We are holding the Construction Competition on March 27th!
The aim of this annual contest is to encourage members to build either radio equipment or ancillary items which enhance their radio operations and to exhibit these to encourage others to follow their example.
Entries can include any radio-related equipment or software, for example, Morse oscillator, test unit, QRP rig, computer/radio interface, PSU, Tx/Rx, linear, antenna, ATU…..
Entries can have been built at any time, but to be accepted as an entry, they must not have been entered in any previous SDARC construction contest.
If YOU have built something that helps you operate, why not enter it? Remember it is not necessarily the most complex equipment that wins!
Provide sufficient details with your entry to help judges understand the purpose and operation of the entry…. ”Sell” the concept and its usefulness through your description, diagrams, circuits etc!
The contest will have five principal categories:-
Homebrew – This will be for equipment built completely by the club member. (If the equipment is a magazine project with a PCB available, then, the PCB may be used.)
Kit – This will be for equipment built from a kit. The kit should require some soldering to the component level.
Hybrid – This will be for homebrew equipment which also contains one or more kits.
Antenna – This will be for special homebrew antenna systems. For this type of contest entry, the member will just need to provide photographs of the antenna together with a specification, a drawing, and details of the construction. A list of countries worked with the antenna should also be provided.
Software – This category will be for radio-related software. This can be either, a new piece of “stand-alone” software, or a piece written to add extra features to some existing software.
In addition, three Constructor categories may be brought to bear:-
Novice – This will be for those members who have not previously built or exhibited any equipment.
General – This will be for those members who have built and entered previously.
Professional – This may be awarded to experienced constructors whose work is of an exceptional standard.
The number of Awards will reflect the scope of entries and may include awards made to deal with tie-break situations.
The judges’ decisions on all the awards are final.
Please complete an entry form beforehand so you can bring it on the night. You can download the entry form here.
This week Tony, G4LDL will be giving the club a talk on his forthcoming trip to Christmas Island with the Five Star DXers Association (FSDXA).
On Sunday May 22nd, Tony G4LDL, Andy G0UWS and Steve M0AKT, and later assisted by Phil M0PBZ and Graham M3XIR, set up the SDARC caravan on a windy hill near Liddington to run the 2m Contest. Using the club callsign, G8SRC/P, activity was brisk and at times, quite busy, rather like an 80m HF contest. No doubt the excellent location helped as we received favourable reports from all directions using just 100w and a rotatable 5-element Yagi antenna with gamma match. This was one of the first occasions that we used our own Kenwood TS2000S transceiver. After some initial challenges with the very high winds, we were away. The 25 foot winch-up tower was kindly provided by Andy G0UWS.
The 144 MHZ trophy results are out and I have the greatest pleasure in telling you the club entry was 2nd out of 16 entries in our section.