Chairman’s Challenge – High Altitude Balloon

This coming Thursday (19th April) there will be a talk from current SDARC chairman James, M1DST where he will explain the challenge for club members during 2012.

All welcome – Starts at 8pm!

From the QSL Bureau….

Most affiliated clubs hold multiple call signs, which they use from time to time. As the new members and “pay to receive” QSL scheme comes into operation in April it is time for all RMs and DRMs to make urgent contact with all their clubs. Clubs are failing to register all of their additional call-signs as tags to the main call by which they are already known to RSGB. This needs to be done using the on-line web form without delay (before 8th April). Failure to do this now will likely result in QSL cards being lost.

In future the bureau needs to send all club cards to the actual call sign, as issued (not a via). Collection envelopes lodged with a sub manager can have any delivery address, ie via the club’s QSL manager.

We also ask clubs to refrain from publishing, via another call information on QRZ.com as this makes extra work and with it delays at the bureau.

SDARC Construction Competition Results 2012

There was a good attendance for the construction competition this year with an extremely high quality of projects entered. The results were judged and the entrants were as follows:

KIT

• G3YBY, Ian – Softrock SDR (Highly Commended)
• G3YKC, Deryck – Bat Detector
• M0OSM, Ed – Digital SWR Meter (Winner)

NOVICE

• 2E0CW, Johnathon – Yeo DC RX
• 2E0CW, Johnathon – Digital SWR Meter (Winner)

HYBRID

• M0OSM, Ed – Direct Conversion Receiver
• M0OSM, Ed – Frequency Counter (Winner)

ANTENNAS

• M0GKG, Rob – DMX Satellite Tracking Rotator (Winner)

HOME BREW

• G6FOP, Kevin – FT897 External Meter (Highly Commended)
• G3TPQ, Geoff – 160m to 10m Transceiver (Winner)

PROFESSIONAL

• G3LLZ, Dennis – Portable Voltmeter
• G3LLZ, Dennis – ESR Meter
• G3LLZ, Dennis – Filter Aligner (Winner)
• G3LLZ, Dennis – Sinad Meter
• G3LLZ, Dennis – EHT Meter

Thanks to all who entered and now to start planning next years entries.

Around the world 28 MHz CW balloon

Bob Bruninga WB4APR brings news of an around the world balloon attempt on March 5/9 that’ll carry a CW transmitter on 28.223 MHz.

It will be launched on either 5 or 9 March 2012 in Annapolis Maryland and go East towards Europe.

The balloon payload will only weigh about 50 grams. About the mass of two standard 9v batteries. It will use about 10 Mylar Party balloons to achieve constant-pressure flight level above 40,000 feet. The Telemetry will be in CW on 28.223 MHz and will contain only Battery voltage, and inside and outside temperatures.

The CW format will be something like this. It is assumed that all outside temperatures will be below zero or negative so the minus sign is not transmitted. The inside temperature might get above 0 during sunlight. So assume the I inside temperature is positive and the outside temperature is negative in Degrees C. When the inside temperature goes negative then the I will change to IN to indicate negative temps.
The outside Temp is always negative. If it goes positive, then the value will be replaced with an X.

. . . W3ADO I nn T nn APRS.ORG . . . < == inside temp positive and outside negative

. . . W3ADO IN nn T X APRS.ORG . . . <== inside temp negative and outside positive

The CW message will be repeated once a minute or so. The WEB page may be only send on every other beacon.

TRACKING: The balloon has no GPS. All tracking will be done by HF DFing. All APRS users are assumed to know how to enter an APRS DF bearing report so that their DF bearing line shows up on global APRS maps.

Check the APRS site for latest information at the http://www.aprs.org website.

New Sign at Pine Trees

During the activity night this Thursday I noticed that someone had installed a new sign which is perfect for us as a radio club. We had a chuckle and I thought it could be shared with you.

Harwell Rally 2012 – February 12th 2012

A reminder to everyone that this Sunday, February 12th, Harwell Amateur Radio Society will be holding their Annual rally at Didcot Leisure Centre
Mereland Road, Didcot, OX11 8AY, Oxfordshire. Doors open at 10:30am and more information can be found on their website http://www.ntay.com/hars/rally2012.html.

G3YBY Achieves DXCC Challenge Award

SDARC Member Ian, G3YBY has been an active Radio Amateur for some 40 years. A keen contester, and with a much envied station, Ian has just received the DXCC Challenge Award for working and confirming at least 1,000 DXCC on the Amateur bands, 160 through 6 meters (except 60 meters). Plaques can be endorsed in increments of 500. Entities for each band are totalled to give the Challenge standing. Deleted entities do not count for this award. All contacts must be made after November 15, 1945. QSOs for the 160, 80, 40, 30, 20, 17, 15, 12, 10 and 6 meter bands qualify for this award.

Well done Ian from all of us at the club.

Construction Contest 8th March 2012 – Additional Rule

Dear Club Member,

The construction contest rules state, that for an item to be accepted as an entry, it must have been built in the last two years.
This year, to try to increase the number of entries to the contest, we are relaxing the rules to allow each member to enter ONE item which may have been built at any time; the item must not have been entered for a previous contest.

73

Deryck G3YKC

“40 Years of the BBC” – Technical Stories Episode 1 by Tony Crake, G0OVA

This year marks the 90th year the BBC. Developing a global, world-renowned broadcast system involves many technical disciplines, from tower construction, power systems, sound and video, through to state-of-the radio electronics. Radio and communications technology underpins the entire infrastructure.

This week, Tony Crake, G0OVA takes a different look at the BBC Broadcast Engineering as he re-tells some of his experiences from working there for the past 40 years. From the perspective of a practicing engineer. In Epionde 1, Tony will be covering:-

“How I came to join the BBC.”
“A trip round an HF station back in the 60”s .”
“20 years listening to Golf Balls.”
“Going sledging in Norway and Japan ”94 and ”98.”

Intrigung titles? Join us at Pinetrees Community Centre this Thursday and all will be revealed.
All welcome.

IOTA 2011 Results

REPORT:
This year, despite the low sun-spots, we received 2315 logs (yet another record), some 632,000 qsos sufficient to enable us adjudicate 75% of all qsos. In addition, we have received photographs from 252 stations, and more than a 71% of the stations entered their location using google maps. Entrants also posted 9 YouTube videos.
We have integrated both the maps and photographs on the results page and we hope that they would provide a richer experience.

We also give you the opportunity to enter/edit your location on google maps and you can email any contest related photographs (1 per station) to the contest manager: iotacontest@rsgbcc.org

Many thanks for taking part in IOTA 2011. Certificates will be sent to leading scorers in each category and a list of trophy winners will be published in due course. Trophies will be awarded at the RSGB Convention in October 2012. Those not able to attend will receive their trophy by mail after the Convention.

APPEALS:
Should you have any queries/disagreements about our adjudication please let us know IMMEDIATELY. The results will be finalised by 10 February 2012.

RESULTS PAGE:
http://iotacontest.com/contest/iota/2011/finalScore.php

PHOTO GALLERY:
http://www.iotacontest.com/contest/iota/2011/gallery.php

Official IOTA contest page:
http://www.iotacontest.com