Ragchew Aug/Sep

Notice of AGM - Outside Events Lifeboat Day, Lighthouse Weekend, SSB Field Day

August - September

Worthing & District Amateur Radio Club Established 1948

http://www.wadarc.org.uk - email info@wadarc.org.uk President: G8FMJ John Slater

Life Vice President: G8MSQ Peter Robinson

WADARC meet alternate Wednesdays, 8pm in the Lancing Parish Hall, South Street, Lancing BN15 8AJ. All that have an interest in radio communications and associate subjects, whether a licensed amateur or not, are invited. WADARC can also arrange training for people to undertake the Radio Amateur Foundation, Intermediate & Advanced licenses.

WADARC Committee 2011 - 2012 Kelvan! !

Rod! !

Sandra ! !

John ! !

Richard! !

Jonathan!

Peter! !

Pete! !

Andy! !

M0KEL! !

M0RDV! !

G0KAG! !

G8FMJ! !

G7NLZ! !

G1EXG! !

G4LKW! !

M6PAP! !

M6RFE! !

Chairman! !

Secretary! !

Treasurer! !

President! !

Ordinary Member!!

Ordinary Member!!

Ordinary Member!!

Ordinary Member!!

Ordinary Member!!

WADARC Ex Officio 2011 - 2012 John !

Peter!

Chris !

Graham Phil!

Martin !

! ! ! ! ! !

G8FMJ! !

G8MSQ! !

G3NDJ! !

G4FNL! !

G4UDU! !

M0ADY ! !

Publicity!! !

Membership Manager!

Awards Manager! !

Contest Manager!!

Ragchew Editor! !

Club Webmaster! !

WADARC Foundation, Intermediate & Advanced Courses & Licensing Kelvan! !

M0KEL! !

Training Officer!

WADARC Club Nets - all times are local I am currently obtaining new information on club nets.

2m on 145.425 is an often used frequency.

Contents From the Editor's Keyboard!

1

Chairman’s Chatter!

1

Presidential Ponderings!

1

Selsey Lifeboat Station!

3

Club Member Profile - G7VRB!

4

GB8SL - Shoreham Lighthouse weekend!

6

SSB Field Day!

7

What to look for on the HF Bands!

16

Ragchew Back Issues!

18

Band Reports!

19

Club program, activities and dates for the diary!

20

Official Notice WADARC AGM at Lancing Parish Hall Wednesday 17th October 2012 at 8PM

From the Editor's Keyboard This issue is being put together in the U.S.A - another overseas production of Ragchew.

There will be a report on some of my radio operating while over here together with some pictures that will appear in a later issue.

Please ensure you make note of the date for the AGM. This is a meeting you need to attend if you wish to be involved in the running of WADARC plus it is an important time to make your ideas for the club known after the formalities are over.

There have been several outside events so reports and pictures have added many pages. Look for the embedded link at the end of the field day article to see a video taken by Andre.

We will have the next instalment of Peter G3LDO’s article on his vintage radio station in the next issue.

Ragchew is still required by a few of the members in a printed format. This limits the number of pages I can use so a decision is needed from you at the AGM - do we push ahead with the “Electronic Version” or be restrained by the requirement of a paper copy? Plus there is the additional problem in the time it takes to get the printed copy out. Richard G7NLZ has been extremely helpful in doing the printing in between his busy work schedule.

Phil G4UDU

Chairman’s Chatter Well another AGM is looming so please be there and support the club.

I’ve just finished the foundation course with five candidates, all who passed, so well done Dawn, Norman, Andy, Daniel and Johnny.

I will be starting Intermediate and Advanced courses at the end of September and I will be looking for assistance - if I don’t get any I won’t be running courses next year.

Also, could the club have more support for events as it is the same handful of members who participate with these.

Kelvan Gale M0KEL

Presidential Ponderings Time for another Ragchew and to reflect on the last couple of months club activities. We have, I think, done very well as a club with events such as the Shoreham Lighthouse weekend and the Selsey Lifeboat weekend. Both events

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were very successful but why is it always the same few enthusiastic members who end up doing all the work? It is a club event and it does promote the club in a good light so please have a think about getting involved in some way in the future.

