Meeting - 27th May

Our next club meeting will be this Wednesday the 27th May.

Come and join us to exchange ideas, have a coffee and some buscuits.

There will be a discussion and demonstration of VLF...

Here is my review and some pictures of the Wouxun Hand held demonstrated at the last meeting - Wouxun

It looks like solar cycle 24 has started at last, the weekly ARRL propagation repoted 2 new sun spots rotating into view. Conditions on 20M have been very good over the last few days.

73 and see you all Wednesday. Tony & Rex

Kempton Park

All,
Our next meeting is this Wednesday the 22nd April. We will be holding a short quiz with the usual refreshments...  A big thank you to all those who made it to Kempton Park for the rally on Sunday. Our stall was a great success with lots of visitors Thanks to Tony for persuading so many of them to part with their money!  

We seem to have settled on the 2M frequency of 144.500Mhz for club use so give a call and maybe you can scare up some SHARES DX 

We look forward to seeing all those who can make it this Wednesday. 

73 Rex & Tony

Data Modes Evening

The next club meeting of SHARES will be on Wednesday the 8th April. 

We will be running a demonstration of data modes on the HF bands (RTTY and PSK31) so this is a good opportunity to see what is required to work these modes and discuss the theory and practicalities of operation.

RTTY mode is now quite old and started in the days when people were using mechanical teleprinters Yes they were as heavy as they looked!). There is no error correction on this mode but like morse it tends to get through most of the time. Of course we now use computers instead of teleprinters..

For more about RTTY have a look at -

RTTY

PSK31 is more recent and is phase shift keying. It was designed as a modern replacement to RTTY and occupies a bandwidth of just 31Hz. Its growing in popularity...

For more about PSK31 have a look at -

PSK31

We have booked a table for the Kempton Radio Fairs rally on the 19th April so we can discuss our preparations for that and of couse there will be tea and biscuits and maybe a raffle.

73 Rex and Tony

J-Pole - And things

I know some club members have been building J-Poles or Zepps or extended zepps or whatever..

Here is a design that gives good results. I built (and use) the 70 cm version and so long as you follow the construction carefully you will find it a cheap and inexpensive way onto the 2m or 70 cm band.

http://www.mikestechblog.com/joomla/component/content/article/43-ham-radio-antennas/60-2-meter-j-pole-antenna-construction-plans.html

Next meeting is on Wednesday the 11th March

73 Rex and Tony  

P.S. Here is Nick Dwyer's Blog - http://nickdwyersailing.blogspot.com/

now you all know what hes been up to these last few months.

DF Receiver

Our meeting on the 11th February went well with Tony's presentation of the 160/80M DF receiver and the multiple choice paper and prizes. I'm sure I won't forget what MES stands for...

Miniature Edison Screw (type of cap on electric bulb)... DOH!

If you are interested in obtaining one of the DF receivers and boosting club funds get in touch with Tony and he will take your order - g7dgw (at) shares.uk.net

There were some questions about data modes and RTTY. If you run QRP or are a foundation licence you may find using data the easiest way of working DX, I have worked JA on 10Watts on RTTY!! You should enable to work the world using PSK31. Here are some useful links and downloads...

• If you would like to try demodulating some of those weird sounds you hear on the HF bands I found MultiPSK is the best package. You can download it here -

http://f6cte.free.fr/index_anglais.htm

• I won't go into this in too much detail as there is a presentation on the site. But you will see that once installed there in't much this can't decode. Well not HF DRM..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Radio_Mondiale

So when do we get a DRM decoder for the DF receiver Tony?? ;o)

• I have had good results running Olivia using MultiPSK, you can hear Olivia on 14.105 - 14.108 Mhz and on 3.5825 . Olivia is a very resillient mode enabling communication over low signal paths or where there are hight levels of interference. More information can be found at -
  

http://hflink.com/olivia/

• Although Olivia works on RTTY my preference for this mode is the dedicated RTTY package MMTTY written by JE3HHT - Makoto Mori. RTTY is a much older mode derived from the era of mechanical teleprinters. The transmission doesn't include any error correction but its very common on the amateur bands and works okay most of the time. If you want to have a go at monitoring or working others on RTTY you can download the program here -
  

http://mmhamsoft.amateur-radio.ca/mmtty/

• So how can you tell what each mode sounds like? Have a look/listen here -
  

http://www.w1hkj.com/FldigiHelp/Modes/index.htm

The next meeting is in two weeks on the 26th February.

73 and good DX Rex & Tony

Next Meeting

All, the next meeting at Shares will be on Wednesday the 11th February 

G7DGW hopes to show an inexpensive DF receiver covering 160 and 80m

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_direction_finding

Refreshments will be available -

73 Rex G8UBJ

The new Year

The nights are slowly getting shorter and it was almost warm yesterday so its time to plan some activities for the club.
Some ideas are -

• Antenna evening - Put up the VHF 3 band vertical
• Run a table at Kempton Rally in April to raise funds
• fun day out operating /portable - We have a generator
• Much more - TBD Follow this blog!
  

The next Shares club meeting is on Wednesday the 28th January

Some of the planned activities -

• Raffle - Wonderful prises!
  
• I have decided to fomalise lending of QST magazine (This is the ARRL monthly magazine) I will bring eight copies which members can borrow. Only condition is that you return them after use. QST magazine contains some great articles and very well conducted equipment reviews.
• & of course there will be refreshments.

73 and hope to see you on Wednesday

Rex - G8UBJ