February 2008

Editor: Malcolm Andrew G8NRP

COMMENT

I don’t propose to have any particular celebrations for my thirtieth year in Amateur Radio but it was good to meet a number of old friends, some of whom I have not seen for thirty years, at the HARS Radio and Computing Rally last Sunday. It was also encouraging to see some interest in taking the exams to get a licence that was so absent last year. Perhaps we are bucking national trend as interest in our Rally seems to have grown. An extra special vote of thanks must go to Ann, G8NVI who, once again, more than successfully managed the whole organisation of this event. See comments below.

Malcolm, G8NRP

JANUARY CLUB MEETING

After the now familiar Rally preparations talk-through we got down to another high light of our calendar the G6LNU Quiz. As per usual there were the arguments about the circuit diagram questions and some of the ‘guess who the mug shot is’ photos were even in colour although I seemed to be in the team that does not watch much ITV! Another enjoyable evening with our oldest member knowing the answer to who was the first licensed yl? For the answer check out http://hamgallery.com/Tribute/G6YL/ for some interesting facts.

HARS ANNUAL DINNER

Thirty of us sat down to the HARS Annual Dinner celebrating our fiftieth year on 19 January at the Kingswell Hotel, Harwell. We all seem to enjoy ourselves and even the conversations were good. Perhaps it was the free glass of wine that was provided with the meal that helped it along! Unfortunately, it was not appropriate to have any long, or short, speeches as the restaurant was completely full with other dinners.

ANOTHER OVER FROM THE CHAIRMAN

Time just rushes by. It seems only a few days ago we were sitting down for Christmas lunch and yet this year’s rally is upon us. It must be something to do with age or the fact that we’ve been so busy. I’m writing this before the rally, but I hope you all had an enjoyable one and got something useful at the event. So much seems to have happened during January. We had the club dinner where about 30 of us enjoyed a pleasant evening at the Kingswell. In celebration of our 50 years as a club, we all had a drink “on the house”, (or “on the club” to be correct), most of us having it with the meal.

A real “thank you” from the committee to those of you who have already filled in and returned the club shack questionnaire to Ray. If you haven’t yet done so, I’m sure Ray will still be interested in your views, so please do so. I know Ray has been collating the results and I’m sure he will present them at the earliest opportunity. With hindsight, maybe the questions could have been better worded, (for which I take any blame), but I’m sure that you will have understood what was meant and replied accordingly. With this information, the committee can be guided by your wishes.

We seem to have had a lot of rain this January, about half a gallon of which came through the shack roof here at ‘CUL towers! At one point I had bits of guttering and plastic boxes trying to catch most of the water before it got onto all the files I have on a shelf. Files full of old rubbish no doubt, but USEFUL old rubbish! We are also preparing to put up another tower here (for HF and 6m) and the hole, which was dug before Christmas, is now a small swimming pool. A 4’ cube swimming pool that is. As soon as the level drops, the plan is to get some concrete in there to support the base section of the tower. Having had an exorbitant quote for putting in this 4’ cube of concrete, the plan is to do that ourselves - any volunteers to help?

There have been quite a number of contests this month, not just the AFS and Club Championship ones that Bob is keen for us to join in with. We have done two 4m ones from ‘CUL towers this month (having forgotten the first 4m cumulative), which is an interesting band, especially as the 4m aerial is finally on the tower and not at about 12’ on a fixed heading. As I type this, I have the logs from today’s 70cms AFS contest in front of me. It was something of a disaster for us here. Not only were conditions poor, but the aerial system developed a fault that turned from intermittent to permanent so that not only could we hear very little we also had 30W up and 15W back on transmit. We lost about an hour in lowering the tower, tracing the fault (the masthead preamp), and putting the tower back up without it. We managed to work 30 in the end, including 3 continentals but it was all very frustrating. A number of other club members were on, (so get those logs in to Angus!), but no big 70cms signals from the West of the county!

I have been playing a bit more with the ‘SoftRock’ TX/RX I had as a present from Father Christmas. I have even had my first 2-way QSO with it on 80m SSB, running all of 800 mW! Plans are afoot to improve the tuning range and maybe increase the output power a bit. Mind you, with the superb results that Roger, G0AOZ achieves with low power on 80m, maybe I won’t need any more power, just a better antenna system!

