wythall radio club

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If you, or anyone you know, is looking to get into amateur radio then the Wythall Radio Club Online Foundation course could be just what you are looking for.

With amateur radio, you could be chatting to someone in the next street – or another continent!

With the need for practical assessments currently suspended due to the Coronavirus, together with the RSGB’s ability to offer remotely invigilated online examinations which candidates can do in their own home, we can take students from anywhere in the country.

Our courses are done through a Virtual Learning Experience called Edmodo and comprise a number of video lessons (via YouTube) plus lesson notes and lesson quizzes and other supporting information.

We mark the quizzes and provide individual feedback.  As a consequence,  we limit our courses to a maximum of 20 students.

There is no charge for doing the course.  You will need to book and pay for your examination direct with the RSGB through the exam booking website. You can also purchase the course book “The Foundation Licence Manual” through the RSGB online shop.

You also do not have to be a member of Wythall Radio Club to do this course although many of our Midlands based student do join us.

We will probably start this course in early September and it will run for 7 weeks. If interested please contact our Training Coordinator, Chris G0EYO on g0eyo@blueyonder.co.uk “ 

A variety of antennas are being used for this month’s Wythall Radio Club DX Challenge on the WARC bands, any modes.

Tim M6OTN, at his caravan in Somerset, made an inverted vee sloper cut for 18MHz with a counterpoise out of spare wire he had to hand (photo left).  He was shocked how well it worked – “it’s the fun of antennas!”  Tim now has 48 countries worked on this band using FT8 – and the challenge is only one-quarter way through!

Meanwhile John 2E0XET used his trusty 90 feet-long dog-leg doublet to great effect, working ZD7GB on 18078 CW  with 12 watts.  Nice!!

Using spare ladder-line, a coupled-resonator antenna was put into service by Chris G3YHF.

One side is cut as a dipole for 10mhz and fed with coax.  The other side is a single section half-wave for 18mhz with the middle above the dipole feed point but not connected to it.  The 18mhz conductor placed close to the dipole is imposed on the 10mhz dipole and means that the antenna happily resonates on both frequencies.

And at G0MTN, Lee is using a fan dipole for 10, 18 and 24 Mhz and 50Mhz – carefully disguised in a tree!  This has proved very successful in increasing Lee’s DXCC count.

Pictures transmitted from the International Space Station (ISS) were received by Wythall Radio Club members yesterday.

The pictures were received as the ISS passed near the UK on four occasions during the afternoon.  Besides pictures of the ISS, the main theme was Russian helecopters.

Pictures were transmitted by Slow Scan Television (SSTV) on the 2 meter amateur radio band (145.800MHz) and make a warbling sound that needs to be decoded using free MMSSTV software.  

Signals were received by Chris G0EYO and Chris G3YHF along with other members of Wythall Radio Club, using their normal 2 meter VHF equipment.

G0EYO used an FT847 transceiver linked to his computer via a Signalink sound card and a collinear antenna, while G3YHF used a small FT7900 mobile transceiver again with a Signalink and collinear. 

The picture on the left shows the SSTV signal being decoded on MMSSTV.

The ISS astronauts make regular SSTV transmissions.  These are part of the MAI-75 experiment at the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI) to support video information broadcasting from space in real-time to a wide range of users.

Wythall Radio Club members monitor the bands for these events.

The MAI-75 experiment is carried out using a notebook computer on the ISS, which stores and prepares the photos and videos that are then transmitted to Earth using the ham radio communication system, the primary component of which is the onboard Kenwood TM D700 transceiver of the “Sputnik” ham radio system within the 144-146/430-440 MHz bands.

More pictures received around the world from yesterday’s transmissions – and from previous events – are available here

Monitor ARISS (Amateur Radio on the ISS) for details of future SSTV transmissions.

What countries can Wythall Radio Club members contact on the 80, 40 and 20 meter bands during July?

Some burnt the midnight oil in the hunt for rare countries!  “Inspired by the midnight/early morning efforts of Chris G0EYO and Kevin 2E0NCO, thought I’d explore the 40m band at 4.00 a.m. on Saturday” commented John M6KET.  “Surely there would be a VK/ZL waiting for that elusive M6 QSO?  ZL there was – but not audible here!”

