A growing club and a very succesful website.....

Website page impressions for April '08 were a record 43,712. In addition to this we were spidered by all the major search engines, amounting to 32,000+ hits, and 820 user search phrases ended up at our site. People are looking for information about the hobby - so c'mon chaps, get those fingers tapping and cameras clicking on that latest project of yours!

For information on GB2SM and the Science Museum 'Inspired Project' Please click here

At the club Thursday, 8th May Talk - Shaun O'Sullivan, G8VPG, - 'The Longleat Video Diaries'

Club programme updated! Derryck has been busy again, and the programme page is updated with the summer dates for your diary. A pdf copy is here

2008 contests - now up to date on the contesting page.

Club construction contest

The annual construction contest was held in the new clubroom on 13th March, and was well attended. A goodly load of projects were entered by 'the usual suspects', and these kept Chris YGY and Den ACM busy for well over an hour trying to establish merit of one project over another, as the quality of all the submissions was very good.
In the end, winner's shields went to Ed, 2E0AYX (GPS antenna), James, M1DST (sdr board), Richard, M1EZW (various UHF/SUHF antennas), Derryck, G3YKC ('Fivehead' transceiver), Nick, M0NJP (valve superhet rx), Dave, M0XUK (2m linear refurb), and last but not least Dennis, G3LLZ who walked away with the 'professional' section, and all of his projects entered in the various sections were worthy of prizes. An inspiration to us all!
A small slideshow of pics can be found here.

GALVA - I came across a programme called 'Galva' by F5BU for creating meter (and lots of other) panels the other day - really good and more extensive than 'Meter', and completely free unlike Meter. It will also import 'Meter' files! I also found an article by TK5EP who created a useful SWR/return loss calculator with it, and instructions are on his site, together with the programme download. I had a play and created an English version in pdf, which can be downloaded here.

4NEC2 - Also came across this antenna modeling programme by Arie Voors, again completely free, which looks truly excellent. Won't set you back a packet like EZNEC! The site is here. Also download 'gnuplot' from here as later versions won't work properly with the programme. How about an aricle from someone on designing an antenna using it?

Ohm's law and all that.... - on the 'useful documents' page is a new 'Ohm's Law wheel' for easily transposing the V=IR and P=VI formulae. See here

SDARC is STILL looking for: A 5kW single cylinder diesel generator for contesting use.If you are able to assist in loaning such a generator approx 4 weekends per year, or know of one for sale at a very reasonable price, please contact M0XUK at this website address.

Dennis, G3LLZ scoops the top prize at the recent club construction contest

Mike, M5CBS with Highworth Guiders at Highworth Guides' 'Thinking Day on the Air' event at Blunsdon. Dick in the background.

Ciara, M0XUK's daughter in the chair for the next QSO...


Dennis, G3LLZ ('Jus' like that') giving his excellent talk on GWR preservation on 21st Feb at the club.

Some pictures from Roger, G4ROJ's very interesting talk on kite aerials on 7th Feb

Chris YGY and Roger sorting out the washing!

Mike doing some fishing...

General scene