Well since John (M0HFH) posted in November on Smiths Charts and Mathematical Matching things have been moving on.

There have been a couple of component builds. Some frustration, but a steady stream of improvements and knowledge gained.

John (M0HFH) will be leading a talk, see programme for when, on what has been happening so I do not want to spoil the night by giving to much away now.

For The past 2 weeks you may have noticed some activity at the top of the room , with instruments, a 2m copper tube dipole multiple VNA’s and computers.
I am planning a project and talks on the practical application of smiths charts method of mathematically matching RF loads. There is some way to go before we are in a position start the talks, feel free to ask questions. On Wednesday evening we will be running a capacitor workshop again making values to implement a match created by smiths chart calculations.

A great day at the Vale of Berkeley Railway. We managed 11 other heritage railways plus contacts UK and Europe  wide and into the Ukraine.

Thanks to Owen for the antenna, radio and most of the contacts.

Thanks to Rob for the excellent cards for the event.

Thanks to everyone that showed up. A great effort by the club.

We will be operating on Saturday 22nd September from the Vale of Berkeley Railway at Sharpness Docks.

Postcode is GL13 9UD for the engine shed.

I will be there about 0830 to get set up and we should be operating from approx 10am until 3pm.

The callsign will be GB4VBR for those unable to attend but who want to listen.

Due to a hardware issue on the earlier event we are running it again on September 12th 2018.

As before the Fox will be Paul M0ZMB and he will hide somewhere around Thornbury.

He will call in on 145.500 and then move to another frequency. It is hoped to be 145.4125, if it is available.

He will transmit for 2mins every 10mins.

Tonight is the clubs annual pedestrian foxhunt around Thornbury.

I will probably start from the Rock Street Car Park  as it  is slightly raised to find Paul M0ZMB the fox..

I am also going to have APRS running to se where I go and what transmission is like around Thornbury.

This evening two beacons will be operating from 19.30pm to enable testing of 2m ARDF equipment for the Pedestrian fox hunt on the 1/8/2018.

Beacon 1 will be low power < 0.5 watts from the Chantry Gardens Frequency 144.525 mode A1A. Tx every minute.

Beacon 2 operating at 5 watts mode A1A from IO81RO NNW of TSGARC club.

TX every 30 secs. reported 599 in Alveston 3 miles away.

If you identify the call sign and unique identifier please leave a reply.

TSGARC will be operating from Thornbury and District Museum on Saturday 23rd June 2018. see :- http://www.thornburymuseum.org.uk
The Nov and registration for the event are completed.
http://www.radio-amateur-events.org/IMW/index.htm our IMOTA reg no 5311

we will be operating 2m ssb cw and FM . Plus HF and will have a table outside of the museum to welcome members of the public.

Folks I shall be going to the West of England rally at the Cheese & Grain Warehouses on 17th. If anyone wants to go a spare seat is going with a modest fuel contribution.

Catch me next week at club.  Mark M0RZS

The mobile foxhunt was held on  a glourious evening.  The fox this year was Paul M0ZMB. There were four teams out looking for him. All the teams chose the same high point on the A38 to get the first direction.

As the my team was created from the guys who went to the Chantry we were the last of the teams to arrive at the high ground to get the first bearing. The first team were leaving when we arrived, the other two teams were still getting their bearings. We only managed to get a quick bearing before the first transmission finished.

Mark (M0RZS) was using a homebrew loop into a hand held, Roger (2E0FPV) was using a handheld and the body shielding to attenuate the signal and I was driving and drawing on the map. The car also had a mobile unit so we could monitor to ensure we did not miss a transmision from the fox.

The teams that left at the same time as us went in the opposite direction. Our second bearing was slightly off where the fox was hidden, so when we got to our third point we were expecting the bearing to be approximately due South to cross over where two previous bearings crossed. It crossed the first bearing line but further to the West.

We took our fourth bearing from outside the church at Cowhill. Even though the fox was reducing power by now the only way we could get a reduction in signal strength was to loose height. This was achieved by Roger (2E0FPV) putting his hand held on the floor and shielding the antenna.  Mark (M0RZS) had to use the hill to get some attenuation but had strong signals all around.

To get to the church we had driven past the fox. So we had to turn around and found the fox in the Anchor car park.

I hope all the other teams had a good night as we did. Thanks to Mark (M0RZS) and Roger (2E0FPV) for the team work and company. Thanks to Paul (M0ZMB) for being the fox.

The picture shows the bearing traces made.

Traces on the map.