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

Operating

Operating Mobile CB 22/09/2024
Operating Mobile CB 22/09/2024 avatar

On a Sunday, I take my son to his Taekwando lesson.  Parked up waiting for Samuel, so, mobile today doing some CB for a change, what with the storm and the strong Russian stations clearer than UK ones, it was very difficult when only running 4 watts. Unfortunately, I don’t speak Russian.

I can hear Rob 59ST02 in Greece clear as a bell on channel 40, from the island of Rhodes, but, other stations just stomp on my replies! So I never got an over with him.

With a Thunderpole whip on a mag mount, a slightly off SWR of 2:1, and all this heavy rain, I was really struggling.

For next time, I will see if I can get the SWR lower, I used to achieve an SWR of 1.2:1 when I used the same antenna on a roof rack mount.  Oddly, my SWR is higher with the mag mount.  I would have expected the other way around.

Until next time…

73 de Mark, 26TM998
“Spark Transmitter”

EDIT: The SWR is now down to 1.2:1.  It was found that there was some tarnish on the centre pin of the coax from the antenna.  Overhauling both ends brought the SWR down nicely.

Events, Stafford and District Amateur Radio Society

Scouts JOTA 2024
Scouts JOTA 2024 avatar

This year, I am helping at my son’s Scout group, the 1st Ashley Air Scouts along with the local amateur radio club from Stafford and District Amateur Radio Society who will be taking the lead and providing the radios.

The global 2024 JOTA, this year, is being held between Friday 18th and Sunday 20th October 2024.  However, the event I will be helping will be on the Saturday 19th October 2024 between 10:00 and 16:00.

I have spoken to Scouts in years gone by, usually when I have been mobile, however, this will be the first time I have actually helped at an organised JOTA event with a Scout group.  Needless to say, both myself and my son are looking forwards to it.

EDIT: I understand a special event callsign has been applied for and granted for this event.  The callsign will be GB1SDS.  Listen out on the HF bands for this callsign on Saturday 19th October.