These events are not all about radio activity, they are a social event as well and a chance to get together outside the club environment so please give it some thought.

I mentioned the training situation in my last epistle and thanks to Kelvan we now have had a foundation course with a 100% pass rate. Well done to you all and I hope to work you on the air before too long - intermediate course next?

As I write this we have just had the SSB field day weekend. This is the major contest that we as a club enter and once again we had a successful weekend. The weather was not perfect but it was OK and although one or two of the regulars were unable to be there, we had enough support to run two stations this year, a first for us. This went very well and gave some of the newer members the chance to experience a major contest without being under to much pressure. Hopefully, this will encourage some members to take part in contests in the future, things like the 80 mtr club championship. If anyone wants help or advice on this subject, please let me or Graham know. I would like to single out both Phil and Rod for a particular mention as so much relied on them for this event. Phil for getting the caravan there, setting up the second station and providing us with internet access and Rod for doing his usual excellent job keeping us all very well fed for the event.

Thanks to all who got involved - I am sure that Graham will say more on the subject.

We are getting ever closer to the AGM, 17th October, and I understand that some of the existing committee members are wishing to stand down or take on lesser roles within the committee. This leaves us with the problem we have every year of having to ask for volunteers to step up and offer their services as committee members and help to keep the club going. As I have already mentioned, it does seem to be that certain people are “expected” to do certain jobs just because they have always done it. People like Martin M0ADY, who keeps the web site going for us, and Peter G8MSQ, who keeps all the membership side of things up to date. Most of this work is done “behind the scenes” and does not always get the recognition that it deserves. Once again, I would ask that you consider what you may be able to offer the club. It will only survive and move forward if you the members put back some of what you get out of it so please give it some thought over the next few weeks.

Despite my many requests for help with the club programme, this to seems to have fallen on deaf ears and I have ended up doing it for another year. I hope that what I have achieved has been acceptable to you. I have tried to get some interesting talks while having to balance this with the costs involved. I am very grateful to some of our own club members who have given talks and the members of other local clubs who have also helped, if anyone can offer a talk on any

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subject, please let me know. Again, if anyone can offer to take over the club programme, I would be grateful, but I won't hold my breath.

Attendance at the weekly meetings has on the whole been pretty good and the circle format is certainly working well with more people getting involved, keep it going. That about wraps it up for now.

73, John G8FMJ

Selsey Lifeboat Station GB4SLB Amateur Radio Station for Selsey Lifeboat Week.

Many thanks to Selsey Lifeboat Station for letting the Lifeboat Amateur Radio Society and Worthing & District ARC play radio at their event.

We started by setting up the station on Friday evening and by 20:30 we were ready to start transmitting. Thanks to Phil G4UDU and Roger G7VBR for their help with setting up.

We chose the 40 metre (7MHz) band and our first contact was in to central France. We closed the station for the night at 23:15 with a contact into Devon. Saturday morning we opened the station after breakfast, making our first contact at 07:21 with a station in Buckinghamshire.

The Inshore Station, Ours Just Behind the fence!

Later in the day we started to get a lot of noise coupled with a contest that had started, so we closed the station at 16:55 to have a rest and our evening meal. After the meal we had a bit of a play on VHF/UHF but as normal, that was quiet so we decided on an early

night and get a good start in the morning.

Early Sunday morning we were woken by very heavy rain bouncing off our tents so it was a case of stay comfortable for a bit longer and let the storm pass. With breakfast done we fired up the radio, making our first contact at 07:35 into South Wales. It wasn’t long before we were joined by our multilinguist operator Mr Ed 2E0MDO who did a sterling job both with logging and chasing people on VHF/ UHF on to our HF frequency!

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We had a steady stream of contacts throughout the day to keep us going until we needed to close and pack everything away until next year, closing the station at 17:18 with a contact into Amsterdam. Included among our list of contacts on Sunday was one with a Naval Radio station in Austria, also a call from Somerset from DX member Kenn G0NKZ, a retired coxswain of Shoreham Lifeboat, plus other stations that had or are putting on stations for their lifeboat station open days.

No. 1 Operator

We made a total of 340 contacts over the weekend and they were still calling us when we had to start packing away!

