wythall radio club

David G7IBO (left) with Juliet M6RSC (right) at a club construction evening with Barry M0DGQ acting as registrar! “With this soldering iron, I thee wed…”

Now it is not often that you will see a posting like this one at Wythall Radio Club! Yes, two of our members are “getting spliced” this week.

David G7IBO and his partner Juliet M6RSC have decided to tie the knot and they are doing so tomorrow (Friday 6th December).

As it is, how shall we say, maybe not the first time around, the event will be a small affair with just close family and friends attending.  But nonetheless that doesn’t mean that their fellow members will not be celebrating with a drink or two tomorrow night either!

The members of Wythall Radio Club wish all the very best wishes for the happiest of futures to David and Juliet as they continue to build their lives together.

With many readers all around the world, the Wythall Radio Club website is becoming very popular. We get many requests asking if there is a way you can be kept informed about our news feeds.

You can be kept in touch via the orange RSS “Subscribe” button up on the top right of our home page, but our resident “webmeister” Callum M0MCX has now implemented a rather “cool” email alert system for you.

Just go to our home page and look at the top left for the “Subscribe to new Posts” section.  Leave us your email and you will get an automatic reminder whenever a new news item appears on this website.

Like all the best ideas, simple but effective! Why not do it now?

Wythall Radio Club is extremely sad to announce the untimely passing of one of our members. Colin Truran M0GJM died yesterday morning, it was announced today.

Colin was a man who was much loved by all in the club, starting out as a Foundation License holder, later rising to attain his Advanced license and eventually become Secretary of the Club.

A former employee of Birmingham Airport, Colin loved his radio, especially the club fox hunts. He was just 64 years of age.  All the members of Wythall Radio Club send their condolences and best wishes to his widow Jill and his children.

A fuller appreciation of Colin’s life and contribution to the club will appear on this website later.

You could be forgiven for thinking that certain members of Wythall Radio Club are only interested in food! What with curry nights, party nights and barbecues, we certainly know how to enjoy ourselves!

However, this Saturday 30th November, it is not our turn to host but to be the visitors – it is time for our annual trip to Chertsey to visit our friendly Ham Radio dealer Martin Lynch and his family and staff.

Every year he puts on a Bacon sandwich breakfast and a Hog Roast lunch for any radio enthusiasts who wish to visit his shop in Surrey. Last year we had a fantastic time, enjoying the company of friends old and new as well as inadvertently purchasing too much radio equipment! Oops…

This Saturday we will be winging our way down the M40 again and looking forward to seeing the folk we have got to know better over the year – and it is still a banker that several members will be returning with something heavy in the car boot!

One of the slightly better things about the dark evenings here in the UK is that indoor activities take more of a centre stage. That is certainly the case this week at Wythall Radio Club, as our meeting on Tuesday sees us re-living some of the lighter nights and warmer days by taking a look back at our Field activities this year. 

Paul 2E0ULC has been putting together some videos from his camcorder, which was running most of the time during VHF and HF SSB Field Days and this is the week that Wythall Radio Club Members will gather to watch the fruit of his labour!

Visitors are of course very welcome – the meeting starts at 2030 in the Club shack at Wythall House, Silver Street, Wythall B47 6LZ.

Perhaps we will see you there?

It may even have escaped the more eagle-eyed members of Wythall Radio Club that this year has seen the release of a new Amateur Radio Band here in the UK.

472 kHz has been granted to us after quite a few years of experimentation under a Notice of Variation to the licence on 501 kHz.  472 kHz is at the bottom end of the old Medium Wave band and probably constitutes new territory for many amateurs, not just “Wythallians”. 

To help unravel the mystery of MF operation, RadCom columnist and low bands expert (and Wythall Radio Club member, we should add!) Dave G3YXM is giving a presentation this coming Tuesday at the Club. He will be opening up the mysteries of this band and explaining just how we can get active on it.

Strangely this talk coincides with an article in the just-released December RadCom magazine where Mike G3XDV writes about the very same topic. They must have been watching our club calendar to time their articles to fit in with us!

So why not pop along on Tuesday 19th November at 2030 to the Club Shack, Wythall House, Silver Street, Wythall. B47 6LZ? Visitors as always are very welcome.

Now that Wythall Radio Club members are beginning to “wake up” again after the efforts of putting on G100RSGB(!), here is a gallery of a few photos from our activation of the event.

Feel free to browse and click for full size pictures – captions will give you a little more information about each one.

We are hoping to post a video of our two days of operation soon too, so keep checking this site for more information!

Members of Wythall Radio Club are still buzzing about our time with the G100RSGB callsign (see entires below!)

Now our technical wizards have grabbed the webcam stills that were being taken every minute or so during our activation and you can re-live the 2 days of operation on YouTube!

Just click on this link for Webcam 1 and this link for Webcam 2.  Webcam 1 had a great view of a radio controlled clock and you can literally see time going by!

See if you can spot our VIP visitors and also some strange goings-on with a calendar?!  There was something very fishy going on there…

One of Wythall Radio Club’s VIP visitors to G100RSGB has been tweeting about his visit!

Sajid Javid MP, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, visited Wythall Radio Club last Friday and clearly enjoyed his stay with us, to the extent that it overran!

Nice then to see that he has been tweeting via his official account about how much he enjoyed his time with us. You are welcome Mr. Javid and we look forward to seeing you again soon! Thanks also to the RSGB for retweeting.

Wythall Radio Club’s two days with the G100RSGB call sign is now over and we thank all stations for their contacts with us and their kind words about our operation.

We made around 2250 contacts in our time with the call sign, beating our self-imposed target of 2000. Our logs are taking a little longer to collate as we are cross-checking and merging 6 separate stations worth of logs to make sure final totals are totally accurate (…and we have day jobs!) So please bear with us – logs will be made available to the RSGB asap!

Thank you to all the amateurs who made our activation such a success!