Amateur radio in West Sussex - Training, Exams, Contests and Special Event Stations

Weekly Bulletin – June 9 2018

WADARC meets at – Lions Hall, 21 Roberts Road, Lancing. BN15 8AR.

** Note: the club will be meeting at Bignor Hill on Wednesday 13th June:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/search/bignor+hill/@50.9074215,-0.6186826,493m/data=!3m1!1e3

THE PAST WEEK

I haven’t been able to get along to the club for a few weeks and also missed this weeks meeting so I haven’t got much to pass on club-wise.
I didnt get any feedback about last wed meeting so in this weeks newsletter there are the usual WADARC updates, club activity information and a few amateur radio related thoughts from me:

* Alan G4GNX – has been in hospital (removed 3 discs from neck, steel plate fitted and some vertebrae were fused together) he still has some difficulty in swallowing, but he says things are improving – we all wish him a speedy recovery 🙂
He hopes to be on the Monday 2m net, but it will depend how he manages the stairs over the weekend.

* 10m band has been ‘rocking and rolling’ – 10m was great on Monday 4th june and seems to have been ‘huming’ with activity up-to last night 8th June . There were I, IZ, AO18 (Spain), SP’s, SV’s, OZ’s, EA’s, HB, F’s, I recently built a rotatable dipole for 15m and 18m bands so I slid the concentric tubes into the center to re-tune it for the 10m band … I was ‘on air’ in a jiffy 🙂 One strong Italian who wasn’t using an echo box mic (his audio was normal when 59) had a definite echo on the very strong 59++ peaks, which was interesting to hear. I have heard this effect on longer paths but not on such a short ‘skip’.

* Win 10 woes – I have a second hand Win10 PC that I use as a back-up (and for Amateur radio software and PIC work) which recently started created a pop-up asking for a OS product key – the five way five digit code. It suggested my PC would eventually fail to work without it. As it was a windows 8 upgrade I didn’t have, and never had a product key for the Win10! I went back to the computer shop where I brought it and the owner said it was one of the many ‘April update’ issues that have plagued a lot of computers over the last few weeks (he had a dozen PC’s in his shop with ‘Aprilupdateitis’ he was currently trying to sort out). The Win 10 OS is assigned to the particular mother board on the PC, and didn’t come with a cd and product code sticker which I could use. So he said, there was not a lot he could do. He suggested I buy a product code from e-bay for £15 (a completely new Win 10 OS is ca £70-80). I did this and now my PC seems happy. What a strange world …

73 & Good Dx,
Jonathan.
G1EXG

CLUB MEETINGS & EVENTS

  • Outside On The Air, bring rigs and antennas (see link above) – Bignor Hill Car Park, Bignor – Wednesday 13th June – 8.00pm-10.00pm – Note: Lions Hall CLOSED.
  • Tea and Chat Evening – Lions Hall, Lancing – Wednesday 20th June – 8.00pm-10.00pm
  • Practical Evening – Subject TBA- Lions Hall, Lancing – Wednesday 27th June – 8.00pm-10.00pm
  • Tea and Chat Evening – Lions Hall, Lancing – Wednesday 4th July – 8.00pm-10.00pm

For further information as it occurs, please visit the WADARC website: www.wadarc.org.uk

NETS

Monday – 2 metres 145.425 MHz, FM, 7.30pm (local)

Thursday – 40 metres 7.106 MHz +/-QRM, SSB, 11.00am (local)

Saturday – 70 cms on GB3WO, 7.00pm (local)

Sunday – 80 metres 3.712 MHz +/- QRM, SSB, 7.30am-8.00am (local)

RALLIES

Rather than sifting through a lot of data and reproducing it, you can find rally info by following this link to an excellent website: http://www.g4rga.org.uk/All.html

RAGCHEW

Spring 2018 edition published – http://www.wadarc.org.uk/ragchew/spring-2018

PROPAGATION

HF and VHF:

RSGB propagation info can be found by following this link: http://rsgb.org/main/blog/news/gb2rs/propagation-news/2018/06/01/propagation-news-3-june-2018/

VHF/UHF Beacons often heard in our area:

VHF:

GB3WSX – IO80QW – 70.007 MHz

GB3BAA – IO91PS – 70.016 MHz

F1ZXK – JN18KF – 144.438 MHz

F5ZSF – IN88GS – 144.409 MHz

GB3VHF – JO01EH – 144.430 MHz

ON0VHF – JO20HP – 144.418 MHz

UHF:

F5XBA – JN18KF – 432.830 MHz

GB3UHF – JO01EH – 432.430 MHz

ON0UHF – JO20ET – 432.567 MHz

DX NEWS

HF:

WADARC members (and others) can subscribe to the DX News service without joining ARRL.

Send an email to this address: w1aw-list-request@arrl.org

In the subject line put the word Subscribe followed by your email address

ARRL will send an acknowledgement and you will receive the weekly DX News as an email, usually on a Friday

VHF/UHF:

The RSGB VHF/UHF Contest and Activity calendar is available via this link: https://www.rsgbcc.org/cgi-bin/readcal.pl?year=2018