Members' Construction Competition Rules 2021

We are holding the Construction Competition on November 25th!

The aim of this annual contest is to encourage members to build either radio equipment or ancillary items which enhance their radio operations and to exhibit these to encourage others to follow their example.

Entries can include any radio-related equipment or software, for example, Morse oscillator, test unit, QRP rig, computer/radio interface, PSU, Tx/Rx, linear, antenna, ATU…..

Entries can have been built at any time, but to be accepted as an entry, they must not have been entered in any previous SDARC construction contest.

If YOU have built something that helps you operate, why not enter it?  Remember it is not necessarily the most complex equipment that wins!

Provide sufficient details with your entry to help judges understand the purpose and operation of the entry….”Sell” the concept and its usefulness through your description, diagrams, circuits etc!

The contest will have five principal Product categories:-

Homebrew – This will be for equipment built completely by the club member. (If the equipment is a magazine project with a PCB available, then, the PCB may be used.)

Kit – This will be for equipment built from a kit. The kit should require some soldering to component level.

Hybrid – This will be for homebrew equipment which also contains one or more kits.

Antenna – This will be for special homebrew antenna systems. For this type of contest entry, the member will just need to provide photographs of the antenna together with a specification, a drawing and details of the construction. A list of countries worked with the antenna should also be provided.

Software – This category will be for radio-related software. This can be either, a new piece of “stand-alone” software, or a piece written to add extra features to some existing software.

In addition, three Constructor categories may be brought to bear:-

Novice – This will be for those members who have not previously built or exhibited any equipment.

General – This will be for those members who have built and entered previously.

Professional – This may be awarded to experienced constructors whose work is of an exceptional standard.

The number of Awards will reflect the scope of entries and may include awards made to deal with tie-break situations.

The judges’ decisions on all the awards are final.

Please complete an entry form beforehand so you can bring it on the night. You can download the entry form here.

The world’s largest radio Scout event promoting friendship and global citizenship (JOTA) is this weekend.  Get on the air and listen out for Scout radio stations.  You could ignite a lifelong interest in radio if you work a young Scout live on air.

I am running a JOTA station at 2nd Marlborough Scout hut on Saturday.  I am planning to be QRV on 40M in the afternoon using the callsign GB2MAR and we will probably also have 2M running.

It is also Operation Blue Ham this weekend on 60M. If you have this band have a listen around and work a few ATC stations as well.

More info about JOTA at https://radio-scouting.info/jota/

and Blue Ham at https://alphacharlie.org.uk/exercise-blue-ham/

73’s Andrew M1CJE

Yes, you may have become so embroiled with the drama at the forecourts or the pandemic that you failed to notice that Christmas is just around the corner!!!!

Following successful visits to the Harvester in Blunsdon in recent years, we are again booked in there for our Christmas Dinner and Awards evening.

This year’s date for your diary is Thursday 9th December. We are nominally booked for 19.30 for 19.45.

You have a choice of a 2 course menu for £15.99 or a 3 course one for £18.99.

Files

Please see the above file for menu choices which you will need to decide on at booking.

Minimum deposit of £5 on initial booking or you can choose the pay the full amount.

Limited places! FIRST COME FIRST SERVED!

From time to time people contact the committee asking for help or with something to give away/sell or just say hello. We decided it would be good if members could join a mailing list and send messages to each other. Whilst I have used the term “member”, this is not just for members. Anyone with an interest can subscribe. There is no obligation to sign up and we will not sign you up automatically.

We have chosen to use the very popular Groups.io platform to run the service. An archive of all emails sent are available at https://groups.io/g/sdarc/topics

Your first message may be moderated and therefore might take some time to arrive.

We may alter the rules from time to time.

Please use clean language and keep it related to the club or amateur radio in general.

Let’s make this a friendly and active community.

With the fast-approaching prospect of being able to return to real face-to-face meetings in the autumn (more info when we know more), we need to get our house in order post-Covid lockdowns and restrictions.

To that end, we need to set up an AGM.    Actually, we need to set up TWO!

This is a formal notice of the AGM to be held as a Zoom session on TUESDAY 24TH AUGUST at 1930 BST

Why TWO AGMs, you may ask? 

Covid lockdowns and disruptions to normal thinking put the tin hat on the 2019-20 one and now we are several months late on the May 2020-21 AGM, so we plan to run the two together in one ONLINE (Zoom) session.

So much water has flown under the bridge that we will really only address an Activity Report for 2019-20 and agree on the audited accounts from that year.

The 2020-21 AGM will be the more substantive part and will include elections to the committee as you will see from the Agenda below.

Agenda

• Welcome
• Review of 2019-2020 and 2020-2021
• Finance: Presentation of Accounts for 2019-2020 and  2020-2021
• Elections to Committee for 2021-22
• AOB ( if submitted prior to AGM)

We will provide further details of how to join the Zoom session in due course.

Please put the date in your diary and please join us so we can get the SDARC show back on the road – we need a goodly number of attendees to make the AGM a formally acceptable activity.

Also… if any Member, new or long-standing would like to join the committee, please email me. We should have a committee of at least 10 of our now 60-something members. NOW seems a really good time for new ideas from new people, so please think about joining the committee.

We have got into the habit of Zoom committee meetings from the comfort of our own homes but we also like sampling biscuits and cake at REAL meetings, so we have a choice. We have even met at local hostels serving cold fizzy drinks in times past !!

• Only CURRENT members can take part in the AGM
• Subs are now as overdue as the AGM, so if YOU haven’t paid your subs, please do so as soon as possible. See website for BACS etc details.

Any items you wish discussed in the AGM MUST be sent to me BEFORE the date of the AGM.

73 all

Den M0ACM (Club Secretary)

Throughout August (starting  29th July) we will be meeting out and about (where safe to do so). We are meeting in the car park at Barbury Castle. If you don’t know where it is and you have a GPS… 51.483822, -1.777436

Barbury Castle is an Iron Age hill fort situated in Wiltshire, England. It is one of several such forts found along the ancient Ridgeway route. The site, which lies within the Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, has been managed as a country park by Swindon Borough Council since 1971. It is situated on Barbury Hill, a local vantage point, which, under ideal weather conditions, commands a view across to the Cotswolds and the River Severn. It has two deep defensive ditches and ramparts. The Old Ridgeway runs close by and the modern Ridgeway crosses through the castle. In the surrounding area are to be found round barrows, Celtic field systems and 18th-19th Century flint workings.

If you prefer not to meet in person, the net will still be in operation.

There have currently worked 66 unique entities across the competition so far. There are 19 players and 2 clubs currently submitting scores. Spain is currently the most popular prefix. As expected, MGM is the most popular category. The leaderboard not only shows who has scored what, but now highlights the club winner and overall winner for each category.

Good luck everyone!

There have currently worked 63 unique entities across the competition so far. There are 18 players and 2 clubs currently submitting scores. Italy is currently the most popular prefix. As expected, MGM is the most popular category. M1CJE is leading that category with 59 entities.

We would like to draw your attention to a contest calendar provided by WA7BNM which can be found at https://www.contestcalendar.com/weeklycont.php

This is a very comprehensive calendar of HF contests which gives you an overview of the rules. The link is also available in the “useful links” section of this site should you want to get to it quickly.