The Challenge is part of a series, with a different group of amateur radio bands or modes being the focus of activity each month.  Previous months have covered 15,12,10 and 6 meters, and all bands Morse Code only.

Low power operating – QRP – has added an extra element of fun to Wythall Radio Club members’ recent two-way contacts.

John 2E0XET/M6KET often operates his small KX3 radio (on the left of the desk) in QRP mode – defined as 5 watts output or less – and recently serendipity struck!

“Funny thing radio conditions. With hardly a red spot in sight yesterday morning on DX HEAT at about 11.50 local time I called CQ on 14.060MHz with absolutely no expectations and only 5 watts output.

Chris G3YHF is another QRP enthusiast.  He recently used very low power (QRPp) – 100 milliwatts – to contact stations in Belgium, Germany and Bulgaria on the 40 and 20 meter QRP frequencies.  Like John and Darren, he used Morse Code, this time with his K3S rig and 40 meter delta loop antenna.

Three Wythall Radio Club members entered the 48-hour CQ World-Wide CW Contest in November 2019.  Now the results have been published, here are their stories and achievements!

Jamie M0SDV, Lee GoMTN and Chris G3YHF each entered different categories of this Morse code-only competition and were placed 2^nd, 3^rd and 2^nd out of the English stations in their respective class. 

Jamie M0SDV reports:  I was looking for a station that was better equipped for contesting than my own .  Chris G0DWV in Norfolk said he would host me, using the call G9Y (see Chris’s antennas below!).   I decided to enter the SO2R (single operator 2 radio) high power all bands section.

The first night on the low bands was incredible. The contest started at 0001UTC and I managed the first 1,000 QSOs by 1 hour after sun rise. Then conditions flipped so I decided to have a go at dual CQ – calling on both 20 and 15m at the same time using the 2 radios.

The picture shows me operating radio 1 (left) transmitting an exchange whilst I use radio 2 (right) to do search and pounce for multipliers.

I learned a few things here. The main one being, if you’re going to dual CQ, the CQ itself needs to be short and fast!

With another night shift coming on, I decided to work the sunset DX on the low bands, working YB (Indonesia), VK (Australia), ZL (New Zealand), along with far east Russia and some South East Asian countries.  

On the second day I worked the missing Europeans from the day before and started to focus on chasing more elusive multipliers.  Using the second radio as much as I could I would pause the run on 20 and CQ on 15 whilst searching for multipliers, and vice versa.  

The 2nd radio also let me keep an eye on 10m, which did have a short opening to Africa bagging me V55A (Namibia), ZD7W (St. Helena) and some ZS (South African) stations.

This contest was super fun! Reflecting, I needed to spend more time in S&P (search and pounce) mode looking for the multipliers and less time trying to make a load of 1 point QSOs.  I also needed to better plan my off-time. This caused me to lose some 160m QSO’s.

It seems Experience trumps Youth in this case.  Thank you to Chris G0DWV and his YL Tina for being incredible hosts and making me feel welcome yet again!

Jamie operated for 41/48 hours and made 3,709 QSOs – that’s about 91 per hour!  His score was 2,635,578 points and he was placed 65/1057 entrants world-wide in his class.

You can find a write up of Jamie’s exploits using the pre-production Gemini DX1200 linear amp, loaned by the DX Shop, here

Lee G0MTN reports: Despite writing ‘CQWW Contest!’ on the kitchen calendar back in January, through bad luck and lack of other available dates my wife was away on a work trip on the Sunday so I was in “SO2R high power all bands assisted + childcare” mode.

I took Friday afternoon off work to wind up the mast and prepare the wire antennas. I had Spiderbeam yagi / 40m dipole @ 50 feet (see photo left) and 80m dipole @ 45 feet. I ran out of time to raise the 160m antenna.  Aside from the rain, there was very little wind for almost all of the weekend which was one less thing to worry about.

I typically start an hour or two after the 0001UTC start, having then had a modicum of sleep. I operated through till after 1am Sunday.  The operating itself was a bit of a blur – when checking worked DXCC for my local club’s DX ladder even last night I had no recollection at all of having worked particular countries! 

I then slept through a very early alarm clock (grrr), and operated until late afternoon when I’d reached 1,800 QSOs and it was time for domestic duties.

