Events, West Manchester Radio Club

Red Rose Rally 2025 Successful
Red Rose Rally 2025 Successful avatar

Today was the West Manchester Radio Clubs Red Rose Rally.  Over 250 people attended the event, which was judged a success despite it being in an unfortunate smaller venue that cannot be helped.  The club is working on this for a larger and affordable venue.

As secretary of the club, I arrived just before 10am, and offered my services to cover any job position to relieve people allowing them to take a break.  I managed to get involved in taking the money on the door, selling raffle tickets, folding the raffle tickets, clearing up used cups and plates, sorting out the car parking issues, asking vendors to keep the isles clear, helping on the bring and buy.  At 1pm, I did the announcement of the draw, thanking everyone for coming, and inviting Dave Wilson from the RSGB to draw the raffle tickets.  Like everyone else running the rally, a busy day for all.

The main raffle prize, a Yaesu FT70D, was won and collected on the day, and the 2nd prize of a £20 cheque and cap from our sponsor, was won by a newly licensed amateur who only passed his foundation level exam this week on Wednesday..!

I did manage to take a break myself in order to enjoy one of the delicious bacon baps.  And, there may be every truth in the rumour that an hour later I participated in trying one of the sausage baps too.  A big thank you to the kitchen staff for the presentation of the food.

And lastly, a big thank you to all the volunteer members of the West Manchester Radio Club for helping out and making the rally possible.

Events, Operating

DXpedition South Andaman Isles 2025 – Callsign VU4AX
DXpedition South Andaman Isles 2025 – Callsign VU4AX avatar

Expedition News

DX-Adventure is thrilled to announce our upcoming DX-pedition to the beautiful South Andaman Islands (IOTA AS-001) operating as VU4AX.
From March 10th to March 20th, 2025, an experienced team of 12 operators will be active from South Andaman, operating 6 stations around the clock on bands from 10m to 160m (incl. WARC + 60m), using CW, SSB, and DIGI.  Months of careful planning and preparation have brought together an international team of experienced DX-peditioners, including: ON4AMX Marc, ON4HIL Patrick, ON5UR Max, ON5RA Pascal, ON5TN Karel, ON6CC Marc, ON7FT Jonas, ON7USB Geert, ON7RU Franky, ON8AZ Francis, PA3EWP Ronald, PA9M Marcel.
Six stations mean a lot of material and it is a big challenge to transport it all to VU4. With 1.150kg of equipment meticulously prepared, we will try to offer the best experience possible for you, covering 24/7 operations to maximize the change on having a QSO with us. VU4 ranks as #28 for the USA and #53 worldwide, making it a rare and exciting challenge.
Needless to say, your support is essential to make this DX-pedition a success. We deeply appreciate our sponsors and suppliers for their ongoing support and welcome further contributions to help us achieve a memorable DX-pedition.
Stay updated with the latest news at www.dx-adventure.com.
Events, Radio Rallies, West Manchester Radio Club

Red Rose Radio Rally 2025
Red Rose Radio Rally 2025 avatar

Next month sees that winter radio rally for my radio club, the West Manchester Radio Club and will be held on Sunday 23rd February 2025 from 10am onward.

Red Rose Rally Venue

Due to work being carried out in the usual hall, there will be a change of venue, and the Red Rose Rally will now be held at Mather Hall (Postcode: WN7 2PJ) instead of the usual St Josephs Hall.  However, please use the same car park.

Personally, I am very interested in the 27MHz / PMR users meeting, however, full details of the radio rally are on the West Manchester Radio Clubs website at: Red Rose Rally.

Radio Rally Update

I understand that the trader tables at this years Red Rose Rally are 5ft not 6ft, due to the venue only being able to supply 5ft tables, however, the good news is that the price for a table is the same price.

Events, West Manchester Radio Club

West Manchester Radio Club Christmas Party 2024
West Manchester Radio Club Christmas Party 2024 avatar

Last night, I enjoyed a brilliant night at the West Manchester Radio Club‘s Christmas Party.  Every year, my club puts on a tickets only Christmas Party where we all have a get together, have a lovely buffet and enjoy a quiz.  At the end, the ticket price includes a random draw for a bottle of something for you to take away.  Although, I never seem to win the whisky..!

For the last three years, being the Secretary, I have stepped up and done a quiz with a range of categories to make everyone have a jolly good think.  As it is only for fun, the club provides a box of chocolates for the winning team.  This year, the winning team scored 42 out of 50, the worst team, ah hem, 11..!

The buffet we enjoyed was organised by Janet LePuy (thank you) with caterers T&T Sargeants from Leigh who supplied a lovely spread of food, and plenty too..!

Christmas Party

Here are some Christmas party pictures taken courtesy of Peter Nutt G4WLI. Thanks Peter.

