JOTA 2016

Posted on 17/10/2016 by Garry G7NVZ

John M0HFH showing Scout members how to use the CW Trainer.

This year we setup various elements of amateur radio at 1st Olveston Scout Group HQ. The station consisted of HF, VHF, UHF, CW, SDR & Flight Radar. The callsign used for this event was GB1OSG.

John M0HFH setting up for the Scouts to do CW Live.

Friday was setup time, this went well with most things initially setup in a few hours. The TSGARC Friday net allowed us to test the VHF Station this was found to be deaf towards Yate so Saturday morning the antenna system was moved. Saturday 15th the final tweaks were made to the station then it was a case of waiting for the Scout Group members to arrive. During the quiet times members who attended got on with other projects including make a fan dipole for the club.

Saturday evening after Scouts and visitors had left for the evening John (M3EQQ), John (M0HFH) and Garry (G7NVZ) went searching for some DX on 20m and 40m. We heard a special event station with a call sign of DG500BIER which we tried unsuccessfully to get back to.

WIFI Down!

The weather overnight deteriorated which caused some adverse affects on the WIFI setup. The antenna was on a tripod which got blown down. Soon had the link back.

Over the weekend as well as UK stations we got to Germany, Russia, The Netherlands and Switzerland.

Some members of the club who are also members of Woodhouse Park Scout Radio Club (GX0WOI) and they also ran a successful event. At times we were able to provide mutual assistance by providing a good working link to each other, this was mainly used to provide the Scouts the opportunity to try CW over the radio. I believe Rex (G4RAE) was able to read all that was sent to him.

Garry (G7NVZ) doing cable management.

Sunday was busier than Saturday for Scouts. The same thing were on offer for Scouts to see and try.

As is usual when it came time to finish it took less time to pack up than setup.

Thanks to all members who came and helped and supported this event.

JOTA 2016 Announcement

Posted on 13/10/2016 by Administrator

This weekend the club is excited to be hosting another Jamboree On The Air (JOTA) event. We will be based at the 1st Olveston Scout hall from Friday through to Sunday. We plan to set up stations covering VHF, HF, SDR, Morse, 3D Printing and more. Over the weekend we are expecting to receive visits from groups of scouts so that we can share our knowledge and experience with them.

We will be operating under the special even callsign GB1OSG for the weekend.

We hope to see plenty of scouts and a club members over the weekend, and i’m sure as usual a lot of experiments (successful or otherwise) will take place during our free time!

Peter
2E0UAR

RSGB Convention 2016 update

Posted on 13/10/2016 by Andrew G0RVM

Myself G0RVM and Peter 2E0UAR attended the RSGB Convention in Milton Keynes this year. We left Bristol around 15:30hrs but got stuck in jam after jam. Towards the end of the journey ‘here comes another set of blue lights’ was becoming a bit of a joke! Fortunately we did arrive before the buffet dinner finished. It was a close thing tho as there where only a few slices of pudding pie left 😉

This was my first Convention and I must congratulate the RSGB for such a great event. The accommodation was good, the food and conference facilities excellent. It was educational to hear talks on a variety of subjects from speakers deeply knowledgeable in their subject. Access was free to those under 21yrs too – a great way of incentivising attendance by younger radio amateurs. Thank you RSGB.

In addition to the rooms hosting five parallel lecture streams there was a room with stands by Icom, Kenwood, the RSGB and of course, Martin Lynch who were the prime sponsor. Outside this room was a rather large trailer tower with HF antennas providing live signals for the exhibitors.

Proudly parked outside the front of the conference centre was Flossie, the mobile radio van of Camb-hams. Protruding through its roof was a Clark pneumatic mast with rotary HF dipole. The van looked excellent and a great way to get a portable setup to a distant location, setup and on-air with minimum fuss. As I have a pneumatic mast also it was good to swap experiences, finding we shared some of the challenges associated to these masts.

Some of my favourite talks over the weekend were:

The new world of amateur satellites, Graham Shirville, G3VZV
The Story of SDR and FlexRadio, Gerald Youngblood, K5SDR
The VP8SGI & VP8STI DXpeditions, Mike McGirr K9AJ
Space Weather, Prof. Cathryn Mitchell, M0IBG.

