wythall radio club

Is it really that time of year already? When the members of Wythall Radio Club start getting into gear for one of their favourite events of the year? Well, yes it is!

Can we get a higher placing than 3rd place this year?

The RSGB’s annual Club Calls Contest is almost upon us again. It takes place next Saturday evening and requires as many members as we can persuade to get out a signal on 160m.

Wythall Radio Club have finished 3rd for the last two years in this event, but not too many points behind the winners. So maybe this year…?

This Tuesday evening’s meeting at the club will be hosted by Dave G3YXM, our resident 160m expert and veteran of this contest. He will be taking us through the rules of the contest and what our strategy will be to try to get higher in the placings this year.

Should be an inspiring evening, so feel free to pop along to Wythall House, Silver Street, B47 6LZ anytime from 1945 on Tuesday – we will start the meeting around 2030 down in the shack.

Perhaps we will see you there?

The results for the 2014 RSGB SSB Field Day contest are now out and it’s a big improvement for Wythall Radio Club.

Lee G0MTN hard at work at this year’s SSB Field Day

In the restricted section, we came in a very creditable 4th place out of 28 stations across the UK.

Our intrepid operating team of Callum M0MCX, Tom M0RMY and Lee G0MTN put in a sterling performance across the weekend in early September. They were ably assisted by many others from the club, including Phil 2E0WTH, Kevin 2E0NCO.

We hope to improve on these results next year as we have plans to keep the station operating through the night, something logistics sadly prevented this year.

Check out the full results at the RSGB Contest website here.

A lonely M0MCX operates on 144MHz while everyone else barbecues! Don’t worry, he eats well!

VHF Field Day is one of the highlights in the Wythall Radio Club calendar. Not just for the fun and camaraderie we have around taking part in the biggest VHF outdoors contest, but also because of the fun we have socially.

Last year’s event was one of the best (if not the very best) Field Days in the memory of most people in the club, from founder members to new recruits. It will be difficult to better but we are keeping our fingers crossed for good weather, which always helps!

This Tuesday sees a very important evening at the club, as it is traditionally the evening where we “dot the i’s” and “cross the t’s” in terms of getting our final preparation right for the big day.

It’s a good evening to come to especially if you harbour any plans about turning up on the actual day!

2030 in the Club Shack in the cellar at Wythall House, Silver Street, B47 6LZ.

Quite a few Wythall Radio Club members are celebrating a late Easter this morning. That is thanks to the prizes they have garnered as the winners of our Club Easter Contest!

Simon G4TVR was delighted to finish 2nd! Why??

With chocolate eggs on offer as prizes, there was quite a flurry of activity on the air over the holiday weekend and at the results evening last night, Stuart M0NYP scooped one of the top prizes as winner of the All Bands section. A large Easter egg, a smart certificate and a special trophy in memory of Walter M0GRO was his reward.

Kevin M6NCO took away a similar batch of goodies for winning the 144MHz FM section. No surprise really, as the usual regular winner, his dad Jim 2E0BLP, has trained him well!

Second place Easter Eggs went to Simon G4TVR & Mark M0MSE and third place mini eggs were the rewards for Gavin M6GWG and Rob 2E0MEX.  Chairman Mike G4VPD picked up a special certificate for operating from his holidays in the Canary Isles back to Wythall to add some spice into the contest.

Now everyone is looking forward to our Club Christmas Contest again – but hang on folks, there’s the summer and autumn to have some fun with RF yet!

Now click on the thumbnails below for a look at the happy winners!

If you are tune around the 2 metre band in the West Midlands area between Maundy Thursday morning & Easter Monday night and hear some stations exchanging numbers, you might just have stumbled upon the 2014 Wythall Radio Club Easter Contest!

Just as at Christmas, we hold an event to get our members on air and working each other. Points are given for each member contacted – each discrete member worked across the period also counts as a multiplying factor (or multiplier) to attain a final score.  It sounds complicated but we have a clever Excel spreadsheet which keeps score for us!

Just to ease the complication, tomorrow (Tuesday 14th April) we will have an evening where we can explain the idiosyncrasies of this annual event. Chris G7DDN will attempt to simplify the rules and the logging so that everyone can feel comfortable in taking part. 2030 in the Club Shack at Wythall House, Silver Street. B47 6LZ.

Incidentally, the prizes for the contest are Easter Eggs – is it no wonder so many Wythall RC members are getting ever larger?

Wythall Radio Club’s Contest training day yesterday proved to be a real success!

We achieved our goal of providing an opportunity for club members relatively inexperienced in HF contesting to have a no-pressure guided play on-air. It was particularly encouraging that so many of our Foundation Licence holders and newer club members got their first taste of the huge event that is the CQ World Prefix Contest.

Getting on for 20 members worked many countries including Australia, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, Ceuta and Mililla, China, the Netherlands Antilles, Palau, Puerto Rico, Sardinia, the United States, Venezuela, and West Malaysia.

