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Club News - Archive (2021)
Happy New Year 2022
31 Dec 2021
We would like to wish all club members and local Radio Amateurs a very Happy and Healthy New Year for 2022.
SSTV from ISS Space Station
22 Dec 2021
18:25 GMT 26 December to 17:05 GMT 31 December
The International Space Station will be transmitting SSTV images again on 2m, between 26th to 31st December 2021.
The transmissions will be on 145.800MHz FM (+/- doppler shift) as usual, using the SSTV mode PD120.
You don't need any fancy equipment or antennas, the signals can be received on 145.800MHz using any 2m FM radio,
even a hand-held, as long as the received audio can be sent to your computer soundcard (Use the widest filter for 25kHz channel spacing).
The recommended software is MMSSTV by JE3HHT.
No club net on Boxing Day
20 Dec 2021
Please note there will be no club net this coming Sunday 26th December, as it is Boxing Day, and we will all be busy spending time with family etc. The next club net will be Sunday 2nd Jan 2022 at 7:00PM on 145.375 MHz FM as usual.
Merry Christmas
20 Dec 2021
We would like to wish all our members, and all local Radio Amateurs, a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy and Healthy! New Year.
Sunday evening Club Net & Activity Night
10 Oct 2021
Just a reminder that our regular weekly Sunday evening net / activity night will take place tonight at 7:00pm.
The net frequency is 145.375 MHz FM (with retransmissions on 70cms 432.575 USB for those who cannot hear all stations directly).
The net is held at 7:00pm (local time) every Sunday evening, and is open to anyone, not just club members, so please give us a call if you can.
2022 Callbook/Yearbook
06 Oct 2021
The club has received our 2022 Callbook/Yearbook from the RSGB.
Unfortunately our club has had to be listed as a Contest Group and not as a Club,
because the RSGB have this stupid rule that if you are not currently holding regular meetings in a regular venue
then you cannot be listed as a club, so we have had to go in the contest group section.
Also interesting to note, that there are now nearly twice as many "details withheld" UK calls than fully listed ones.
A sign of the times perhaps that people are afraid to publish their full details, for various (perfectly legitimate!) reasons
- but it does kind of make having a callbook a waste of time?
If anyone wants anything looking up in the callbook please send us a message,
or I will bring it along to our next meet-up...
Meet-up & natter 22 Sept 2021
22 Sep 2021
Many thanks to everyone who came along for our Meet-up and Natter this evening.
From L to R:
Martyn GW4CQZ, Rhys GW4RWR, Martyn GW6ITJ, Alan GW4HDR, Barrie GW7EXH, Ceri 2W0LJC & David GW8NZN.
Thanks all for making the effort to attend, it was great to see you all.
The venue, in spite of being a pub, was OK covid-wise as it was a large and airy room with very few other people there on a Wednesday evening.
(The only problem was the TV's were a bit noisy?)
Those that attended seemed to like the idea of an informal get-together rather than an official formal club meeting, so we hope to arrange another soon.
Please let us know if you are interested, or have any comments about the venue etc.
Informal meet-up & natter 22 Sept 2021
10 Sep 2021
We are having an informal Meet-up and Natter, in the Rhyl Rugby Club Sports & Social Club, Tynewydd Road, Rhyl,
on Weds 22nd Sept at 7:30pm
Although we speak on-air regularly, many of us haven't actually seen each other in many years!,
so this will be a great opportunity for a long overdue face to face get-together, to chat about all things radio.
This is not a club meeting as such, it is open to all local Radio Amateurs, not just club members, so please feel free to pop along and say hello.
For more information please see our Facebook page, or contact us directly.
Hope to see you there…
Sunday evening Club Net & Activity Night
04 Sep 2021
We had intended to re-start our weekly Sunday evening nets / activity nights from 5th September 2021.
However a number of members are not available on that date so the new start date for the club net will be Sunday 12th September 2021, at 7:00pm.