Thank you to all who came to visit us over the weekend either in person or via radio.

We had a good number of visitors both from the amateur world and those just wanting to see what strange things were going on!

I was asked if we would do it next year and the word yes slipped out!

So see you all again next year!

Pete M6PAP

Club Member Profile G7VRB In my early teens I became interested in SW listening on a broadcast radio and then progressed to a one valve kit radio which I built with the help of my Dad, soldering courtesy of some solder, a tin of flux and the iron heated on the gas ring.

I later joined the Signals section in the school Combined Cadet Force where I was quite mic shy and missed some of the fun.

For our 'mobile' activities we had a 19 and a 62 set as base radios and about ten Wireless Set 18 of WW2 vintage that were somewhat heavy and quite short on range, especially anywhere there was an obstruction.

We had great fun riding our pushbikes around the streets of Portsmouth with a dead weight on our backs, trying to communicate with each other and base.

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Every time we braked the sections of copper aerial would wobble and fall forward into the road where the sections would go everywhere.

I always fancied becoming a commercial radio operator but became a telephone engineer apprentice instead. I was told later that the majority of merchant navy operators went down with their ships so it was a wise move! Having seen the location of well below the water line of the Signals Office on later HM ships, still a wise decision.

My career took over and radio ceased to exist until I was forty something when my work colleagues and I were under pressure to take a crash style diploma course. Not being that sure I could still do the paperwork and study, I looked at evening classes and decided to try the RAE course run by John Fuller G0OIO at Burgess Hill. I passed that and then was told the diploma course was dropped due to budgetary constraints. However I gained more than I expected from the experience.

As the RAE was supported by MSARS, I joined them and spent time at Field Days and events. I joined WADARC a few years ago as the club was doing different events from MSARS. I was persuaded to join Eastbourne and Wealden RAYNET Group and also help at several of the events run by the South Sussex Group. I enjoy using my radio skills to help others with charity walks, rides etc. that I feel totally unable to undertake myself. I also enjoy the challenge presented by some of the locations that are dead areas for vhf radio, mobile phones and what was analogue TV. You do not get a QSL card arrive in the post but you do get a lot of thanks from the participants and it is very good PR for amateur radio.

As to the future, if my hearing holds up I will continue with voice comms, but if the problem gets too bad, I will revisit data comms such as PSK and basically anything radio that can be done from a keyboard and screen.

Roger G7VBR

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GB8SL - Shoreham Lighthouse weekend GB8SL August 17/19th 2012 Shoreham Lighthouse on the Air for International Lighthouses on the Air Weekend This year with the weather set fair and a recruitment drive at the Lifeboat Station and the Harbour beach car park being very busy, we decided not to try to manoeuvre the Club caravan onto the site but instead pitched the Club tent.

Because this location is a little too bright for operating the clubs main HF radio in sunlight, we pitched a frame tent inside. The Full Station was as last year IC 756 Pro III, Tokyo Hi Power Linear and an auto atu - although most of the time on 40m we ran barefoot 100 Watts to the Club's W3DZZ at about 45ft.

The toilets and power were once again courtesy of Shoreham Rowing Club.

The final totals were 401 QSOs in 19 Countries, ENGLAND, N.IRELAND, SCOTLAND, EIRE, FRANCE, BELGIUM, DENMARK, GERMANY, NETHERLANDS, SWEDEN, ITALY, AUSTRIA, SPAIN, SWITZERLAND, POLAND, AZORES, USA and BRAZIL.

Shoreham Lighthouse Pete G4LKW & John G8FMJ operating

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One of the calls from the USA was from Frank N2FF Long Island who attended a WADARC Christmas party and wished to be remembered to any members who met him.

Of these a total of 41 were Lighthouses/Ships in 8 Countries, ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, N.IRELAND, GERMANY, DENMARK, BELGIUM, NETHERLANDS and The AZORES (list attached).

Many thanks to all who were involved over the weekend whether setting up, taking down, operating, logging or just visiting. A pleasant weekend, looking forward to 2013.

