New Intermediate Licensees in CARA

Following their success in the recent Intermediate Licence exam, Christopher M6EBF is now 2E0YNG and John M6GTF is 2E0GCR. Congratulations to them both. They have already embarked on training for the Full Licence and are planning to take the exam at the RSGB Convention in the autumn – more good news! We wish them well.

June Meeting – Report

The club loyally filled the Brizen Centre on the evening England were playing Uruguay (in some kind of football tournament, apparently!) to meet the recently elected RSGB Regional Manager for the West Midlands, Martyn G3UKV. He gave a two part presentation entitled “The RSGB and Understanding Solar Factual Data”.

Martyn spoke about the RSGB and the work it does protecting and promoting our interests, and he then explain his role as a Regional Manager. There are many benefits to individual membership of the RSGB, and our national society is the sole representative of UK radio amateurs to Ofcom when negotiating spectrum changes and usage. CARA is an affiliated society of the RSGB.

Martyn has been interested in solar data for some 30 years, collecting daily records during this time. In the second part of the talk he told us how to interpret data from sources such as QRZ.com, so that we are better informed about how the sun will influence radio propagation in the hours and days ahead.

We are grateful to Martyn for making the trip from Telford to talk to us.

Martyn, G3UKV, with Derek, G3NKS, just before the meeting
Martyn, G3UKV,(r) with Derek, G3NKS, just before the meeting
A full house despite England vs Uruguay match in progress
A full house despite England vs Uruguay match in progress
Martyn, G3UKV, explaining the HF propagation data published on QRZ.com
Martyn, G3UKV, explaining the HF propagation data published on QRZ.com
HF Propagation data, as you see on a variety of websites
HF Propagation data, as you see on a variety of websites

CARA Evening Net

Malcolm G0TMP will not be available to run the CARA Evening Net for the duration of the World Cup, regardless whether England qualify from their group matches or not! If somebody else would like to take up the mantle, please feel free to do so.

7pm local time on 145.400MHz or thereabouts.

National Field Day 2014

This weekend, 7/8 June, clubs and groups throughout the British Isles, and also throughout Europe, will be heading for the countryside to operate under portable conditions to take part in the long running National Field Day event. This is a CW only contest which takes place on the six main HF bands and runs from 1500utc on the Saturday to 1500utc on the Sunday. Although the origins of the event are based on emergency communications, these days many regard it as an enjoyable and special contest where one can operate with decent aerials and away from the fog of urban QRM.

CARA will be represented by G5BK/P operated by Iain M0PCB, Peter G4ENA and Martin G4ENZ.

G3NKS/P will also be active, reviving the Great Western Contest Group which won the Restricted Section of NFD in 1981, 1982 and 1983.

Both stations will be entering the 12 hour Low-Power/QRP Section.

Exam Successes

Many congratulation to CARA members Christopher M6EBF and John M6GTF for passing the recent Intermediate Licence exam. We look forward to hearing two shiny new 2E callsigns on the air very soon.

Congrats also to tutor Iain M0PCB for getting all four candidates through the exam with flying colours.

Well done guys!

Amateur Radio – Where are the under 25s?

Copyright Essex Hams:
“Essex Ham’s been trying to find new ways to promote the hobby online, and to make “getting started” information as easy as possible to find online. Our most recent example is our two-minute video designed to get across what we do in a short-and-sweet package. It’d be great to see this shared by the community via Youtube, Twitter and Facebook (Now referred to as YouTwitFace!)… that’s where youngsters hang out – on the social media platforms, and it’s often all about video.”

May Meeting – Report

Iain M0PCB told us about his March trip to Montserrat where he rented a villa complete with antennas and spent a week working the world with a rare’ish DXCC callsign – VP2MXI. He took his own gear, a K3 and amplifer, plus laptop of course. Although VP2M is not that rare on the DXCC most wanted list, when he appeared on the bands he faced large pile-ups and a seemingly never ending queue of stations wishing to make contact. The main reason for his trip was to take part in the RSGB’s Commonwealth Contest, a 24 hour CW event during which stations in the British Commonwealth work each other. He managed to spend some 22 hours in front of the rig during the contest and made over 1200 QSOs. In the “Claimed QSOs” list Iain is in 4th place worldwide – a superb achievement. As well as photos of his station he also showed photos of the island and told us something of its recent history.

Very many thanks to Iain for a really interesting and very inspirational evening.

G3NKS

80m CC Contests – May

The dates for the next series of the RSGB’s Club Championship Contests are:
5th May – SSB
14th May – Data
22nd May – CW

Each contest runs from 1900-2030utc. Exchange RS(T) and serial number.

The full set of rules may be found on the RSGB website at:
https://www.rsgbcc.org/hf/rules/2014/r80mcc.shtml

CARA is doing reasonable well in the Local Clubs category but more support would help the club to climb further up the results table! All scores, no matter how modest, will be welcomed.

G3NKS

April Meeting – Report

In a change to the earlier published programme we were treated to three short presentations.

Simon G4SGI began by telling us about his /M activities on two wheels, describing his radio set-up and showing a short video of him pedalling away and in QSO – a sort of video “selfie” perhaps!

Simon then went on to talk about HackRF, an interesting new Software Defined Radio with open source software which transmits and receives over the range 10MHz to 6GHz. He may buy one and return to the club later with a longer talk and demo.

Finally Doug G4IGN related his plans for Railways-on-the-Air (RotA) in September when we’ll be operating two HF stations from the Cheltenham Racecourse station of the GWR Heritage Railway, with a tower and an HF beam. One of Doug’s main aims is to encourage our newly licensed members to come along and operate on HF from a station with a decent antenna and may be work some interesting DX. There then followed a G4SGI video of an earlier RotA operation.

All three presentations were well received and much enjoyed. Many thanks to Doug G4IGN and Simon G4SGI for filling in the gap in our meeting programme at short notice.

There were 28 members at the meeting.

G3NKS

Silent Keys

It is with much sadness that we record the deaths of two local radio amateurs:

Roger G0UPU at the age of 72, a CARA member, an avid experimenter and talented constructor of “home-brew” equipment.

Douglas (Gerry) G3BCC at the age of 95, a long term Cheltonian, journalist and past member of CARA.

Tributes will be published in CARA News.

We offer our heartfelt condolences to their families.

G3NKS