SO2R – not as easy as it sounds.  I’m using an FTdx3000 as a second radio, and at very low audio levels the audio is a little distorted. I need to fashion another volume control so I can have good quality audio but at a wanted lower level. I missed a number of first radio callers first time due to the second radio – I moved the audio switching ‘heavy pileup mode’ so I could better concentrate on the first radio when finishing a CQ. Much more practice required.

Even when not actively working people, just being able to dial around the other bands helped with general awareness. I do appear to have a second radio TXBPF failure on 15m, which is hopefully just a connection problem as I’ve only fed it 15w and into good VSWR. Other TXBPF is fine on 15M.

When looking at a bandmap and seeing a number of unworked stations, I did find myself wanting to Search and Pounce and stop CQing. Even trying to do that as aggressively as possible working a few a minute was perhaps slower than the CQ rate. I think the mantra is that I always ought to be CQing. My desire to S&P and not miss multipliers is what that second radio is there for.

15M and 10M were not as good as last month – I hoped that Sunday might be better than Saturday, but to me Sunday seemed even worse. I worked a few on 160M using the 80M dipole.

The technology played a few tricks.  After setting up DXLog I discovered that my sent CW was slightly laggy between each character.  I rebooted the PC, turned off the panadapter, tinkered with Winkey and Microham settings. Eventually I ticked an ‘extra character buffer’ setting in DXLog which did the trick.  

Not long after restarting on Sunday morning a 59+ loud DL appears CQing away slap bang in the middle of my audio passband. I complained a little. DL station protests. Then I found that I had somehow QSYd around 1 kHz in the last few minutes. I had no idea how that happened and wasn’t aware. Apologies to the poor DL station.

For me, not a winning score by a large margin, but I had fun. Will do better next time! 

Lee operated for 30/48 hours and made 1,766 QSOs.  He was placed 204/1926 entrants world-wide in his category. 

Chris G3YHF is our third contributor:  This was my first attempt at a big international contest.  I had recently erected a 160M inverted L for the RSGB Club Calls Contest, so I decided to leave it up and make a 160M Single Operator Low Power entry.  This type of entry means no use of DX Cluster or other kinds of station-finding assistance, and maximum 100w output.

This was only the second time I’d used N1MM logger in a contest.  I had it speaking to my TS590SG so it automatically recorded frequency and mode.  But I hadn’t mastered computer keying or shortcuts, so I used my Bencher Hex paddle for all the CW. 

Besides logging the QSOs, another benefit of N1MM was that it remembered the frequencies of stations whose calls I had entered (or just looked up to see if they were dupes).  So as I tuned the band and came across a signal, it would often tell me the call sign and I could move on if we’d already worked.

Of course, the advantage of a 160M entry is that the band isn’t doing much during daylight hours so I didn’t have the lack of sleep problems faced by Jamie and Lee!  And stations in the contest are spread over only about 40-50khz, so there’s not far to tune. 

However, the downside is that in this narrow band there are lots of big signals covering up the weaker ones.  The TS590 did very well, but I had a few ear-shattering moments.  Usually this was when I had the RF gain backed-off and AF gain turned up to reduce the noise and copy a weak signal, only to find a very loud station appear almost on frequency!  The 590’s filtering isn’t quite up to dealing with the conditions found on 160M during a CW contest.

Having just come back to 160M after over 40 years away, I was more interested in seeing what DXCC entities I could work.  So I concentrated on multipliers using Search and Pounce, rather than chasing each available QSO or calling CQ for long periods.  Overall, I had about 6 hours operating out of the approximate 30 hours when 160M would be active.

I was delighted with being able to work 40 countries on Top Band, particular notables being S01WS Western Sahara, CN3A Morocco, and RM9A in Asiatic Russia.  In addition, I had several contacts with stations in the USA and Canada.

This wasn’t a serious contest entry, but having received the results I did better than expected.  So next year I’ll make a serious attempt in the same category and see what I can achieve.  To help this along, I’ve now traded in the TS590 for an Elecraft K3S which will improve things on the receive side.

Chris operated for 6/48 hours and his 67 QSOs scored 3,384 points.  He was placed 33/56 in the 160M low power category.

