As mentioned at the club, Simon, G4WQG, the RSGB Area 10 Rep. and I attended Swindon UTC to not only represent SDARC, but also the RSGB at the start of British Science Week.
We were demonstrating Amateur Radio and RF communications to the local Swindon University Technical College students and tutors by setting up the Special Event Station, GB2BSW.
We operated both Voice and Data modes whilst talking to the students, many of whom were extremely engaged with what we were doing and plenty of questions being asked.
We used the club Kenwood TS-590S, set to 50w, and a 40m inverted V antenna, made by myself fed with a 1:1 Balun at the centre. The antenna was mounted on a 10m Spiderpole, which wasn’t fully extended and was bungeed to the stair handrail at the back of the college. The antenna performed absolutely brilliantly and tuned perfectly and amazingly across all bands using the TS-590S inbuilt ATU. It provide a 1:1 match across 80m, 40m, 30m, 20m, 17m, 15m 12m, and 10m, which was incredible.
On FT8 we were being heard out in Australia and across to the East coast of America by numerous stations.
We worked 64 QSOs, 23 Countries of which 19 have been confirmed on QRZ so far.
Furthest DX was Japan, JE1NVD on FT8.
We also worked several UK stations on Phone on 40m which the students found particularly interesting.
We had an absolutely fantastic day and were greeted well by the staff, tutors, and students. At the end of the day, we had a discussion about returning and possibly providing some interactive electronic construction during the day. Hopefully will be a good ongoing relationship with the college and inspire some of the local youths.
Dom, 2E0WHQ