The net frequency is 145.375 MHz FM (with retransmissions on 70cms 432.575 USB for those who cannot hear all stations directly).
The net is open to anyone, not just club members, so please give us a call if you can.
Busy weekend for contests
01 Sep 2021
This weekend, Sat 4th/Sun 5th September, several popular contests will take place:
- RSGB (HF) SSB Field Day 13:00Sat-13:00Sun (Rules)
- 144MHz Trophy Contest 14:00Sat-14:00Sun (Rules)
- 5th 144MHz Backpackers 11:00Sun-15:00Sun (Rules)
The club hopes to set up a simple portable station just to give some points away in all 3 of these contests. Please listen out for our club call GW4ARC/P over the weekend.
Informal meet-up & natter
04 Aug 2021
As the Covid restrictions in Wales look like they may be relaxed considerably from this weekend,
this means that we should be able to meet up in person once again.
We still do not have any affordable premises in which to hold regular club meetings,
but would anyone like to have an informal one-off get-together somewhere, perhaps in a week or two's time?
Although we speak on-air regularly, many of us haven't actually seen each other in years!
If you are interested, and have any suggestions when & where we could meet up (indoors or outdoors),
please let us know.
Summer 2021 AM QSO Party for Europe
16 Jul 2021
Friday 16th July 2021 18:00 UTC until Sunday 18th July 17:59.
If you are interested in trying a different mode then the Summer 2021 AM QSO Party for Europe is on now!
It's not a contest as such, but an activity weekend, to encourage the use of AM on the amateur bands.
Frequencies:
The organisers have decided to create operating windows for this event, and a Spot Frequency on 7MHz which falls outside the 40m window.
The purpose of these windows is to help people find one another,
plus to avoid spreading across the whole of a band and making life too difficult to other users.
- 160m 1.900 - 1.950 MHz and (1.977 spot frequency)
- 80m 3.600 - 3.670 MHz
- 60m 5.317 MHz (spot frequency for Full licence holder in UK)
- 40m 7.150 - 7.199 MHz and (7.143 spot frequency)
- 20m 14.300 - 14.350 MHz
- 15m 21.300 - 21.350 MHz
- 10m 29.000 - 29.100 MHz
Full rules and information for the event can be found at: https://amqsoparty.wixsite.com/mysite
VHF NFD Contest this weekend
01 Jul 2021
It is the RSGB VHF NFD contest this weekend, 3rd-4th July, though it's a bit different this year due to Covid.
Full rules at https://www.rsgbcc.org/vhf/rules/2021/VHFNFD.shtml
Sunday evening Club Net & Activity Night
28 Jun 2021
We have decided to pause our weekly Sunday evening net / activity night for the summer.
Participation in the net had dropped off in recent weeks, due to the improved weather and lighter evenings,
so that people now have other things to do rather than sit in the shacks.
So we will temporarily stop the nets from now, and will restart on 5th September 2021.
SSTV from ISS Space Station
20 Jun 2021
09:40 GMT 21 June to 18:30 GMT 26 June
There will be another chance to receive some good SSTV signals from the International Space Station between 21st to 26th June 2021.
The automated transmissions will be on 145.800MHz FM (+/- doppler shift) as usual, using the PD120 SSTV mode.
There should be many good passes over the UK during this period, so this will be another good chance to receive some images from space.
You don't need any fancy equipment or antennas, the signals can be received on 145.800MHz using any 2m FM radio,
even a hand-held, as long as the received audio can be sent to your computer soundcard.
The recommended software is MMSSTV by JE3HHT.
Sunday evening Club Net & Activity Night
19 Jun 2021
(Every Sunday at 7pm BST on 145.375MHz FM)
This is another reminder about our club 2m net & activity night, every Sunday evening at 7pm local time, on 145.375 MHz FM
(with retransmissions on 70cms 432.575 USB for those who cannot hear all stations directly).
The net is open to anyone, not just club members, so please give us a call if you can.