Mike, G8CUL

CONTEST NEWS

2008 did start off with a bang. The first 2m Club Championship event of the year was very well supported by members and the HARS team came in 3rd with 688 pts behind Cray Valley RS (1000pts) and de Montford Uni ARC (949pts). We are just ahead of Bracknell ARC (627pts). In the Single Op Fixed section Colin, M0DDT came 12th with 229 pts; Bob, G0ADH came 17th with 135 pts; Colin, G3NNG came 30th with 71 pts and Malcolm,G8NRP came 69th with 1pt. In the Open section Mike and Ann G8CUL came 4th with 640pts. Please come on air and support the Club Championship events (2m and 80m) and submit a log - every valid QSO counts! If we can keep this momentum then 3rd place at the end of the year is achievable.

The 80m AFS events have once again been well supported and we have been able to enter a complete team in both the CW and SSB events along with a partial team of 3 in the SSB. Claimed scores are:

Five stations sent in logs for the 432MHz AFS: G0ADH, M0DDT, G0MJW, G8CUL and M0GNW. The general consensus was that conditions were bad and everyone did well to score as well as they had.

The first 80m Club Championship SSB event took place last Monday and only three logs but conditions were very bad and everyone struggled. I only managed 3 QSOs and then a domestic situation got the better of me - no heating due to busted boiler! Many thanks to Bob, G0ADH and Alan, M0GNW for their efforts.

The 80m Club Championship is unique amongst RSGB contests as it has a data-modes element. Logger programs SD and SDV have long been suggested for use in HF and VHF contests but they are limited in that they cannot be used directly in a data-modes contest. If you wish to take part in the data-modes element I would suggest using the N1MM logger. This program supports all the major contests. While it does not support the 80m CC directly the DXserial option works well but the cabrillo file will need editing before entering the log. The program itself is light years ahead of SD and is very user configurable although not so user friendly to set up. However, once set up it is very easy to use. It is rapidly becoming the contest logger of choice for serious contesters. If using it for 80m data-modes use the MMvari engine as it supports both RTTY and PSK and can be programmed for macros. Remember in 80m data-modes contests you can work stations twice - once in each mode. More about this program in future columns but if you want to know more contact me or visit http://pages.cthome.net/n1mm/

At the time of writing three logs have been received for February’s 2m CC from G0ADH, M0DDT and G8CUL.

Other contests:

Results of the 2007 OK RTTY DX contest have been announced where I came 102nd of 264 in the low power all band section and Bob, G0ADH came 12th in the 20m band section. If you take part and enter any of the world’s HF contests let me know so I can look out for the results.

Could anyone taking part in the March 2m CC or 80m CC Data contests please send me your entry ASAP after the event as I will have to send the entries in on Friday 7th March because I’m heading off to HB9 land to strap boards to my feet and slide down mountains!

Angus, G0UGO Contest Co-ordinator

RALLY UPDATE

Thanks to everyone who helped over the weekend! It was very good of wives and partners to come and give us a hand and was much appreciated. It was a very successful rally with traders and visitors both up by 10% on last year. The refreshments stall ran out of sandwiches by the end and had their busiest rally ever. The traders, in general, went away happy. See some photos below.

We will be sending a letter of thanks to the Air Cadets along with a cheque for their funds. I’m sure you will agree that they were very helpful on both days and full of enthusiasm when some of us were flagging! I hope that they will come and help us on future occasions.

The Leisure Centre have said that next year they could let us have another Squash Court if we need to expand a bit more! So please put the weekend of 7-8 February 2009 in your advanced diary and we’ll hope for another great day.

Ann, G8NVI

HARFORD NET

Did you know there is a regular net on 2m? It is called Harford as it is used by both HARS and Oxford members. Please come and join in. 145.325MHz FM every Sunday and Wednesday 20.00 - 21.00hrs.

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Have you paid your subs for 2008? If not please send payment and completed membership to Marian Durban, HARS Treasurer, 62 Westfield Way, Charlton Heights, Wantage, OX12 7EP.

Download the membership form here