wythall radio club

The results for the 2014 RSGB SSB Field Day contest are now out and it’s a big improvement for Wythall Radio Club.

Lee G0MTN hard at work at this year’s SSB Field Day

In the restricted section, we came in a very creditable 4th place out of 28 stations across the UK.

Our intrepid operating team of Callum M0MCX, Tom M0RMY and Lee G0MTN put in a sterling performance across the weekend in early September. They were ably assisted by many others from the club, including Phil 2E0WTH, Kevin 2E0NCO.

We hope to improve on these results next year as we have plans to keep the station operating through the night, something logistics sadly prevented this year.

Check out the full results at the RSGB Contest website here.

This Tuesday, the thoughts of Wythall Radio Club members are turning Digital! That’s because this week, our guest speaker will be taking the lid off one of the Amateur Digital modes, D-STAR.

D-STAR has been around for over 10 years now and is very popular with many hams, but more especially in Japan and the USA. It doesn’t help that it can seem like a complex world in which to get involved. 

So this Tuesday, in the newly refurbished club shack, club member Chris G7DDN will be attempting to encourage those who haven’t yet had a go with this aspect of Amateur Radio to get their feet wet and try it out!

Visitors are welcome as always. The talk starts at 2030 at Wythall House, Silver Street Wythall. B47 6LZ. See you there!

Some of the members of Wythall Radio Club have literally been watching paint dry today!

A small team, headed up by Kevin 2E0NCO, ably supported by Chairman Mike G4VPD, Phil 2E0WTH, Ian M0IDR (have I missed anyone out lads?) have been hard at work on the mammoth task of painting the club rooms!

Starting with the upper staircase and walls and floor, they have been working their way slowly into the teaching room.  And by the evidence of these photos, they have been doing rather well too! Click the thumbnails for a closer view.

At this rate, we will have a really welcoming environment to meet and train in and it will also match our brand new antenna systems too! Nice work lads!

Wythall Radio Club’s delegates to the RSGB Convention are all safely back home, and full of Ham Radio goodness!

Chairman Mike G4VPD, Lee G0MTN, Tim M0URX and soon-to-be member Mack M0CUS enjoy a cuppa in between sessions

The five club members attended lectures on DXpeditions, Contesting, SDR Techniques and World War 1 Comms as well as a forum with the UK regulators OFCOM and sessions on using the Raspberry Pi in Ham Radio.

With the list of speakers reading like a “Who’s who” of Amateur Radio, it was a great place to be! And a few of those speakers have been already booked into Wythall Radio Club’s programme of talks for 2015 and you will be hearing more about that soon!

We are already looking forward to next year’s event. It would be great to meet you there!

Some of the members of Wythall Radio Club have been having fun today without RF! They have been enjoying the delights of the RSGB Convention in Milton Keynes.

Lee G0MTN about to give his presentation

About 250 enthusiasts from around the UK gather every year for a weekend of talks, demonstrations and presentations about our great hobby.

Dave G3YXM, Chairman Mike G4VPD, Tim M0URX and Chris G7DDN have been joined by Lee, G0MTN for a weekend of fun, learning and… …well, excess food and drink!

In fact, Lee opened up the convention in the Contest University stream first thing this morning, with his talk on Contest Hints.

Great that we at Wythall can provide a speaker for the UK’s most prestigious radio conference!

Kev 2E0NCO & John M1JSS grappling with metalwork

More news on the antenna rebuild at Wythall Radio Club. Chairman Mike has been leading by example on this project!

“That bit fits here look!”

The most recent days work involved him being joined by Kevin 2E0NCO and John M1JSS. Together they spent a few hours building the elements and the remaining boom assembly for our new Innovantennas five-element HF beam.

We are pleased to report that everything went well – the antenna is ready to be attached to the tower mast, once we have finally confirmed we have installed all the element sizes in the correct order – it’s a complex bit of metal to put together when you’ve never done it before!

Click the pictures for a larger view of things…

Members of Wythall Radio Club joined in with the members of most UK radio clubs this weekend in visiting the UK’s National Hamfest.

Ian M0IDR insists only the General Manager should serve him at the RSGB stand! Cruel!

Several folk from Wythall made the trip north to Newark in Nottinghamshire; Chairman Mike G4VPD & Treasurer Ian M0IDR headed the throng – others tagging along included Phil 2E0WTH, John M6FBO, David G7IBO, Jon M0JMM & Chris G7DDN.

It was great to see and meet so many friends and make new ones while we were there; and of course there were new goodies to tempt us all!

There was certainly a buzz around this year’s event. Maybe that was due to the presence of the TXFactor guys! When their next program comes out, we may well be playing a game of “Spot the Wythallian in the background!”

A fantastic day out, though one feels a little for David G7IBO, who was planning to go back on the Saturday(!) but had to stay at home to look after his poorly wife, Juliet M6RSC!

Bletchley Park – a place of pilgrimage for Radio enthusiasts?

You could be forgiven for thinking you are reading a different website, but you’re still tuned to Wythall Radio Club! “The Bletchley Park Story” is actually the title of our presentation this week!

On Tuesday (23rd September) we are looking forward to welcoming a very special guest, Ray Goff G4FON. Ray is known to many radio amateurs as the writer & programmer of the G4FON Morse Tutor software for Windows. However many folk are not aware that Ray has an “alter ego”, in that he is a Bletchley Park Volunteer Tour Guide! This makes him the ideal person to visit us to talk about Bletchley Park and its place in radio history.

Ray G4FON

Ray particularly expressed an interest in talking about this part of his radio life when the invitation to him was first mooted. Since many members of Wythall Radio Club have visited Bletchley Park, we know that his talk will be very popular! As a result, we are expecting a large turnout for this evening, so early arrival is highly advised.

The talk takes place in the Darts Room at Wythall House, Silver Street, Wythall B47 6LZ and starts at 20:30. Visitors are always welcome but be advised that we do have a whip round of 50p each to help pay for the room hire, so make sure you have a few pennies left after you’ve bought your pint from the Wythall House bar!

See you there!

The UK has been enjoying an Indian Summer over the last couple of weeks. And that has meant more news on the antenna front at Wythall Radio Club!

23cms, 70cms, 2m and a dual 4m/6m set of beams sit atop the Wythall Radio Club mast!

Members have been been busy preparing our tower, replacing luffing cables and starting to construct our new antenna arrays. Thanks to our friends at Innovantennas and Martin Lynch & Sons, we have been able to put together a great set of aerials to cover all bands from 20m to 23cms.

Putting them together and getting them up in the air has been no mean task but we are almost there! The VHF and UHF arrays now proudly sit atop the mast and the last antenna to go on, the 5 band HF beam, is currently being constructed. We now just await one more kind weather day so we can finish the job.

Enjoy a look at some of the recent developments – we will let you know when it is finished!

Further to the previous post, Wythall Radio Club members have been busy again on the antenna front!

The club antenna project continues apace – this week it’s been Chairman Mike G4VPD, Stu M0NYP, Rob 2E0MEX and Kevin 2E0NCO getting their hands dirty! 

The fab four managed to get onto the roof at Wythall House and build the first of our replacement antennas.  The VHF and above stack was tackled as a priority. Click on the photos for a better view!

So now we have beams ready to put up for 23cms, 70cms, 2m, and 4m/6m. The 5 band HF yagi is to follow.

We are sure our friends at Innovantennas will be watching this carefully – we don’t want to be having to order replacement parts before we even get the metal in the sky!

More developments on this project soon – there is a Bank Holiday weekend coming up here in the UK, so if the weather is kind, there may be more news and photos for you next week!