G3GVB was railroaded into this by an utterly ruthless chairman so Rule 1 will be rigidly enforced .
Rule 1: First person to complain takes over the job !
Miracles we do weekly.
This week saw a magical evening when one man’s junk, contemptuously discarded, was miraculously transmogrified into another’s valuable treasure to be given a new home and lovingly nurtured.
THIS WEEKEND ON THE RADIO
The ARRL EME Contest,
Stew Perry Topband Challenge,
NCCC RTTY Sprint,
NCCC CW Sprint,
MCG Autumn Sprint,
WADARC repeater net on 70cms repeater GB3WO
UK/EI DX SSB Contest and the SA Sprint Contest are scheduled for this upcoming weekend.
The UKEICC 80-Meter CW Contest,
CWops Mini-CWT CW Test and SKCC CW Sprint are scheduled for October 26.
See WA7BNM contest web site for details
Upcoming Club Events (If you do’nt attend you can’t complain)
- Test and Measurement Techniques by Bob, G3OOU – Wed 26th October – 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm
- Club Evening – Wed 2nd November – 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm
- Sunday Breakfast all yer can eat for five quid – Sun 6th November – 9:00 am – 10:00 am
- Quiz Night – Wed 9th November – 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm. No use of iPhones !
- Club Evening – Wed 16th November – 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm
- Construction Competition – Wed 23rd November – 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm
- Club Evening – Wed 30th November – 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm
- Sunday Breakfast – Sun 4th December – 9:00 am – 10:00 am
- Test or Practical Evening – Wed 7th December – 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm
- Christmas Party – ( a veritable orgy of drunken hedony) Wed 14th December – 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
- Club Evening – Wed 21st December – 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm
- No Meeting – Wed 28th December – 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm
- Sunday Breakfast – Sun 1st January – 9:00 am – 10:00 am
Note above text size is pandering to M0VUE
DX NEWS
A veritable feast of new countries this week. Morse learners may find interest by finding the DX stations then by listening to the many times the call is transmitted, learn to recognise the high-speed call
FIJI, 3D2. Aki, JA1NLX and Iko, JI1CNA are QRV as 3D2YA from Mana Island, IOTA OC-121, until October 25. Activity is on 40 to 10 meters using CW, with some SSB and RTTY. QSL via JA1NLX.
VIET NAM, 3W. Operators Jose, EA1ACP, Gen, EA5HPX, Francisco, EA7FTR, Carlos, EA1DVY, Oleg, US7UX and David, EB7DX are QRV as 3W2R from the Mekong Delta until October 28. Activity is on 160 to 10 meters. QSL via EB7DX.
SENEGAL, 6W. Ron, VE3REV has moved to Dakar and will be QRV as 6W1SU. Activity will be on 80 to 10 meters. QSL via M0URX.
LESOTHO, 7P. Pista, HA5AO is QRV as 7P8EUDXF until October 27. Activity is on the HF bands using only CW. QSL to home call.
GHANA, 9H. Rado, S59ZZ, Peter, S54W and Janko, S57L are QRV as 9G5AM from Langma until October 26. Activity is on 160 to 10 meters. QSL via S59ZZ.
MARIANA ISLANDS, KH0. Hitoshi, JA1LPH is QRV as KH0/JA1LPH. Activity is on the HF bands. His length of stay is unknown. QSL to home call.
PERU, OA. Daniel, DL5YWM will be QRV as OA4/DL5YWM, and possibly as OA8/DL5YWM, from October 22 to November 5. QSL to home call.
MARKET REEF, OJ0. Toivo, ES2RR, Martti, OH2BH and Pertti, OH2PM will be QRV as OJ0B from October 23 to 31. Activity will be on the low HF bands using RTTY. QSL via OH2BH.
ARUBA, P4. John, KK9A will be QRV as P40A from October 25 to 31. Activity will be on 160 to 10 meters using CW and SSB. QSL via WD9DZV.
BANGLADESH, S2. Syed, S21SM plans to be QRV from Dhaka. He will be active on 20 and 15 meters using SSB. QSL direct to OH6EAC.
TUVALU, T2. Apinelu, T2AT is a new operator and has been active on 20 meters using SSB. QSL direct to N7SMI.
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC, TL. Operators F4WBN, F9IE, TR8JLD and F5DUX are QRV as TL0A until October 28. Activity is on 80 to 6 meters, including 60 meters, using CW, SSB and RTTY. QSL direct to F4WBN.
TANGMERE AND YAPTON 2E0FVL and 2E0RKO may be on 2m on monday evening FM if they feel like it.
BENIN, TY. Francois, F6AJL is QRV as TY5AA from Parakou City until November 13. Activity is on 80 to 10 meters. QSL to home call.
ANTIGUA, V2. Brian, N3OC and Rol, K3RA will be QRV as V26RA and V26OC, respectively, from October 24 to 28. Activity will be holiday style on 160 to 10 meters using CW and SSB during their daylight hours. They plan to be QRV as V26B in the upcoming CQ World Wide SSB DX contest. QSL via operators’ instructions.
INDIA, VU. Dennis, W1UE will be traveling through Asia. He will be QRV as VU3XDE during the CQ World Wide SSB DX contest, although he has applied for a special call to be used in the contest. He’ll also be active before and after the contest. QSL via operator’s instructions.
BURKINA FASO, XT. Ibrahim, XT2AGI is a new ham and active from Ouagadougou. He plans to be active on the HF bands. QSL direct to M0OXO.
Propagation INFO
The solar flux hovered around the 100 mark and, as predicted, HF propagation showed a big improvement last week thanks to more settled geomagnetic conditions.
The Kp-index was in the range one to three up until Wednesday, but then hit five last weekend due to incoming plasma from a coronal mass ejection that took place on 9 October. The initial positive phase of this disturbance saw good 10 metre F2 layer propagation, with Kuwait, Bahrain, Puerto Rico and Chile easily workable. solar flux index wis declining slowly to 85 by Saturday the 22nd. The weekend will be very unsettled geomagnetically with a Kp-index of up to five. Expect the onslaught of higher Kp numbers again across the weekend of Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd.
At G3GVB Trans-Atlantic has been possible as high as 15 metres recently and ,of course, with the longer autumn nights the low bands are also starting to come into their own.
VHF and up propagation
We’re currently passing through the stream of debris left behind by Comet Halley, the parent comet of the Orionids. The meteor shower peaked before dawn today so look for a peak in meteor bursts on the lower VHF bands.
It’s a good weekend for EME with increasing moon declination giving long moon windows. The Moon reached perigee, its closest point to the earth, last Sunday 16th, so EME path losses are at their lowest this week.
POTTON 1
When your fancy auto tuner wont tune on some particular band do’nt panic !. Place a second, simple manual, tuner between antenna feeder and existing tuner. Switch first tuner to “thru “, tune second tuner to min. SWR then turn on 1st tuner again. Bingo !
The second tuner is reducing the high antenna impedance to a lower value which now falls inside the range of the auto. Put another way, a tuner with an impedance ratio of 4:1 in series with one having a ratio of 3:1 renders an overall matching ratio of 12:1. EWYKH
Bryan – GVB