Pete G4LKW

SSB Field Day Worthing & District Amateur Radio Club Report on SSB Field Day 2012 by Graham Bubloz G4FNL The SSB Field Day contest has become a fixture in the Worthing Club’s calendar for some years now. Again this year, I was involved in instigating proceedings, and during August, I organised a group of members to plan for the event. SSB Field Day is a radio contest that takes place on the first full weekend of September each year. It is a competition between teams representing other clubs and groups throughout the UK. Activity is limited to the traditional HF bands from 80m to 10m. We have operated in the ‘Restricted’ section over the past few years: where we are limited to use a single element aerial to be supported by a maximum of two supports, which can be no more than 15m in height, and a single transceiver with a maximum of 100W output. This year, we decided to try to make the contest more inclusive for regular club members. So, instead of having one station, we decided that we would have two. We already had sufficient equipment, with a bit of borrowing from here and there. The planning group, consisting of John G8FMJ, Phil G4UDU, Pete G4LKW, André M0RAV, Edmund 2E0MDO, Rod M0RDV and I met up to decide how to make the two stations effective. One limiting factor was that both stations would need to be located in the same field and as we only had one power generator, we had to acquire some extra long lengths of power cable to feed power to the two stations. For a few years, we have been lucky enough to be able to use a field on a farm near Adversane, West Sussex as our site. Again this year, the use of this field was secured by John G8FMJ.

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Our score from the last two years has placed us in 2nd and 4th place respectively and so the pressure would be on the try and repeat the performance and perhaps to try and improve or at least maintain these positions.

The main station equipment consisted of the Club’s Icom IC756Pro Mk3, with a matching Icom auto-tuner, that was connected to the aerial – a doublet that is 40m long and 15m high. This setup was designed to be the competitive station representing the Worthing club and consequently also used the Club’s laptop PC with N1MM logging software and a 3G Internet connection to provide access to the DX Cluster, kindly provided by Phil G4UDU.

The Main Station, Operating Tent and 80m Doublet Antenna.

The second station was set up with an Icom IC718, an LDG auto tuner and a Butternut ground–mounted HF vertical. Paper based logging and check-logging was to be used on this station, which was designed as a station for those unused to the contesting environment, where a more relaxed operating regime would be maintained and act as an introduction to contesting for new members. For the second year we used the Club’s own 2.5kW petrol generator to provide power to both stations.

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The two stations were located one on either side of the field that we had been allocated to use by the farmer and were only 200m apart. During the planning meeting, we had concerns that there might be a great deal of mutual interference between our stations, as both had the capability of running 100W. We should need to carry out some on-site test to reveal how bad (or not) the problem would be. However, we decided that we would have one station using a horizontally polarised aerial and the other station would be using a vertical aerial – to try to minimise any interference.

The Second Station, Operating/Mess Tent and HF-6V Vertical Antenna.

As before, we made arrangements to have an advance party that would get onto site on the Friday afternoon prior to the weekend. This group consisted of Phil G4UDU, Rod M0RDV, Peter G8MSQ, Gerry M3ORE, Pete G4LKW, John G8FMJ, Chris G3UFS and me. We met up on site on the Friday at 3pm and started the job of erecting tents, masts etc. However, there was one problem: Phil G4UDU, who was working that day, was unavoidably detained in Worthing, which consequently slightly delayed the arrival of the Club caravan and certain other important pieces of equipment (such as aerials and a generator) that he was going to take to site. In the meantime, the rest of us set to and made a final decision about the exact location of the two stations within the field. The next problem

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was to try to ensure that we had sufficient mains power extension cabling to allow for the generator to be centrally located and able to feed power to both stations. We managed to agree on the positioning and then we started the tent and mast erection in earnest. In the meantime, because it’s harvest time (I think) several tractors pulling trailers were traversing the field backwards and forwards from the farm buildings to an adjacent field, taking bales of straw for storage and so we had to be mindful of not getting in their way. We also made sure that we didn’t leave any cabling on the ground that might have been mangled by the large tractors wheels. We were lucky with the weather – a fine sunny afternoon with a few strong gusts of winds and it was dry.