A writeup and photos of the whole contest can be found here 

Wythall Radio Club members spent their Tuesday evening on-line visiting each others’ radio ‘shacks’.

Using Zoom, 6 members provided guided tours of their amateur radio stations and antennas to a wider groups of about 15 members.  

An added high point was a visit to the fridge that Kev 2E0NCO keeps stocked next to his operating position!

The virtual tours were a big boost to those members still in lock-down. 

One member commented afterwards: “Last night was a lot of fun and a big pick me up for those of us imprisoned in our own home.” 

It showed the value of the Club taking part in the RSGB’s ‘get on the air to care’ initiative.

Don’t let a small garden stop you from getting on HF – including 160M! – reports Wythall Radio Club member Chris G0EYO.

End Fed (or long wire) antennas are the most simple antennas an amateur can make for the HF bands. However their simplicity does come with serious compromises when used as a multi-band antenna.

The physical length as measured in wavelengths of the transmitting frequency can result in very high or very low complex impedances at the fed end of the wire, so they need a very good antenna matching unit (AMU) to enable a good match to the transceiver and to deal with the high voltages or current that may exist,

The high currents or voltages at the end of the wire can also result in serious RFI problems for the amateur which are hard to control. This is because a quarter-wavelength in from the far end of an end fed antenna, the current is at maximum and the voltage is at minimum. At a half-wavelength the reverse occurs and so on.

So for a given length of wire and depending upon the band being used a wide range of complex impedances and currents and voltages may appear at the transmitter end of the wire. This is sometimes more than the AMU can handle, both in terms of impedance matching and voltages.

The end fed wire antenna produces quite complex radiation multi-lobe patterns unlike the simple “figure of eight” radiation pattern produced by a dipole. With multi-lobes come deep nulls in certain directions (diagram thanks to VK6YSF).

They also need a counterpoise or earth return to work well and avoid RF getting back into the shack. Ideally these should be about a quarter-wavelength long for each band the antenna is required to be used on.

We can avoid some of these issues if we can avoid wire lengths which are multiples of a quarter-wavelength of the bands being used.

So how long should our end fed wire be? A great deal of work has been done by others on the ideal wire length which avoids very large end impedances for the bands of interest and these can be found courtesy of Google.

My garden allowed an end fed wire length of approximately 25m to be accommodated in an inverted “L” format between a 10ft pole mounted on the side of the garage and a 20ft pole mounted at the bottom of the garden.

Alan Chester G3CCB in his book “ HF Antennas for Everyone” (RSGB) came up with a useful graphic which showed “practical” lengths for end fed wires. This allows you to pick a length and see which bands are will give you a matchable end impedance.

I wanted to work on all bands from 160m to 10m but ideally 80m, 40, 20m 15m and 10m. Alan’s calculations showed that a wire length of 18.5m would give an workable end impedance on 80m, 30m, 20m, 17m, 15m and 10m with possibly a little more troublesome end impedance on 160m, 40m, and 12m.

To avoid bringing high voltages and currents into the shack the AMU should be mounted outside and the signal fed into the shack via 50 ohms coax. Fortunately I had an SGC 230 Auto AMU that I had installed at my previous house in Hollywood.

The SGC 230 AMU is designed to operate with wire antennas and is configured as an “L” or “Pi” type network controlled by a microprocessor. The initial tuning takes several seconds to determine the transmit frequency and then select the necessary coils and capacitance to match the complex impedance of end fed wire to 50 ohms. These settings are stored in a non-volatile memory so the subsequent retuning of the same antenna on the same frequency only takes a fraction of a second.

The tuner has a ceramic insulated antenna terminal which looks as if it would tolerate quite a few volts, and a threaded nut for a earth counterpoise. It has a flying lead from the AMU with a 50 ohm coax and PL259 connector for the transceiver together with a 5 core cable for +12V DC, earth and “Lock Tune” control line and “Remote Tuner” indicator line.

On my installation I have a small plastic box next to the AMU which is a through line for the coax cable and a terminal block for the DC and control lines.  A 25m length of RG213 goes from the interconnecting box back to the shack in a bedroom at the front of the bungalow. Similarly a CAT5 cable is used to feed the DC and control lines back to a remote indicator and switch box at the operating position. This tells me when the SG230 has achieved a satisfactory match and locked on (and which can be confirmed by the SWR meter).

