Category Archives: News

Celebration of 50 years of the Severn Crossing GB4SBB special event.

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TSGARC members will be setting up a special event station on the east side of the bridge at the  Brightside observation point on Thursday 8th September 2016 at 9.30am  transmitting until 5.30pm. We have set up  a page on Qrz.com for information. Rob and Sue will be handling our qsl cards and John m0hfh will be looking after the qrz log and page. We will be pleased to see members or non members interested in this event at the observation point on Thursday.

gb4sbbfront

The institute of civil engineers is also celebrating this event on the west side of the bridge.

https://www.ice.org.uk/getattachment/events/the-severn-bridge-50-birthday-celebration/The-Severn-Bridge.pdf.aspx

Wireless World back numbers available to read on-line

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Members may be interested to read or download digitised back numbers of Wireless World and Practical Wireless. Some articles remain useful even now after 30, or more years. See the Wireless World selection here:
http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Wireless_World_Magazine.htm.
Here is an extract from an index of interesting-looking items from Wireless World that I’m drawing up. If folks want to see more, just ask:

Year-Month and page number:
1986-08 page 43: A design for a pulse generator instrument
1986-06 page 39: A VHF pre-amp design
1986-04 page 21: An analogue Hilbert transform circuit for SSB
1986-03 page 22: Transistor based full wave detector circuit

1985-12 page 23: An article on digital filter theory
1985-10 page 27: How to make a logarithmic amplifier
1985-04 page 38: A loop antenna for HF
1985-02 page 51: Index to issues from Jan-Dec 1983.
1985-02 page 55: A UHF osc and mixer for a spectrum analyser

1984-01 page 57: HF signal generator

1983-08 page 58: Spectrum Analyser pt1

1982-10 page 59: Audio to LF signal generator
1982-10 page 67: Designing parabolic antennas
1982-09 page 32: Digital VFO stabilization technique
1982-06 page 43: Digital filter design tutorial
1982-06 page 62: Freq synthesiser design tutorial
1982-05 page 51: Wide band FM demodulator or freq meter
1982-05 page 52: Digital filter design tutorial
1982-02 page 38: RC sinusoidal oscillator design tutorial

The same site also offers digitised back issues of Practical Wireless. Again, these look like a mine of information:
http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Practical_Wireless_Magazine.htm

Best regards,
Steven.
de M0SVR

Vintage video evening

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Ever heard of Hackaday.com?  Nope I hadn’t either so last night was ‘special’ 😉

Paul, M0ZMB, showed some decidedly old video’s from the website.  The first couple were about Philips A63-11X cathode ray tube manufacture. These were followed by a short video about Bone records and then a fascinating video entitled ‘The craft of the Cooper’.  Although very, very grainy it was delightful to see real craftsmen at work.  The final four videos where about the making of porcelain insulators, electric 100w/120v light bulbs, the joining of cable using lead wiping and transitioning telephone exchanges.   For the enjoyment of members who couldn’t attend or who just have the urge to watch again I’ve placed some of them below.

Others can be found at Hackaday.  Search for ‘retrotectacular’

TSGARC 2017 Meets

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I have cancelled our room booking at the Chantry for the following dates:

  • 1st Wednesday June 2017 (Foxhunt)
  • 1st Wednesday July 2017 (Foxhunt)
  • 27th December 2016 (Christmas week).

Perhaps members would like to have a Christmas meal again this year as we did at the local carvery last year?  If so, can people leave a reply to this post suggesting a venue and possible dates.

Stan

Coax notch filters by G0GDU

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A problem we have experienced on several field days is that transmitted RF from a transmitter overpowers a nearby receiver despite it being on a different HF band or even on a more distant part of the spectrum.

Band pass filters are the usual approach to solving such an issue.  However, another approach is to place a wide notch filter over the entire interfering transmission.  This is the approach described by John Crowder, G0GDU in this article passed to me by Rex G4RAE last Wednesday.

Andrew
G0RVM

Electromagnetic Field 2016

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As some of you may be aware, last weekend I went to Guildford to attend this year’s EMF camp. Electromagnetic Field is a camping festival geared towards hackers and makers. The weekend is filled with interesting talks, demonstrations and crazy projects.EMF Sign

Arriving on Camp

Car

My idea of a camping trip!

I arrived on site with a reasonable idea of what to expect, but this was reinforced when someone whizzed past me in a Sinclair C5. This turned out to be only a taster of what was to come.

I was to be joining a group of amateur radio enthusiasts who were running the EMF hams village. There were 16 of us and we had all come with a variety of equipment. Using the special event callsign GB4EMF, we operated using the following stations:

  • HF Station – Yaesu FT-1000, Mosley Mini-33-aw beam, SCAM-12 mast
  • VHF/UHF Station – Icom 706, 2/70 Beam, telescopic mast
  • Satellite Station – Yaesu FT-847, 2 & 70 ZL Specials on G-5500 Az/El rotator, tripod
  • Local Comms – Crossband repeater, Yaesu FT8900, X-50, 5.4m Clansman mast

EMFhams Setup

This was all made easier by the network of datenklos (data-toilets). These were power and networks hubs being kept dry using porta-loos. Over the weekend we maxed out at over 100kW pulled off two generators, 66  Wi-Fi access points, 4500 networked devices and 3.5TB of data going between our network and the internet.

 

Things to see

There was a lot of ‘stuff’ at EMF this year. A few honourable mentions go to the high altitude ballooning village, fire pong, just add sharks laser cutters, blacksmithing tent, lockpicking tent giant guitar hero, the music powered quadruple flamethrower, retro arcade tent and the amateur radio village of course.

JustAddSharks Laser Cutter

HABville's weather balloon tracking station

HABville’s weather balloon tracking station

Pub sign!

Pub sign!

Overall EMF camp this year was a fantastic event, full of technology and ideas. The talks I attended were very interesting, and all available of the EMF Youtube account. I’m definitely signing up for the event when it next runs in 2018. For more info see emfcamp.org, wiki.emfcamp.org, and for more photos see https://www.flickr.com/groups/emfcamp/pool/.

View of site

PS: I’ve got my new callsign, 2E0UAR

 

-Peter Barnes (M6KVA, 2E0UAR)

Belated Contact

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Folks rather belatedly I have to announce a rather interesting contact made last Weds evening when it appears an uplift (or what was perhaps left of it that day) on 2M meant I could make a successful contact from a stationary position on the edge of the Solent at Lea-on-Solent. The contact was made on FM without use of a repeater and with a station operating from a club base somewhere near Wimborne Dorset (GX4RFR I believe from memory). The usual RST and pleasantries were exchanged and although weak signals both ways of course, we could both continue a sensible QSO. I was given a 4 and 4 and he was 3 to 4 and 4 (again from memory  – never prepared mobile when you went to be!!). Proves that when conditions prevail….. .