Participation in the net has dropped off in recent weeks, which is perhaps not surprising given the improved weather and lighter evenings,
and gradual relaxation of the Covid restrictions allowing us to get out and about more.
Do we need to consider putting the net on hold till the autumn? Give us your thoughts.
Equipment for sale
20 May 2021
Just a reminder that Melfyn GW1AKT still has some equipment for sale,
as he has had to move into a nursing home due to poor health, and cannot take it with him.
The items are:
FTDX 5000 transceiver
Yaesu SP8 desktop loudspeaker
MG100 desktop microphone
He wishes to sell it all together as a package if possible, and the price is £2,200 ONO.
If you are interested please contact us
and we can pass on Melfyn's email address to you.
Club website down-time
19 May 2021
Please be aware that this website may be unavailable for a while, from the evening of 19th May, for possibly a few days,
while we transfer it to a new web host.
During this period the website may be completely unavailable, or may appear to operate erratically,
while the DNS changes propagate across the web.
Also during this period the contact form and membership submission form will not work,
and any emails to our email address will "bounce",
so if you would like to contact us please leave it a few days.
Everything should be back to normal by the weekend.
[Note added 20 May - Transfer to new web host has been completed, everything should now be working again.
If you notice any problems please contact us]
OFCOM new EMF restrictions email
19 May 2021
OFCOM emailed many UK amateurs again today, about the proposed new EMF restrictions that are being imposed on us:
"Dear Licence Holder,
We are writing to make you aware of some important changes to your radiocommunications licence(s) issued by Ofcom.
The changes mean you may now need to take action to make sure your radio equipment complies with a new licence condition to protect the general public from exposure to Electromagnetic fields (EMF).
We wrote to you in March this year to let you know we were proposing these changes.
They apply to virtually all licence holders. We gave licensees until 18 April to submit any representations they wanted to make about the changes.
We have listened to licensees’ concerns and made some changes to the new licence condition and guidance document as a result.
Full details of our Final Decision are published on our website.
The Decision means your licence has now been changed to include a requirement to comply with internationally recognised limits on EMF exposure.
Alongside the Final Decision we have published
Guidance
on what you should do to ensure compliance.
We have also produced a simple EMF compliance flowchart
which tells you whether or not you need to take action and, if you do, what action is needed.
To help further, we will also shortly publish an updated version of our
on-line calculator
which you can use to work out an appropriate compliance distance for your equipment.
We are also preparing a new simplified version of the full Guidance, plus specific advice for holders of amateur,
ship radio and aeronautical licences. We expect to publish these documents on our website by 8 June.
All documents – plus other relevant information – can be found on a dedicated
EMF webpage.
Licensees will have the following time periods to make sure they have up-to-date records in place:
- a) Until 18 November 2021 for any equipment which operates on frequencies at or above 110 MHz.
- b) Until 18 May 2022 for any equipment which operates on frequencies above 10 MHz but below 110 MHz.
- c) Until 18 November 2022 for any equipment which operates on frequencies at or below 10 MHz.
Amateur Radio Licence Terms, Conditions and Limitations
Ship Radio and Ship Portable Radio Licence Terms, Conditions and Limitations
[Sorry, The above links were broken in both the emails that I received, so I can't provide them here]
Please note: if we make any further changes to licences in future, we may not contact licensees individually. For that reason we urge all licensees to subscribe to email spectrum updates by going to this page on our website. If you have any questions about this change and what it means for you, further information can be found on the dedicated EMF webpage using the address provided above.
Yours faithfully,
Ofcom"
"Mike-Whiskey DX group" 10m net
01 May 2021
For those that may be interested in trying to work local and semi-local stations on 28MHz,
while the band is closed for DX, there is a net tomorrow,
Sunday 2nd May 2021, 12noon-2pm, on 28.410MHz USB
Many of the stations will be high ground, and at least some should be workable from here in Rhyl.
Please call in if you can, and help keep 10m alive during these current poor sunspot conditions.