Our catering was managed by Rod M0RDV, with Edmund 2E0MDO taking on some sous-chef duties on the Saturday. This assistance certainly made the overall job of catering easier than previous events. We gave the design of the layout of the Mess tent to Rod, who set up a kitchen with the caravan sited right adjacent to the club white marquee tent, acting as a sort-of awning. It was agreed that the second station (G4LKW/P) would be co-located in the large white marquee tent, as opposed to inside the caravan. This certainly made the operating environment much less cramped and also allowed Rod to have the use of the facilities within the caravan. Unfortunately, due to an electrical fault, there was no power within the caravan and so the fridge was out of commission for the weekend. Fortunately, Rod had brought along his camping cool box that was pressed into service. We had planned on catering for 12 people for each meal – but in reality the numbers were much reduced.

Within 40 minutes of arriving on site, the first aerial support mast went up. At this point Phil arrived towing the caravan and bringing the aerial equipment and so on.

Shortly afterwards, one of our new Club members Dawn (now M6DCQ) also arrived on site. Due to the excellent teamwork and good number of members that turned out, we managed to get a caravan, two tents, two masts, two aerials, mains power cables and a generator set up within 3½ hours and we were enjoying our first cup of tea shortly afterwards. After the tuning up of the aerials, I then decided to take a listen to the HF bands to get a feel for propagation. It was good to hear that 10m and 15m had plenty of signals (mainly Scandinavian) on them. The final task was to complete the set up of the second station, which again was done in record time, and so by approximately 7pm we were able to carry out some interference testing to determine whether we would be able to operate both stations on the same band – and if so, how close could we operate frequencywise, before we had major problems? It was surprising that we could, in fact, operate within approximately 20kHz of one another – admittedly with some splatter and a bit of de-sensing but it was deemed to be OK. We also checked for harmonic radiation – which again was entirely within operational expectations. Hence by

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7.30pm we had done all the setting up and there were just a few more things to check but that could easily be done the following morning.

Pete G4LKW, Gerry M3ORE, Dawn M6DCQ and Rod M0RAV had agreed to stay on site overnight to keep an eye on things.

Saturday morning arrived: the morning before the contest start at 2pm (local) time. This meant that we had a good number of hours of ‘tinkering’ time to allow us to check that computers and Internet connections were working and to grab a few test QSOs to ensure that we had no RF type problems. Fortunately, because of our combined experience, we found no such issues and we were ready to go, awaiting the start of the contest. We even had time to make a few QSOs in the All Asian (AA) contest that always coincides with SSB Field Day. (In the AA contest, the exchange is Report + Age. We used the Club’s age of 64 years.)

After the radio checks were complete, we gathered together and ran through the aim of the contest and explanations were given as to how to log on paper, and how to fill in the paper checklog system that we had for the second station. I had also asked Gerry M3ORE to take on the management of running the second station, which appeared to work successfully.

Lunchtime on site was marked by the traditional fare of beefburgers in a bun.

Goodness knows where all the additional sauces were stored but we had a great meal thanks to Rod once again. A little later on, Sandra G0KAG arrived in her new Motorhome, along with faithful four-legged companion Sparky.

At the stroke of 2pm, G3WOR/P and G4LKW/P went on air. We had a Club visitor - Peter G4BVH - to kick off operating on the main station. Peter helped us out last year and was back for more this year. I had deliberately omitted myself from taking the first few hours of the contest because last year we only had a dismal 21 QSOs in the first hour. This year, Peter managed a bit better with 26 but surprisingly, it was still a bit pedestrian. He started on 10m and QSYd to 15m and then on to 20m all within the first hour. Over at the G4LKW/P station, Gerry and Dawn were working well as a double-act, with one operating and the other logging and they bagged 4 QSOs in the first hour. As time went on, the rate in the G3WOR/P camp started to increase but coming up to 90 minutes into the contest, the rate was beginning to fall once again. Consequently, Peter decided to move on to 40m. Normally, we would have persevered on the HF bands but as we were struggling a bit on the HF bands, with such a compromise aerial, his decision was wise, and after 2 hours on the air, he had reached serial number 94. This was more like it. We could get some idea of how well we were doing as we worked other G portable stations that were also in the contest. Some were obviously in the Open section because their QSO totals were at least double ours. However, it appeared that we were largely ahead of most of the other restricted entry stations.

