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Due to the recent success of the testing evening, we have decided to run another on the 24th May. If you have anything you want testing on the night, please let us know ASAP so we can ensure we are prepared.

The name Don Field will be known to many as the Editor of Practical Wireless, a role he took on in 2013. Don is also the author of several books, one of which is a handbook on the 6m band and it is this band that Don will be talking to us about on Thursday 12th April.

The band is not known as the ‘Magic Band’ for nothing and at certain times it can produce spectacular results and QSOs of thousands of miles. It can then disappear within minutes.

Please join us from 7pm at Pine Trees and Don Field will show you how to get the best results from the band

We had a great turnout from members to see the projects that other members had built over the last year. We had seven entries spanning four categories and the judging was performed by M1DST, James who didn’t enter anything this year but is a keen builder.

James visited each project and talked in detail with the builder to gain further insight into the complexity of the project. Every entry had some kind of unique twist and the standard was very good.

Scoring was made and at the end of the evening the entrants were waiting to find out who had won in each category.  A summary of the entries and the winners is available at the end of this post.  A short video of the projects is below.

Thanks again to all the builders who provided their projects for scrutiny. Hope you enter more projects next year.

Hybrid

• 2E0XRB – BitX 40m receiver – WINNER!

Antenna

• M1KDJ – 2M Yagi (6 element) – WINNER!
• M1CJE – 2M Yagi (2 element)

Homebrew

• M1CJE – 10MHz reference and NTP server – WINNER!
• M0OSM – Brass CW paddle

Kit

• M0OSM – QRPlabs QCX – WINNER!
• G4AJA – FM Broadcast Receiver

The talk scheduled for March 1st has been canceled due to the expected bad weather. It will be rescheduled for another time.

There is no club today as Pine Trees will be closed.

Club is now ‘back’ from the Christmas hols and the last two weeks have been well attended. Last night we went to Africa with Tony – a really interesting Talk but not until we had presented the somewhat delayed Awards for the 2017 Worked All Postcodes competition.

The number of entrants was down on 2016 but some of the Overall winners ramped up the number of QSOs well above 2016. Clearly once the bug bites……

• The 10w section was again won by Chris AJA with 50% more QSOs than in 2016 – all CW too!.
• The 50w section was won by Viv IEP with 113 QSOs (Well done..perseverance pays off!).
• The 100w section was won by Andrew CJE with 76 QSOs, with Tony CPA and Jonathan ZGB taking the Autumn and Spring Awards respectively.
• The 400w section was won by Tony LDL with 41Qs and Paul PMV took the Spring award.

Well done to everybody!

We also took a few minutes to announce the 2018 Award which returns to the popular Worked All Squares format (looking for 4-characters… e g IO82) but with a couple of Rule changes for 2018 to “spice things up”.

• Those with Short Contest Callsigns (SCCs) can include QSOs made using them, but the entry should be made under your FULL Callsign
  (So G4L can include QSOs made with that call but enters them in the online table under G4LDL)
• The RF Power category will be that set by your Licence.
  So the 10w section is now exclusive to M3 and M6 Members, the 50w section is only usable by 2E Members and everyone else uses the 400w section
  ( …yip, we’ve removed the 100w section as very few people have access to linears and for a UK/EI QSO the impact is marginal. A decent aerial provides better gain!!)
• To allow the Autumn Period to go to the end of November, the submission deadline dates have been shortened after the end of each period.
  • The Spring months are now dedicated to Qs on 160, 80, 40 and 30m (The LF months).
  • The Summer months are now dedicated to VHF and up (6, 4, 2m and the cm bands).
  • The Autumn months are now the HF months (20, 17, 15, 12 and 10m).

The months for each Period, the revised submission dates and the complete Rules for 2018 plus a check sheet for your own use and a ‘squares possible’ map will appear on the website soon.

Remember, the 2018 Award begins with the LF bands on 1st February, so you have only a week or so to repair your aerials after the recent winds!

Let’s see if we can see more members getting involved in 2018. In previous years some sections have been won with less than 10 QSOs, so we are not talking about staying up all night! Look for the UK/EI, the UKAC and the AFS contest dates to plan when an hour on the radio could net you a serious number of QSOs ! ….And, unless you are in a fast-moving contest, remember to tell stations you work why you want their Square details. Local non-members may think, “I would like some of this” and join us. That would help funds and benefit everyone.

Start planning, Start chasing the Squares – there about 53 in all.

See https://www.sdarc.net/worked-all-uk-ei-locators-2018/ for full rules, submission form and realtime league table.

Den, M0ACM

UPDATE: January 27th 2018

Following lots of enthusiastic interest in the new Award for 2018 and some requests for clarification from members, we responded to those last Thursday evening and this email is a confirmation of the clarifications made – especially for anyone who missed it …and the excellent “Secret Wireless War” movie.