I was really looking forward to “Best practice for VHF UHF DX” by Ian White GM3SEK but unfortunately Ian had to cancel. Maybe next year.

From the first talk identified above I learnt that we as radio amateurs are soon to have a ‘bend-pipe’ transponder in geostationary Earth orbit. Wow that is an amazing feat and I can’t wait till its operational. Amazing. The talk by Prof. Cathryn Mitchell was excellent being delivered superbly and hugely informative. It was interesting to hear how in 2015 space weather was identified in the UK National Risk Register with an impact of the same scoring as emerging infectious diseases, inland flooding, effusive volcanic eruptions, major industrial accidents etc. In fact, in 2015 the likelihood of a major space weather event occurring in the next five years was in the second from highest category.

I can thoroughly recommend attending the Convention and I know I will be booking my 2017 ticket as soon as they become available next year.

Andrew
G0RVM

VHF Propagation

Posted on 05/10/2016 by Administrator

Members who attended tonight had a talk about the types of propagation commonly used at VHF by radio amateurs.

The slideware from the talk, along with material from other talks, may be found in the Lecture notes section of the TSGARC website.

VHF Propagation talk

Posted on 01/10/2016 by Andrew G0RVM

Andrew, G0RVM will be giving a talk on VHF Propagation this Wednesday evening (5th Oct) starting at 19:45 hours.

The talk will be an introduction to the most common modes of propagation at VHF and their use by radio amateurs.

RSGB Convention 2016

Posted on 24/09/2016 by Andrew G0RVM

The RSGB 2016 Convention will be held at the Kents Hill Conference centre in Milton Keynes again this year on the 8th and 9th October. It is a weekend of lectures spanning many topics of interest to all radio amateurs. The RSGB have now released a draft programme for Saturday and Sunday which I have included here.

If you are under 21yrs you get free entry too. 🙂

Peter, 2E0UAR and I, G0RVM are going. Are you?

SDR Overview and futures

Posted on 24/09/2016 by Andrew G0RVM

A short SDR video from a Friedrichshafen 2016 lecture. In the video Phil Harman, VK6PH outlines different SDR architectures their associated benefits/dis-benefits and has a look at future use of CUDA instead of FPGAs.

Happy Birthday Severn Bridge

Posted on 13/09/2016 by Administrator

The Severn bridge was 50 years old this month. To commemorate its birthday the Thornbury and South Gloucestershire Amateur Radio Club (TSGARC) ran a special event station with the callsign GB4SBB throughout Thursday 8th September.

The morning arrived, the weather gods smiled upon us, a very nice morning, a little too much wind perhaps. The first arrivals were on site and unloading by 09:00hrs, put up the tents and started to erect three HF antennas, this took time, a lot of time during which Mike Davis G0JMD arrived popped up his posh toilet tent, a pole complete with a white stick and was operating on air within fifteen minutes. ( Lesson. Keep it simple, practice erecting poles and antennas and to have a plan and to stick to it ). It became clear that a Special Event Station is not the place for experimenting…..

The day, however, turned out to be a success with 50+ contacts were made and we had visits from passing amateurs, also a member from the Chepstow ARC drove across the Bridge specially.

It was great to see so many of our club members, some stayed a hour or so, the rest were there for the all important break down.

Special thanks must go to Ron M6EAT for supplying the Generator, Stan G0RYM for the big dome tent, we would have made more use of it had it rained. And to all the Club members who made it a day to remember.

Click on the images for a larger version 🙂

Richard 2E0RES, Rex G4RAE.

Severn Bridge Special Event Station

Posted on 08/09/2016 by Garry Moore

Today the TSGARC is running a special event station to celebrate 50 years of the Severn Bridge. The event is being held at Aust Services next to the bridge. The club will be using the callsign GB4SBB, if you hear the call give us a shout.

Just to test your knowledge about the bridge here is a link to a quiz: BBC 7 Bridge Quiz.

VHF (2m) gets busy…

Posted on 06/09/2016 by Andrew G0RVM

Strange hot weather but good conditions on 2m 🙂

Monday 5th and Tuesday 6th September very busy on 2m. At times tonight every 10kHz step and often 5kHz step was busy. Great to see/hear. Worked F8IQS in Caen on CW. His signal was easily 599!

Even bumped into another club member, Steve, M6JJV working contest from Berkeley 🙂