If you are into amateur radio, and live in the north west of the UK, then you really need to think about joining this very socially active radio club, it is well worth the membership fee and effort of coming down to the club shack.  Oh, and you don’t always have to wear a Christmas jumper..!

Licensing

UK Amateur Radio Licensing Framework 2024
UK Amateur Radio Licensing Framework 2024 avatar

Here is the latest update to the UK amateur radio licensing framework from OfCom, (Office for Communications – the UK’s licensing body), delaying the roll out of phase 2 and 3 of the licensing to 2025.

AmateurRadioLicensing2024 PDF Download size 167KB

Surrendering of Callsigns

Comment: I don’t mind surrendering my M6INI callsign, (I never had an Intermediate 2E callsign), but for those who for example hold their own callsign in addition to a silent key parent, but also want to continue to hold and use a silent key callsign of that parent as well as their own, will now be forced to chose under this new arrangement which to surrender as only one personal callsign is allowed.  So if both parents are now silent key, you now have to chose between Mum or Dad, sadly.

Licensing, Operating

Update to Tango Mike DX Group
Update to Tango Mike DX Group avatar

A little update to my Tango Mike CB callsign and the TM DX Group’s directory listing.

I moved from Lancashire to Shropshire in 2013, but, I forgot to inform the Tango Mike registrar of the move, so the directory entry for me, 26TM998 no longer reflected my QTH and so needed updating.

Today, I kindly heard back from Simon, G7UFS, that the entry has been updated.

Many thanks Simon.

Here is the Tango Mike directory listing for England.

Events, Operating, Stafford and District Amateur Radio Society

JOTA 2024 Event Report
JOTA 2024 Event Report avatar

Today (Saturday 19th October 2024) the 1st Ashley Air Scouts had a very successful JOTA (Jamboree On The Air) from Hugo Meynell school in Loggerheads with help from the Staffordshire and District Amateur Radio Society along with myself.

My main role today was educational, to teach the Scouts, Cubs and Beavers some of the phonetic alphabet and explain why we use call signs to identify stations and why we speak the call signs in the phonetic alphabet they have just learned due to poor operating conditions.  Some already knew their phonetic alphabet, and as one young cub pointed out, I didn’t even know the normal alphabet..!  I was just testing them, or rather, that was my excuse.  LOL

After their lesson, they were let on to the club’s HF station, an Icom 7300 connected to a DX-Commander operated by Paul, and with his assistance, contact was made with other JOTA stations, and very basic messages were exchanged, like names and with what they had just learned, the spelling of their names phonetically.

Between 10:30 and 15:00, I believe contacts were made in York, Hebden Bridge, Jersey, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, Vietnam, Mauritius and Taiwan.

The conditions of the bands were very noisy, 40m being the worse, so in the late morning, I got the impression that everyone was crowding on 20m in order to make a JOTA contact.  In the afternoon, the 40m band picked up again, but, signals seemed distant, quiet, and faded in and out.  A very difficult band to work today.

Due to these really difficult working conditions, GB1SDS did try listening out for GB4FAS (operated by my radio club The West Manchester Radio Club), but, despite trying, GB1SDS simply could not hear GB4FAS 70 miles away.

Overall, a very busy and fulfilling day, I would definitely do it again.

I would like to say a big thank you to the members of the Staffordshire and District Radio Society for their assistance in helping this local scout group do this and the troop gain their JOTA badges.

Operating

Antenna Analyser MFJ-266B Question
Antenna Analyser MFJ-266B Question avatar

An antenna analyser question. I have a MFJ-266B, note the “B”, the later improved version, and have had it for checking HF antennas for about 10 years. It always gives the same SWR as a meter on HF, so I have never suspected it, or doubted it, until today.

Today, as it is my birthday, and I fancied spending it playing radio, I thought I would have a go at making a home made mobile 2/70 antenna on a quick release to go on my cars mag mount.

With all the components assembled, I am expecting a 1/4 wave to be between 19″ and 20″ to be resonant around 145 MHz and 435MHz ish.

The analyser shows the 19.4″ whip to be resonant at 113MHz, 130MHz, 446MHz, and 471MHz. No amount of adjusting the length of the whip causes the analyser to deviate from these resonant frequencies.

These numbers just don’t look correct. Surely, the UHF readings should be somewhere near a multiple of x3 of the VHF resonant frequency.

Putting my 10m antenna on the car, it shows a resonant frequency with the analyser of 28 MHz, which is expected, as I also use this antenna for UK FM CB as well as for 10m.

I have never used this analyser for VHF and UHF before, and I am suspecting it is not reading correctly above HF.

Has anyone used an MFJ-266B for VHF/UHF before? And, how accurate are they on these higher bands?  Thoughts everyone please…

 

Kindest 73’s,
Mark M0INI
mark@m0ini.radio

#AntennaAnalyser #MFJ266B #M0INI