Equipment for sale
01 May 2021
We've just heard that Melfyn GW1AKT is selling up some of his gear,
as he has had to move into a nursing home due to poor health, and cannot take too much with him.
The items are:
FTDX 5000 transceiver
Yaesu SP8 desktop loudspeaker
MG100 desktop microphone
He wishes to sell as a package and the price is £2,200 ONO.
If you are interested please contact us
and we can pass on Melfyn's email address to you.
Assistance/advice concerning misuse of Amateur bands
15 Apr 2021
If you experience misuse, malpractice, or abuse on the air,
the best place to go for advice and assistance in the first instance is the RSGB's "Operating Advisory Service".
Contact Dylan Parry Williams, the RSGB OAS (Operating Advisory Service) Co-Ordinator,
on 07764 219 624, or via email to
There is some useful advice concerning abusive transmissions on the RSGB's OAS advisory note.
It is very important not to respond to or reply to any of these transmissions, don't even acknowledge their existence!
For more info see the RSGB Operating Advisory Service
Sunday evening Club Net & Activity Night
02 Apr 2021
(Every Sunday at 7pm BST on 145.375MHz FM)
Don't forget our club holds an Activity Night & Club Net every Sunday evening. The net is on 145.375MHz FM and starts at 7pm.
To overcome the problem that we sometimes have on the net, when not all stations can hear each other properly,
the club call GW4ARC now re-transmits all 2m received audio on 432.575 MHz SSB.
This allows anyone who is also equipped to receive 70cm SSB to be able to hear all stations on the net, even if they cannot hear them directly.
The 432.575 SSB relay transmissions are made vertically polarised, on the same antenna as the 2m GW4ARC station,
so if you can hear GW4ARC on 2m, then you should be able to hear the 70cms retransmissions OK.
(Please note that the 70cms relay will be paused while GW4ARC transmits on 2m)
Remember the net is open to everybody, not just club members, so please join us if you can.
[Note added 05 Apr - After a very good start, the numbers on the net have been falling off recently.
It would be a shame if the net is allowed to fade away due to lack of interest,
as it promotes local activity and helps keeps us in touch with each other while we are unable to hold face-to-face club meetings]
A Message from the RSGB Region 6 Rep.
21 Mar 2021
A Message from the RSGB Regional Representative for North Wales:-
"Spring update
Hi All
Just a quick update although not a lot has changed since my last one. I hope you are all staying safe and getting the Covid vaccine.
Since I told you I'd been elected, nothing much has changed as I'm still officially co-opted until the AGM in April.
It's been good to hear from many local Hams, either by phone or virtually, and thank you to the many of you for your congratulations on being elected.
This weekend is is not only the Vernal Equinox, so we are officially in Astronomical Spring, but marks one year since the start of the first lockdown.
Who would have thought a year ago that we would still be in lockdown a year later...
I,like many others, thought it would be over by last Summer but, probably, for our sanity, it's just as well we didn't know.
Let's hope there is light at the end of the tunnel with the vaccine and we can see our families again.
Clubs continue to hold club nets, chats on Zoom and the like and virtual speakers.
Some Clubs have held virtual AGM's and some, like North Wales RS and Wrexham ARS have decided to postpone their AGM's until they can meet in person.
A new 70cms Repeater GB3GR (actually GB3OR) has come on the air, sited on the Great Orme above Llandudno.
It is run by North Wales Amateur Radio Group. It is good to have another 70 cms Repeater following the demise of GB3LL.
Congratulations to a significant number of people in Region 6 who have passed exams under the new virtual system and
Good Luck to those who are continuing to study for the Full Licence
The virtual exam system, set up by Dave Wilson MW0OBW, the current RSGB President, has been a fantastic success
with huge numbers joining the hobby and significant numbers joining the Society.
Dave will be retiring as President at the AGM but will be standing for the RSGB Board in the forthcoming elections.