Three hours from the start, I took over from Peter and tried to maintain the same

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QSO rate. We stayed on 40m but also took a look at the HF bands – making a few QSOs and also bagging such much-needed multipliers. A quick word on the scoring: Each QSO is worth a number of points; 5 points for another portable station; 3 points for anyone outside of Europe and 2 points for a fixed station within Europe. In addition, for each contact with a station in a new DXCC country, you score a multiplier. This applies to all bands, so if you work a DL on 80m and then a DL station on 40m and so on, each time you get an additional multiplier.

These ‘mults’ when totalled for the 5 bands are then used as a multiplication factor against the total number of points gained from all QSOs. At some point in the proceedings, André M0RAV arrived on site to help out as required and started to wander around taking a few photos as previously requested.

By 7pm, G3WOR/P had reached serial number 222 and G4LKW/P was on 37.

The ‘WOR figure was 12 up on the previous year – so all was looking positive.

Whilst the operating was being taken care of, Rod was busy making tea and coffee and at around 7.30pm he served up a delicious evening meal of pork, vegetables and new potatoes.

John G8FMJ and Pete G4LKW on the “night shift”

At around this time, John G8FMJ arrived on site. He sat alongside me to understand the state of the bands and what we had worked over the past few

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hours. After a short while, I handed the baton over to him. Pete G4LKW was also on hand and helped John with the logging aspect for what seemed like many hours. My thanks to him for his strength and tenacity. John continued on 40m and then took another listen on the HF bands – gaining the odd few extra mults here and there. He then moved on to 80m at around 9pm and with occasional QSY to 40m and 20m to try to work as much as he could before the bands closed. By 11pm he got the main station QSO total to serial number 478 – which was 70 up on the previous year. It was time to change operator and Peter G4BVH again took over the operating. We continued with the four of us rotating the operating, with Pete G4LKW logging when he could almost right through the night.

Edmund 2E0MDO and Dawn M6DCQ operating the second station.

Every four or five hours, it was up to someone to check the generator for fuel.

This seemed to work successfully, especially as we had installed a permanent light on a pole to allow us to see the generator. (However, we had a bit of a worry on Friday evening beforehand when Phil took a call from Rod on site at around 9pm – the generator had packed up. This was a major concern because it is the only part of the operation for which we didn’t have a back-up. Such is the resourcefulness of the team that Rod M0RDV, knowing that he had a ‘spare’

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generator at home, made a trip back home to collect it and bring back to site. On subsequent investigation, the problem with the Club’s generator was identified as a lack of oil, which automatically stops the engine if the level is too low. So, we were back in business once a bit of SAE 10/40 was added (but just how to add oil to a generator is a real task in ingenuity – just ask Phil).

Overnight operation at the G4LKW/P station stopped when they reached their target of outgoing serial number of 100. This was at approximately 1am on Sunday morning. The main station at G3WOR/P continued throughout the night and the QSOs fell as expected during the wee small hours. We had target QSO numbers printed out to give us an idea of how well (or not) we were doing compared to last year. Once again, I was gratified to see that by 6am, we had 648 QSOs in our log.

Last year, we were on serial number 589 at that time and so our strategy, conditions and operating regime seemed to be paying off.

The operating continued throughout the remainder of Sunday morning, plodding around the bands trying to call CQ or find stations or mults that we hadn’t worked before. The weather, which had been a warm muggy night, started to change and a period of drizzle came in to dampen the fields and tents. We hoped that the rain would soon stop to at least allow us to pack up the equipment in the dry. Sure enough, within 3 hours of starting the rain eased off and we had the remainder of Sunday as a mainly dry day.

As the Sunday of the contest was also the first Sunday of the month, it was agreed beforehand that the Club’s regular monthly breakfast get-together would be held at the Farm as opposed to the normal cafe in Goring. Unfortunately, we didn’t receive any visitors for this event and so Rod cooked a magnificent traditional English breakfast for the folks who were on site operating the two stations. A little later, we did receive a visit from John G4BLJ and XYL Sue. They weren’t on site for breakfast but they did come in to inspect operations and have a chat with everyone. Subsequently, they went for a long walk in the fantastic countryside that surrounds the site.

