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British Wireless for the Blind Fund invites your Club to take part in Transmission 2010, our annual competition to make as many contacts across the world as possible and raise money for a very worthwhile cause at the same time.

British Wireless for the Blind Fund is a registered charity providing specially adapted radios and audio equipment on free permanent loan to registered blind and partially-sighted people in need in the U.K. Every year we receive requests for around 5,000 sets at a cost of approximately £750,000. All sponsorship money raised from Transmission will go towards continuing our much valued service.

This year’s competition will be taking place over the weekend of the 18th/19th September and I very much hope that your Club will consider taking part. By getting friends and family to sponsor the number of contacts you make, we are able to keep people with sight loss in touch with the world.

Join the fun – make as many contacts as possible from across the world, compete against other amateur enthusiasts and try to beat last year’s record of 802 contacts (individual category) or 1113 contacts (Clubs).

To enter the competition, please either complete go to our new web-site at http://www.blind.org.uk/transmission_2010.html and fill in the on-line form. Sponsorship forms and a poster can also be downloaded.

Once your registration has been received I will send out QSL cards, a copy of the Rules and sponsorship forms.

There are trophies to be won for:-

• Most contacts made by an Individual or a Club
• Most money raised by an Individual or a Club
• Young persons individual or group special achievement award

I also hope to have prizes for each category. As soon as these are confirmed, I will put the information onto the web-site.

I do hope you will decide to take this year and aim to raise sufficient funds to provide a radio set for someone in need in your area. The average cost of a set is £150.

As an independent charity receiving no government funding or lottery money, BWBF are entirely reliant on the kindness and generosity of our supporters. Only with your help can we continue our work of supplying radios and audio equipment to people with sight loss.

Yours sincerely,

Frances Fielding

Fundraising Manager
British Wireless for the Blind Fund
Registered Charity No. 1078287

Registered as a Limited Company in England.
Company No. 3870182
Registered Address:
10 Albion PLace
Maidstone
Kent ME14 5DZ

Tel: 01622 754757

Saturday will see a DXpedition heading off to the Scottish island of Arran.

Members of SANDS Contest group, the Workington Amateur Radio Society and a couple of others will embark on a week of lighting up Arran radio style, including HF and VHF operation, SOTA and more.

Follow their progress on their blog. http://m0scg.blogspot.com

Dear forum users,

I have decided it time to upgrade the forum to something I feel much happier maintaining. We have had incidents of spam over the last few months. Most of which have been nipped in the bud early on although so have slipped thorough.

I am not intending to move any of the old posts or users over to the new forum. Some users have never posted or have not logged in for some time. Upgrading the forum will be the perfect time for the autumn clean.

I hope you will be happy that some features will start working again (forgotten password, avatars and uploads)

With the forum will come new rules. There will be an element of moderation for all new users. This could become a big task as the forum grows. I am asking for volunteers now that would like to share the moderation task with me. Please email [email protected] if you wish to help.

The new forum has been installed although not completely configured. It might take a few days so don”t panic if you don”t see it show up immediately.

If you have any thoughts on what could be included on the forum or the website please email me.

73s

James, M1DST

Several operators took part in two contests over the weekend. We were originally going to take part in the HF SSBFD contests although late on Friday night G0UWS decided he would like to setup a 2m station for the trophy event which coincided.

We decided to move locations this year and we believe the experiment was very useful.

2m went very well considering we operated around 5 hours. A map of our contacts can be found at the following link. Click here for the map.

Stats for the HF contest are as follows.

We learnt a number of lessons to help us improve on our station next time.

We entered to restricted section which meant one antenna and 100w. The antenna we used was a steppir vertical (biggir) which worked very well on 40m. It would have been useful to have had beams for the higher bands but then we couldn”t have entered the restricted section.

Sorry but no pictures were taken during the event.

Fabiano CT7ABD/PY5RX had a special contact on 2 metres FM with the International Space Station, the crew sang Happy Birthday to him.

The contact happened on Wednesday, August 25, and a recording made by Francisco CT1EAT can be heard below.

Click here to hear it.    

SDARC ran another foundation training course for five attendees in July. On July 31st all five of them passed with a good score!

Three of the newly licensed amateurs were part of another organisation called Wessex 4×4 Response who are a registered charity providing 4×4 Response support within the areas covered by the Police Forces of Avon & Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire.

They are a team of volunteers prepared to use their own vehicles and give up their time to provide logistic assistance to Category one and two responders (as defined in the Civil Contingencies Act) and other Voluntary agencies, normally via the Local Resilience forums.

They provide reliable transport in times of severe weather (snow, gales, heavy rain & floods), and other major emergencies. This can be to transport essential personnel or supplies to areas that would be hard or impossible to reach in normal vehicles.

They felt that amateur radio is an important technology that they could use to help with the service they provide.

If you are interested in taking a course then please email us or come to the club and find G4LDL, Tony to get your name on the list.

You can also take mock tests by visiting http://www.hamtests.co.uk

Awards for All England is a simple small grants scheme making awards of between £300 and £10,000.

The Awards for All programme aims to help improve local communities and the lives of people most in need.

We felt that we were able to fulfil two if their main aims which were:

• People have better chances in life – with better access to training and development to improve their life skills.
• Stronger communities – with more active citizens working together to tackle their problems.

We now have to wait for the application to be processed to see if we become successful with our bid.

Together with amateur radio we can make a difference!

Phil, G1LKJ confirms that the authors of Echolink have developed an app for the Android phone system and it is live as of now.

Phil adds: I spoke to Mel VK6BMM in Kallaroo Western Australia via the node GB3NS-R this morning.

http://www.echolink.org/faq_android.htm

Hamcall have produced an Amateur Radio World Prefix Map which is unbranded, i.e. there are no logo”s on the maps. They have found that Radio Amateurs who own a Yaesu tranceiver do not want a map that has a Kenwood or Icom logo and vice versa, so their maps appeal to ALL radio hams.

A low-res image of our Map, which will give you an idea of the look and quality

The finished maps measure approximately 39″ x 27″ and are printed on photo quality silk paper.

Their latest maps were updated and produced late 2009 and are now available. The maps are printed on professional litho printing machines using photo quality paper to the highest standard.

Should any of our members be interested the cost is £11.50 (correct on 21/04/2013) recorded delivery postage which includes insurance.

We can get a small discount (which would be donated to club funds) if we can get 10 orders. If you are interested then please let M1DST know so we can build up a list

www.hamcall.co.uk

This years club “on the air” competition takes place from September 1st to November 30th.

The aim is for SDARC Members to score points for working as many M3 and M6 calls as possible nationally during that 3 month period on any band, any mode, fixed or mobile.

Entries (logs) must be handed to M0ACM, Den as soon as possible after the competition closes to ensure your log is entered.

The winner will be announced at the Christmas party and the judges decision is final.

Contest starts 16 years, 0 months, 8 days, 5 hours, 6 minutes ago!