wythall radio club

Many Wythall Radio Club members enjoy the radio sport of contesting. It is fun, after all, to test your station and your operating skills against other radio enthusiasts, whether locally, in the UK or worldwide. Yet taking part in a contest can seem pretty daunting for newcomers to the hobby, even downright frightening for many more experienced ones too!

Club husband & wife team, Dawn M6UDY & John M1JSS operating the Elecraft K3 in a recent pile-up

With one of the largest world contests taking place this weekend on most of the shortwave bands, it seems like a good time to help folk improve their Radiosport operating skills and give members a taste of the excitement that is radio contesting.

CQ WPX (World Prefix) is the training ground and the Wythall Club shack and equipment are the weapons of choice. This is not a “serious” entry, just a great opportunity for members to be helped in how contests work, learn how to operate logging software and try to to improve one’s technique so as to get maximum enjoyment (and maybe points too!) from the activity.

Starting at 1300 tomorrow, Saturday 29th March, come and join top UK contester Lee G0MTN and a few other club contesting maestros for some hands-on fun! Mistakes are very welcome as that is one of the ways to learn, so don’t be shy.

We will be on the air until at least 1800 when we intend to finish the day with a mass takeaway of all world cuisines to match the world-wide contacts we will have made! With all the fun going on and it being a 48 hour contest, I wonder what time we might finish though?

It is with great pride that we can now reveal how Wythall Radio Club’s recent exam successes have translated into new Amateur Radio callsigns.

Jamie, Gavin, Kevin, Darren & Craig all now have their M6 callsigns and are getting on air!

From our Foundation batch of students, 14-year-old Jamie Williams  is now M6GDI, Gavin Weston is M6GWG, Kevin O’Reilly is M6KOR, Darren Meehan is M6UDM, and Craig Wright has his call too!

Is he “KID”ding us about his callsign? :-)

Our self-studying Intermediate, George Ifrim is now the proud owner of 2E0KID and is sure to be instantly recognisable on the air with a callsign like that!

All the members of Wythall Radio Club congratulate our latest batch of students on their successes.  That won’t be the end of it though – there is another batch of Foundation students who have been doing their studies online and they are gearing up to take their exam on Saturday 29th March – we hope for yet more successes to report on soon!

Jamie Williams (age 14) , Gavin Weston, Kevin O’Reilly, Darren Meehan & Craig Wright – our latest Foundation successes!

In amongst our hectic preparations for this weekend’s Wythall Radio Rally, it must not be overlooked that Wythall Radio Club’s training scheme has once again produced another batch of successful entrants to the hobby.

Self studier George Ifrim M6LTE will soon be a 2E0

Last night, our 5 Foundation Course Students all recorded passes at the first time of asking (three with 100%!). If that wasn’t impressive enough, one of our other members, George M6LTE, passed his Intermediate Exam, having undertaken most of the course as a self-study module and working with our trainers on the practical modules.

All the members of Wythall Radio Club extend our warmest congratulations to all 6 students, pictured here. We very much hope you will enjoy the hobby and also enjoy being part of the great Amateur Radio fraternity of which Wythall Radio Club is proud to be a part.

The excitement isn’t over yet though – there will be a new raft of callsigns coming to these folk, maybe by the end of the week. It’s going to be a rally to remember for our intrepid six!

For many years, Wythall Radio Club has offered a full range of classroom based learning programmes for those wishing to gain their Foundation, Intermediate and Advanced Amateur Radio licences. Now we are pleased to announce that we have designed an on-line course for those seeking to gain their Foundation licence.

The programme is based around Virtual Learning Experience software and allows our tutors to connect with students at home via the internet. We think this might be ideal for those who cannot commit to several evenings of study over a period of weeks. This way, you can study in your own time with support via posts from our lead tutor. The only attendance required is a weekend at the end of the course so you can complete the practical assessments and actually sit the exam paper!