• The term “Squares” refers to the VHF-familiar Maidenhead Locator Squares system that involves (for practical day-to-day use) 2 letters + 2 numbers + 2 letters. Eg Pinetrees is IO91RF.
  For the 2018 Award, we need only the 1st 4 characters (eg IO91)For CW use and as a spoken abbreviation, the Maidenhead system is often referred to as “QRA” Squares. Although the original OLD (and no-longer-used) system) has been superseded by Maidenhead, the “QRA” abbreviated name persists but is exclusively applied to the Maidenhead system.
• The “Power according to your Licence” rule was intended to provide “protected” categories for M6 and 2E Members and so encourage activity without QRM (!) from Full licensees.As “wrinklies” who did not come up the M6/2E/M0 ‘ladder’ we were unaware that those licences permit the continued use of the ‘lower’ callsigns. THAT was not part of our plan for this Award, so to clarify, your permitted power for this Award is your HIGHEST licence ‘class’.However, conceding that there IS a possible disadvantage where a Full licensee with no linear is chasing squares in the same power category as someone with 400w, we have re-inserted the 100w category so FULL licensees can now opt into either the 100w or the 400w category – and this is FLEXIBLE…. you could enter 400w in the Low Bands Spring months, 100w in the VHF and up Summer months and then either 100w or 400w in the Autumn HF months.
• The 3 periods and the Bands acceptable during these are confirmed. Whilst we concede that we do not all have farms and 100 ft towers littered with steerable aluminium (U.S. readers please note the CORRECT spelling!!), one of the aims of the 2018 Award was to encourage innovation. So if I don’t have an aerial – or the space – at home for an 80m aerial, my challenge is either to seek a /P location where I could string one up for a couple of hours OR see if I could make something tunable and reasonably efficient at home.
  After all, it doesn’t have to work NZ … just IO82NZ !!

Hope this clarifies and encourages activity.

Den & Tony

Last evening Den, M0ACM introduced the club to the 2015 “Members Only” Award Scheme to encourage on-air operating, to have some competitive fun playing radio, to raise the profile of SDARC on the air and to reward members making consistent use of their radio gear. Go on, have a go !!

Rules

• Every licensed member of SDARC is encouraged to enter, using your own Call Sign.
• Your Aim is to work as many UK Counties as you can during the Award period.
• ALL UK Counties are valid (…eg Wiltshire); English Unitary Authorities are NOT (= Swindon).
• The list of valid Counties comprises only those included on the Progress Form.
• Work stations normally aiming to identify as many Counties as you can. -There are 88 ‘possibles’ !
• Explain to stations being worked about the SDARC Club Award and why you need their “county”.
• QSOs may be made from 1 February to 31 October 2015. You have NINE months in all.
• The Award is divided into three periods (Feb, Mar, Apr); (May, Jun, Jul); (Aug, Sep, Oct)
• You can enter all three (for the ‘Full Year’ award) or any combination of the 3 periods
• You can use ANY Mode… Phone, CW or Data (SSB, FM, AM, CW, RTTY, PSK, SSTV…)
• You can use any amateur Band for which you are licensed … 135 kHz to light
• You choose ONE of four TX Power categories, as permitted by your licence (10/50/100/400W).
• You may operate from anywhere within 25 miles of your licensed address. (ie: home, /P or /M)
• Your transmitter & antenna that put RF into the air must be within 25 miles of your QTHR.
• Direct contacts only… no repeaters, satellites or Echolink/Internet contacts.
• Each County worked counts ONE point in each period (and may be worked again in a subsequent period) but dupes will be removed
  from scores for the ‘whole year’ award.
• You must declare an update of your total counties worked by the end of month 2 of each period.
• You must hand in your Progress Form for each period by end of month 1 of the next period.
• Your first Progress Form determines your chosen Power category for all periods.
• QSOs will not normally need validating but Judges reserve the right to request confirmation.
• The Judges decision in all matters is final.

Logging

• These Rules, Progress Forms and a helpful UK Map may be downloaded from www.SDARC.net
• Complete a Progress Form – just copy details from your shack log. Keep a copy of your own form.

Results

A ‘league table’ of results for each period will be published after each period closes. Year-end results will be announced in December 2015 By entering, you agree that Results & any photos may be sent to RadCom & the SDARC website.

Awards

There will be 4 Winners’ Awards for each Power category…

• for the highest number of Counties collected across the whole year (February – October)
• for the highest number of Counties collected in each Period (Feb-Apr / May-Jul / Aug-Oct)
• No-one will receive more than one Award… so there should be 16 winners! Go for it!

Remember to tell stations you contact about the SDARC Counties Award. …It raises the profile of SDARC on the air !

Useful Files

• UK Counties Map (PDF)
• SDARC Worked all UK Counties Progress Form 2015 (DOCX)
• Worked All Counties Award Rules 2015 (DOCX)

We have setup a dedicated page to post progress reports on and you can find that by looking for “Worked All Counties 2015” in the top menu or visiting http://www.sdarc.net/workedallcounties/

We will also attempt to tweet (@SDARC) and update our Facebook page too.

Dear Club Member,

The constructional contest rules state that for an item to be accepted as an entry, it must have been built in the last two years.
This year, as we did last year, to increase the number of entries to the contest, we are relaxing the rules to allow each member to enter ONE item which may have been built at anytime; the item must not have been entered for a previous contest.

73

Deryck G3YKC

All,

Just a quick reminder that the club room reopens this week after the summer break. This month ends with two talks…

September 20 – “MATs, SPATs and the Purple Plague” by Dennis, G3LLZ.

September 27 – “High Altitude Ballooning” by David Akerman – Dave was responsible for sending the first Raspberry Pi into Near Space on a weather balloon.

Hope to see a number of you at the talks

James
M1DST

Last night at the Christmas dinner during the chairman’s speech it was announced that he was starting a new tradition for the club called the “Chairman’s Challenge” which will be announced during every Christmas dinner. The challenge is designed to encourage activity between members and focus on a goal for the coming year. Lets hope the tradition continues when the chairman role changes hands.

The challenge James, M1DST set for 2012 is: “Launch a high altitude meteorological balloon, reach inner space (approx 100,000ft), track it and then recover it. The payload must contain at least one camera but can contain as many cameras, experiments as it is deemed reasonable.”

A typical flight uses a standard latex weather balloon, lasts around 2-3 hours, and reaches 25 to 35 km in altitude.

There will be a talk by M1DST during the early part of 2012 to explain the project further. There are many world records in this area to be broken too!