Special mentions go to Dawn M6UDY, John M1JSS, Kevin M6NCO, and Terry G7NWA who all really got stuck in in a serious way! Dawn M6UDY worked Australia with 100w to our club doublet, and Terry G7NWA, who has recently returned to the hobby, was running a pileup of USA stations on 15m just before we pulled the big switch late into the evening.

What with a fantastic takeaway meal as well, all eating around one of the large club tables, a great time was had by all, participants and spectators alike! The question we are being asked now is, “When’s the next one?”

Many Wythall Radio Club members enjoy the radio sport of contesting. It is fun, after all, to test your station and your operating skills against other radio enthusiasts, whether locally, in the UK or worldwide. Yet taking part in a contest can seem pretty daunting for newcomers to the hobby, even downright frightening for many more experienced ones too!

Club husband & wife team, Dawn M6UDY & John M1JSS operating the Elecraft K3 in a recent pile-up

With one of the largest world contests taking place this weekend on most of the shortwave bands, it seems like a good time to help folk improve their Radiosport operating skills and give members a taste of the excitement that is radio contesting.

CQ WPX (World Prefix) is the training ground and the Wythall Club shack and equipment are the weapons of choice. This is not a “serious” entry, just a great opportunity for members to be helped in how contests work, learn how to operate logging software and try to to improve one’s technique so as to get maximum enjoyment (and maybe points too!) from the activity.

Starting at 1300 tomorrow, Saturday 29th March, come and join top UK contester Lee G0MTN and a few other club contesting maestros for some hands-on fun! Mistakes are very welcome as that is one of the ways to learn, so don’t be shy.

We will be on the air until at least 1800 when we intend to finish the day with a mass takeaway of all world cuisines to match the world-wide contacts we will have made! With all the fun going on and it being a 48 hour contest, I wonder what time we might finish though?

There is a very popular section of the Amateur Radio hobby known as “Radio Sport” or “Contesting”. The idea is to make as many (accurate!) contacts as possible within a specified time period. It is something which appeals to many Wythall Radio Club members!

Some stations will be using antenna arrays like this one at OH8X! Phew!

To get us in the mood to have a go at a big contest, our “top gun” Radio Sportsman, Lee G0MTN, is putting together one of his famous presentations to enthuse us to all to take a shot at entering the next large-scale event –  the CQ Magazine World Prefix Contest (known as CQ WPX). It takes place on the last weekend of this month.

This year we thought we would have a go at something a little different – Lee is going to use the Saturday of the contest as a kind of “Beginner’s Guide to Contesting” workshop using the WPX event as a practical training ground. We will be training all afternoon and hope to finish the day off with a traditional British curry! This will be a fantastic way of learning the “how to’s” from some of the club’s top guns!

One of the lesser talked about aspects of the great hobby that is Amateur Radio is that of Satellites. For many years, Amateur only satellites have travelled around the earth providing world-wide contacts for those of us more earth-bound.

And this Tuesday, the members of Wythall Radio Club are to get genned up on the very latest information – that’s because AMSAT-UK member Dave G4DPZ is visiting us to talk about the FUNcube project.

Putting the finishing touches to a CUBESat

This is one of the most innovative projects in recent years.  Launched by AMSAT-UK, the project has created educational “CubeSats”, just 10cm in size, which are intended to enthuse, excite and educate young people about radio, space, physics and electronics. The primary mission is to provide downlink telemetry that can be easily received by schools and colleges for educational outreach purposes.

The project includes the development of a simple and cheap ground station – the ubiquitous FUNcube Dongle, a USB dongle which will receive signals direct from the satellite and transfer the data to specially developed graphical software running on any Windows PC.

Wythall Club members have been buzzing about this visit for some time and we are expecting a large turnout this Tuesday. Visitors are as always very welcome but turn up early to get a seat! 2030 in the Darts Room at Wythall House, Silver Street B47 6LZ. We look forward to seeing you there.

Stu M0NYP takes the top prize for 2013

Christmas Contest results night at Wythall Radio Club tonight was full of surprises as always! Participation in this event has gone through the roof again with over 50 members taking part and over 40 logs submitted, an all-time record.

The overall winner in the Open Section, and thus the winner of the Reg Brown G7OJO Trophy for 2014 is Stuart M0NYP. Chairman Mike G4VPD finished in second place and David G7IBO picked up the 3rd place certificate.

Jim 2E0BLP is presented with the 2m FM trophy by Lee G0MTN

In the 2 metre FM section, it was quite a family affair with the “Voice of the Midlands” Jim 2E0BLP coming out on top, just pipping his own son(!) Kevin M6NCO into second place. Third was a very creditable showing from club founder member, Colin G6ZDQ.

There were sterling efforts too from our lady members with Dawn M6UDY and Stacey M6STJ also winning certificates. Ian M0IDR completed the certificate winners with a special award for the highest score from a non-local member.

Our thanks go to Lee G0MTN for his untiring work on the organisation and software fronts – and for putting adjudicating our contest ahead of some little event he also helps adjudicate called “CQ Worldwide”!!!

Wythall Radio Club members are now looking forward to April and our Easter Contest where there is the little matter of chocolate eggs to be won!