable radio setup in the church car park just a couple of hundred yards from his holiday villa.

The operator was Kico EA5GPC.  ‘We stopped and introduced ourselves – using a mixture Spanish and English’ reports Mike.

‘It turns out he is a taxi driver in Benidorm and had travelled to Javea to operate from its church in a ‘Work all the Province’s Churches’ radio contest (Diploma Ermitas).  He was doing pretty well ’till we interrupted him!’.  He had made over 100 contacts in just over an hour on 40m using his homemade dipole and counterpoise vertical mixture.

He welcomed the interruption and requested some photos be taken so he could prove to the contest organiser that he had been operating from the church!  Kico’s the right and Mike’s on the left.

Any amateurs visiting Benidorm should keep an eye out for Kico’s taxi.  It’s the one with the HF mobile antenna!

Besides this face-to-face contact, Mike also experimented with digital communications using FT8.

‘It took some time to get the software to transmit the digital tones via the USB cable of my mate’s (G8NOF) Kenwood TS-590 but I got there in the end!’ comments Mike.

‘There was very little to be heard on the 20m or 17m SSB (voice) frequencies, but the world was alive on the digital (FT8) frequency of 14.074 Mhz!’

During the morning he made digital contacts with New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Siberia, India, the Middle East states, South Africa and more, using only 50 watts.  Then in the early evening he contacted stations in the Caribbean, USA, Canada, Venezuela, Brazil – to name just a few.

Wythall Radio Club member Jamie, M0SDV is off on his travels again!

Jamie, who is still relatively a youngster at the tender age of 17, will shortly be operating from Bonaire, a small Caribbean island in the Leeward Antilles.  

From March 24 – 25, he will be joining an international team of operators for the global ‘CQ WPX (Worked Prefix) Contest’. 

The team – who in addition to Jamie include Philipp DK6SP, Steve PJ4DX, Peter PJ4NX and Bert PJ4KY – have been allocated the call sign PJ4V.

Good luck, Jamie!  More news as we receive it!

What is so different about this HT?

Wythall Radio Club is pleased to announce a special lecture at this year’s Hamfest.

Club member Chris G7DDN will be giving a talk entitled “Network Radios – The Next Big Thing?”

If you’ve not heard of Network Radios, then this would be a good time to find out what all the fuss is about – if you have heard of them, this is a good opportunity to lean more and even have a bit of a hands on!

Chris’s writings on the subject have already created a bit of stir in the Amateur World. Extracts of his articles are being featured in upcoming editions of Practical Wireless magazine. You can read Chris’s musings on Network Radios here and here, if you want to gen up before the day.

The lecture will take place in the Wythall Radio Club shack at 11.00am on Hamfest day – Sunday 25th March.

Another good reason to come along this year!