If you are interested in this programme then click here for more information. We aim to start our first Foundation License Course on 17^th Feb with the practical/exam weekend scheduled for 29/30^th March.

Wythall Radio Club are proud to announce that we will be running a Foundation Course early in 2014 – this is a great opportunity to take your first steps in the hobby of Amateur Radio.

The course takes place on 6 Monday evenings starting on Monday 27^th January 2014 between 2000-2200. There is also one compulsory Saturday morning, 15^th February, when the practical assessments take place. The exam itself will be on Monday 3^rd March. The course will be held at our club shack in the basement of Wythall House, Silver St, Wythall B47 6LZ.

If you are interested in joining us, then please click here for more information or contact our Training Co-ordinator, Chris G0EYO at g0eyo@blueyonder.co.uk as soon as possible.

Please note that due to popularity, spaces will be limited.

It’s that time of year again, when the members of Wythall Radio Club start thinking of having another go at learning Morse Code!

Our weekly Morse Code learning class started up again last Tuesday and a record number of members attended the introductory session. It seems that in these days of noisy HF locations and short gardens with restricted antennas, radio enthusiasts are instead turning to more efficient modes like Morse and PSK31 Data to help them make contacts.

Using Morse Code can give you up to a 20dB advantage on transmit (depending on who you listen to!)  That’s like running full legal power into a beam in comparison to using a standard G5RV antenna that so many hams use…. (and you can keep your G5RV too with no need for a tower and costly amplifiers!)

If you are interested in learning the code and want to see what the fuss is about, the Morse class is on every Tuesday (usually!) at 1945 in the shack at Wythall House, Silver Street, Wythall. B47 6LZ.  Visitors are always welcome.

We are pleased to announce that Wythall Radio Club will be running an Advanced License Course this autumn.

The classes will begin on Monday 2nd September 2013. The 14 week course is delivered in the club shack on Monday evenings from 8.00pm – 10.00pm, though you should note that there are a couple of Saturday morning requirements during weeks 7 and 13. The actual Advanced Examination is scheduled for Friday December 6th at 7.00pm.

The total cost of the course is £60. This includes the official course book, course materials, exam fees and all admin costs.

If you are an Intermediate Licence holder and you are interested in doing this course, please contact Wythall Radio Club’s Training Co-ordinator, Chris G0EYO at g0eyo@blueyonder.co.uk as soon as possible.

Further to the great news in the last post, we have now heard that Mark 2E0MSE has passed his Advanced exam so he joins the ranks of the Wythall Radio Club Full Licence holders.

Mark has been studying hard over the Spring and Summer via the Distance Learning Course run by Steve G0FUW from Bath. Wythall Club Member Chris G0EYO is a tutor on that course and was Mark’s mentor for the duration of it.

So we welcome Mark as M0MSE to the fold now.

With all these new callsigns, Wythall Club members are going to be having a hard time remembering them all!

Wythall Radio Club is pleased to announce that Dawn, wife of club member John M1JSS, has now received her Foundation licence callsign.

She will be joining the ever growing ranks of female Wythall Radio Club members with her new callsign, M6UDY.

Dawn finally received her callsign late yesterday but by 8pm had apparently already used it on air. We are all looking forward to hearing her on air from her home location near Bromsgrove and maybe mobile too!

Congratulations Dawn from us all at Wythall Radio Club and here’s to many happy years “on the air”!

Further to the news below about our 5 recent Foundation Licence successes, the new Wythall Radio Club Members’ callsigns are beginning to appear on the air!

Our congratulations go to Andy Brown M6CYY and Andy Warner M6CYZ (some collusion there perhaps? :-))

Also to George Ifrim, (our first Roumanian Member!) now M6LTE and Kevin Tonge who has chosen M6NCO. Kevin has a proud Dad in Jim 2E0BLP who is a long-standing and valued senior member of Wythall Radio Club.

Finally John Daws’ new callsign is confirmed as M6KET.

Exciting times!