A little before this, following some well-deserved overnight sleep, Gerry and Dawn got the G4LKW/P station back on the air at 06:23. Most operating of the station was undertaken by these two but Sandra G0KAG and Edmund 2E0MDO had also joined in on the previous day. The final QSO tally for the station was 150 and at approx 12:30pm on Sunday they went QRT, having proudly made sufficient QSOs to prove that the second station idea was a success and hopeful that it would be repeated. The guys then helped the general clearing down of the site as the end of the contest was within sight.

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First Sunday in the month breakfast meeting - Field day style

At the G3WOR/P station, we exceeded our target of beating last year’s score and we sent our final QSO serial number of 898 at 13:54. With some analysis of the log afterwards and after taking out the duplicate contacts, of which there were 21, we ended up with a net QSO total of 877 QSOs. We had certainly improved on the previous year and the tables below shows our claimed score details.

BAND

QSOS

POINTS

MULTS

3.5MHz

268

1168

23

7Mhz

422

1584

30

14MHz

132

520

31

21MHz

38

109

19

28MHz

17

52

7

totals

877

3433

110

377630

We worked some considerable DX throughout the weekend, including YB, VU, UA0, JA, W, 7Z and A61 but not a single African nor South American station

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appeared in the log of the main station. Hopefully, the score this year MAY just be sufficient for third place – but we will only know once the adjudication has been done after a month or two, when the results are published.

I do hope that those that were involved in SSB Field Day this year enjoyed it and that you will continue to support this annual club event. My sincere thanks to everyone who was involved.

73, Graham G4FNL A final footnote - Andre made a short video of the main station operation. If you click on this link you should be able to view it. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/108591191/WADARC%20FD.m4v Phil G4UDU

What to look for on the HF Bands There are many different DX reporting sites that list details of operating in some of the rarer countries. This example is taken from the ARRL weekly news release that you can subscribe to on their web page at www.arrl.org ARLD039 DX news This week's bulletin was made possible with information provided by NC1L, The Weekly DX, the OPDX Bulletin, 425 DX News, The Daily DX, DXNL, Contest Corral from QST and the ARRL Contest Calendar and WA7BNM web sites. Thanks to all.

CONWAY REEF, 3D2. A large group of operators will be QRV as 3D2C from September 24 to October 5. Activity will be on 160 to 2 meters, including 60 meters, using CW, SSB, RTTY, SSTV and PSK31.

QSL via YT1AD. MONTENEGRO, 4O. Chab, YT7WA is QRV as 4O/YT7WA from the Village of Buljarice until September 23. Activity is on the HF bands using BPSK and QPSK. QSL to home call.

ZANZIBAR, 5H. Harald, DL7VSN will be QRV as 5H1HS from September 23 to October 13. This includes being QRV as 5H1HS/3 during a short trip to Lazy Lagoon Island, no IOTA. QSL to home call.

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SENEGAL, 6V. Enrico, IK2FIL will be QRV as 6V7X from Le Calao from September 24 to October 4. Activity will be on the HF bands. This includes an entry in the upcoming CQ WW RTTY contest as a Single Op/Low Power entry. QSL via operator's instructions.

WEST MALAYSIA, 9M2. Piju, 9M2PJU will be QRV as 9M2PJU/p from the Pertak dam in Kuala Kubu Bharu from September 22 to 24. Activity will be on 20 and 15 meters using CW. QSL direct to home call.

FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY, DA. A group of operators will be QRV as DM50ITA from Fehmarn Island, IOTA EU-128, from September 21 to 23. Activity will be on the HF and VHF bands using CW and SSB. QSL via the bureau.

SPAIN, EA. A group of operators are QRV as EG5INT from Columbretes Island, IOTA EU-069, until September 24. Activity is on all HF bands.

QSL direct to EA5KA. AMERICAN SAMOA, KH8. Ron, N6XT and John, N7CQQ are QRV as KH8/ home calls from Tutuila Island, IOTA OC-045, until October 1. Activity is on the HF bands. QSL direct to home calls.