A great Ambassador for RSGB and, indeed the hobby I wish him luck.
There is, of course an election for a new President and there are 2 candidates for the Post.
There are several candidates for the election of 2 Board members.
All details of how to vote and about all the candidates are in the March edition of RadCom.
So, please can I urge those of you who are members of RSGB to use their votes. If anyone would like more information,
or has any questions about the candidates, please give me (a call) to discuss it on 01690 710257 or 07760 190355.
Meanwhile all the best to you all. Stay safe and let's hope we can return to some sort of normality before too long.
73 Liz Cabban
GW0ETU
RR6"
March 144/432MHz & VHF Championship contest
04 Mar 2021
Just a reminder that this weekend it is the March 144MHz & 432MHz Contest. The contest lasts for 24 hours, from 14:00UTC Sat 6th March to 14:00UTC Sun 7th March 2021. There should be lots of activity so it should be a good opportunity to make a few contacts on 2m and 70cms SSB. Full details are available here - March 144 432MHz
Fair Condx forecast for 144MHz band
26 Feb 2021
For those of you interested in 2m band propagation, Tropo band conditions are forecast to be quite reasonable this weekend, and through most of the coming week.
According to William Hepburn's DX Info Centre,
Troposperic Ducting on 144MHz is going to be marginal to moderate over this period, over the UK and NW Europe.
It's well worth switching your rigs into SSB mode if you want to work further than your local repeater.
Already Belgium and France are being heard from Rhyl on 144MHz FT8, using a simple vertical collinear,
so if you are lucky enough to have a horizontal beam why not give it a go...
Sunday evening Club net
06 Feb 2021
(Every Sunday at 7pm 145.375MHz FM)
As an experiment on the club net this coming Sunday (7th Feb), the club call GW4ARC is going to retransmit all 2m received audio on 432.575 MHz SSB.
This is to allow anyone who is equipped for 70cm SSB to be able to receive all stations on the net, even if they cannot hear them directly.
For those who cannot simultaneously receive on 70cms SSB the 2m audio will also be streamed live on a Skype group call.
This should hopefully overcome the problems that we often have on the net when not all stations can hear each other properly.
Your comments on how useful this is and how well it works in practice will be very welcome.
The 432.575 SSB transmissions will be made vertically polarised, on the same antenna as the 2m GW4ARC station,
and will be paused while GW4ARC transmits on 2m. Details on how to join the Skype group call will be given on the net.
[Note added 07 Feb - The experiment seemed to be a success.
Using a combination of 70cms SSB retransmissions, and audio streaming over Skype,
everyone could hear everyone else on the net, so we will make this a regular thing on the Sunday evening net from now on]
ISS transmitting SSTV on 28-29th Jan 2021
21 Jan 2021
If you are interested in receiving signals from the International Space Station,
please note that they will be transmitting SSTV images again on 145.800MHz FM on the 28th and 29th of January 2021.
The following notice was posted on the AMSAT-UK website today:
"
Russian cosmonauts on the International Space Station (ISS) are planning to transmit Slow Scan TV images on 145.800 MHz FM using the SSTV mode PD-120.
The transmissions are part of the Moscow Aviation Institute SSTV experiment (MAI-75) and will be made from the amateur radio station RS0ISS in the Russian Service module of the ISS.
Jan 28 – Starts after 12:10 GMT and ends at 17:15 GMT*
Jan 29 – Start about 13:10 GMT and ends at 18:05 GMT*
*Dates and times subject to change.
"
Hopefully there should be several good passes over the UK during these periods, so this will be a good chance to receive some images from space.
You don't need any fancy equipment or antennas, the signals can be received on 145.800MHz using any 2m FM radio, even a hand-held,
as long as the received audio can be sent to your computer soundcard.
The recommended software is MMSSTV by JE3HHT.
[Images added 29 Jan 2021. These images were received at GW4HDR on the 29th Jan,
using a simple "white stick" vertical collinear antenna on the chimney]
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