The SGC230 AMU is in a weather proof plastic box and is mounted under the eaves of my garage. A very short earth counterpoise is connected to the AMU earth terminal using copper braid and fixed to a 1 m earth rod driven into the ground. Overall the earth counterpoise is about 5m long and should probably be longer or with multiple earth rods. Chris G3YHF has suggested I do this modification to see if the efficiency improves. The antenna wire itself is Kevlar strengthened wire which is very strong but also very thin.

The pictures show the installation. I should say at this point that the inspiration to put in this antenna came entirely from Roger M0GWM who in 2019 said it was about time I put up some antennas having lived here for 3 years. Together we came up with the idea of using a long wire. Roger also did all of the installation work including running the coax and control cables around the bungalow just under the eaves.

Not long after the installation was completed, and always being a data mode fan, I got Ian M0LQY to set up FT8 on my computer and transceiver which is controlled by an old version of Ham Radio Deluxe. I limit the power to 30W (effectively carrier power – and probably equivalent to 100W PEP for SSB) and have been very pleased with the results.

Bands 160m, 40m, 20m, 17m 15m and 10m are rock solid. 30m suffers from RFI which upsets the wired mouse on the main PC in the shack and 30m seems to be constantly trying to find a good match. SWR’s achieved on these bands are between 1.15:1 and 1.35:1 which I am very happy with.

Strangely enough I never tried top band on any mode  until Chris G3YHF encouraged me to do so on FT8. I found it fun and challenging so made it my Wythall Radio Club DXCC challenge for 2020 (55 countries on 160M at time of writing). Chris has a similar set up with slightly longer wire length and bigger earth counterpoise. Analysis of PSK Reporter reports shows he just has the edge on me when it comes to performance, so don’t let a small garden stop you working 160M – 10M!

The VGC-VR-N7500 VHF/UHF FM Transceiver is the new kid on the block.

I was asked for help from a neighbour who had bought this and could not get satisfactory operation via Bluetooth to his iphone. Mindful of social distancing, he left the package on our doorstep for me to retrieve!

Unpacking it revealed the transceiver itself, heavier than expected and very solidly built, measuring 6” wide by 51/2 deep max (including the external mounted fan), a decent looking wired fist mic, mounting bracket, power lead (12v to 13.8v) and a PTT button to attach to gear lever/handlebars etc. and a Bluetooth fist mic. It seems some of the latter are available as cost extras but were included.

Being mindful that it was borrowed I did not wish to programme it beyond basic simplex or repeater use, nor set up the APRS or network capability.

On the bench, it was a matter of moments to connect the antenna (SO239),the fist mic via the now almost universal network cable type connection and the power. The rig was fused on both +ve and negative leads.

Downloading the Android app via Google Play Store and installing it took a few moments.

Enabling the app and Bluetooth on a Samsung Android phone (other makes are available), the rig and phone paired and the application started showing my GPS location.

Swiping the page brought up the programming screen and it took just a few moments to put in both 145.225 and GB3WL together with split and CTCSS as appropriate. No messing with usb leads, downloading drivers, finding a suitable programming app (or buying one) and reading/writing to the radio, this is where this radio shines. So intuitive, so easy and you can be up and running in moments. If going mobile (this in truth is the market sector targeted) the unit can sit in the boot and just operate via the Bluetooth speaker mic or indeed the Android phone.

On FM, it is rated at 50watts VHF and 40 watts UHF and those power levels were achieved feeding my “white stick”

Google is your friend the full specs and videos are easily found.

Works really well and although the price is around £190,this being twice the cost of say a Anytone AT778UV, its added capabilities may tempt folk.

Being SDR it is firmware upgradeable (by Bluetooth) which may well bring in more features and/or bug fixes as the product matures.

A 30 page manual is available https://www.moonraker.eu/downloads/dl/file/id/309/product/9250/vr_n7500_manual_v3_1.pdf

The Manufacturers website has more detail at http://www.vgc.net.cn/product/54-en.html

Please excuse the extraneous “QRM” on my desk- the unit to the left behind the rig is my MMDVM running YSF to my Yaesu FT2D.

This unit was on very short term evaluation so the photos were taken in haste!

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73

Ian M0IDR