US VIRGIN ISLANDS, KP2. Jeff, K5WE is QRV as KP2/K5WE from St. Croix until September 26. Activity is on all HF bands using mainly CW and possibly some RTTY. QSL to home call.

LEBANON, OD. John, OD5RW is again QRV on 80 to 10 meters, including 2 meters and 70 cm, using CW, SSB, RTTY, SSTV and a variety of other digital modes, including D-Star. QSL via K8NA. BELGIUM, ON. Special event station ON68POL is QRV until September 30 in remembrance of the liberation by the "Polar Bars" of the bridgehead of Rijkevorsel. QSL via bureau.

CURACAO, PJ2. Jeoff, PD4JOF is QRV as PJ2/PD4JOF until September 29. QSL to home call.

TURKEY, TA. Gab, HA3JB will be QRV as TA/HA3JB from September 22 to October 2. Activity will be on 80 to 10 meters using CW, SSB and various digital modes. This includes being an entry in the upcoming CQ WW RTTY contest. QSL to home call.

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ASIATIC RUSSIA, UA0. Valery, RA0SS/0 is QRV from Kunashir Island, IOTA AS-025, until the beginning of October. Activity is on 30 and 20 meters. QSL to home call.

VANUATU, YJ. Rod, YJ8RN is QRV as YJ8RN/p from Loh Island, IOTA OC-110. Activity is mainly on 20 meters using SSB. His length of stay is unknown. QSL to home call.

SOUTH SUDAN, Z8. Jim, K7QI and Diya, YI1DZ now hold calls Z81A and Z81D, respectively. Activity may be on 160 to 10 meters as conditions allow. QSL Z81A via K7GSE and Z81D via OM3JW.

Ragchew Back Issues I have been looking for a way to make available the archive of Ragchew back issues and there is now a “Cloud File Store” holding the issues from the last year.

I will now set about loading the previous issues that have been produced in an electronic format - pdf files - and once online, they will be available for all club members to download.

Here is the current index.

Aug/Sep 2012 http://dl.dropbox.com/u/108591191/Ragchew%20Aug%20Sep%202012.pdf May/June 2012 http://dl.dropbox.com/u/108591191/Ragchew%20May%20Jun%202012.pdf Mar/Apr 2012 http://dl.dropbox.com/u/108591191/ragchew%20mar%20apr%202012.pdf Dec/Jan 2012 http://dl.dropbox.com/u/108591191/ragchew%20dec%20jan%202012.pdf Oct/Nov 2011 http://dl.dropbox.com/u/108591191/ragchew%20oct%20nov%202011.pdf

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Band Reports So are the bands in good shape? Well yes, sometimes they are very good!

While working stations in this years IARU contest in July, I was amazed at the number of stations on the CW portion of the band. I have “grabbed” two screen shots from the spectrumscope on my K3 for the 15m and 10m bands. They show the bottom 60kHz of the band. All of the dotted lines in the waterfall display are individual CW stations and as you can see, the bands are BUSY! Phil G4UDU

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Club program, activities and dates for the diary October 3rd Discussion Evening 7th Monthly Breakfast meeting at The Goring Café 9am 10th Discussion Evening 10th 80 mtr CW sprint contest 17th Annual Club AGM 24th Talk by Gerry M3ORE “ Linux and Amateur Radio Pt2 “ 25th 80 mtr SSB sprint contest 31st GX3WOR On the Air November 4th Monthly Breakfast meeting at The Goring café 9am 7th Talk by Jonathan Hare G1EXG “Some science and technology of skateboarding and longboarding “ 10th Club Calls Contest 14th DVD Evening - Titan Missile Museum in AZ USA 14th 80 mtr SSB Sprint contest 21st G4LRP-Photo Quiz 28th GX3WOR On the Air 29th 80 mtr CW Sprint contest December 2nd Monthly breakfast meeting at The Goring café 9am 5th G8MSQ Christmas Quiz 12th Club Christmas Party ( no meeting at the Parish Hall ) 19th No club meeting 24th 80 mtr Santa Claus net 25th Xmas day 2m net

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Items for Sale If you have any equipment you would like listed here, please send me the details via email.

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