Foundation Exam

From left to right

Steve Hartley(lead instructor)G0FUW, Slava Kachvanov-M6???,Lewis Tomas(instructor)-G4YTN,Tim Leaning-M6JML,Stephen Middleton-M6XYZ,Simon Fairborne-M6VAU, Mike Coombs(instructor)-G3VTO,Katie Styles-M6KTE

A clean sweep yet again, Congratulation to slava,Tim,steven,Simon and Katie on passing the foundation exam. 

Also a big thank’s to both invigilators Brian 2E0BGD, Ian M0ICP for giving there time up.

Every wanted to have a go at homebrewing your own transceiver? Studying for the Intermediate licence exam and don’t know what project to build? Then here is the event for you!

Following on from the success of last year’s event, the second Bath Buildathon is to be held on Saturday 17 January 2009 to encourage newcomers to have a go at homebrewing. The Buildathon will allow those with limited soldering experience to develop their skills under the watchful eye of some very experienced homebrewers. The first of these events was a huge success and the team are expecting a repeat performance this year.

The kit chosen for the Bath Buildathon is the Brendon DSB Transceiver from Tim Walford’s Somerset range of kits. The QRP transceiver has been specifically designed for the newcomer so you can be confident that you will go home with a working 80m voice transceiver.

The Buildathon is planned to run from 09.00 to 18.00. All soldering and test equipment will be made available on the day and refreshments will be provided. All you need to bring is a bucket full of enthusiasm and a packed lunch. The cost of the day will be £60 to include the cost of the kit, refreshments, room hire, etc.

The event is open to anyone who would like to try out homebrewing for the first time. So whether you are studying for your Intermediate exam, or you have held a full licence for years but never raised any soldersmoke in anger, this is the event for you. Why not bring the family to see the beautiful Roman City of Bath while you build? Make a weekend of it!

If you are interested in joining in the fun, please contact Steve Hartley, G0FUW on 01225 464394 (7-9pm weekdays), or by e-mail at G0FUW@tiscali.co.uk Places will be limited to ensure that everyone gets good mentoring from one of the local tutors so interested parties are advised to book early.

CLASSES

Steve Hartley G0FUW

Lead Instructor

5 Sydenham Buildings

Lower Bristol Road

BATH, BA2 3BS

01 August 2008

The next round of amateur radio training courses in the area are planned to take place as follows:

· Oldfield School, Kelston Road, Bath

· Thursdays

· 7-9pm

· Tutors - Steve Hartley G0FUW, Mike Coombs G3VTO & Lewis Thomas G4YTN

The classes will commence with a Foundation Licence course for complete beginners. That will run between 4^th September and 16^th October. The cost of the textbook, exam and other expenses will be a total of £50 (£40 for members of the RSGB Bristol Group).

A Foundation to Intermediate conversion course will run between 23^rd October and 22^nd January. This will only be open to those who have already passed the Foundation assessments. The maximum cost of this course will be £74 (or £64 for continuing students/members of the RSGB Bristol Group) plus the cost of a construction project (chosen by the student).

The Intermediate to Advanced conversion course will follow between 29^th January and the June (or August) exam. This course will only be open to those who have passed the Intermediate assessments. The maximum cost of this course will be £92 (or £82 for continuing students/members of the RSGB Bristol Group).

To register, students need to complete a form and return it to me with a cheque for the appropriate amount as soon as possible. You can contact me on 01225-464-394 or on e-mail: hartley_steve@hotmail.com

Feel free to copy to friends, relatives and any other interested parties!

Regards,

Steve

Foundation Student Registration Form

Intermediate Student Registration Form

Advanced Student Registration Form

Link

Hi All,

As the regular users of GB3JB will have noticed, we have recently been suffering from interference from users of GB3PC, who put a strong signal into the ‘JB’ site and are splattering across the ‘JB’ input frequency, presumably as a result of not have a narrow deviation capability on their equipment.

Because GB3PC has the same ctcss tone as GB3JB, this has resulted in our repeater opening up at various times, and retransmitting the splatter along with the invitation to transmit tone, for, in some cases, significant period of time.

We can obviously do nothing with regard to the stations splattering across the ‘JB’ input, other than to perhaps ask all operators to switch to narrow deviation setting, if their equipment has that option.

Therefore, following on from communications with our zone manager on the ETCC, in an attempt to reduce the potential for interference, and to stop ‘JB’ opening up, as described above, we have decided to change the ctcss tone that is required to access ‘JB’, from it’s current 71.9 hz, to 88.5 hz. Obviously the tone transmitted by the repeater will also change to this new frequency.

The change will take effect on the 1st May.

In addition to emailing this information to all on the blanket email update list, we will be adding it to the web site. The ETCC will also be changing the data on the “ukrepeater.net” web site. However, it would be appreciated if you could mention this to all those that you work via ‘JB’ and simplex, in the intervening period, as there are more users of ‘JB’ than we have on the email list.

It would also be appreciated, if those associated with radio clubs etc., within the ‘JB’ coverage area, could bring this information to the attention of their members.

73’s
Jan, G8CYV - GB3JB Team

It was a clean sweep!

The kit chosen for the Buildathon was the Walford Electronics Brendon 80m DSB transceiver and very popular it proved too. Everyone commented on how well the kit went together and all were extremely pleased when they received their first signals. Not everyone finished the transmit side before the event closed but those that did enjoyed QSOs across the room with Tim Walford, G3PCJ, the kit designer. Tim very kindly donated a prize to Brian Jones, G1ZEZ, who was the first to complete the kit on the day.

Feedback from the builders was extremely positive and most are ready to do it again soon. Steve Hartley, G0FUW, who arranged the event said that it had been a huge success and that he would encourage other tutors and clubs to have a go with their own Buildathon. Steve was assisted by Mike Coombs,G3VTO, and Lewis Thomas, G4YTN, and all agreed that team work was the key to success.

If anyone would like more information on how to organise a Buildathon of their own Steve can be contacted at g0fuw@tiscali.co.uk or at the address in the RSGB Yearbook.

Photographs taken at the Bath Buildathon by Jacob Howarth, M3MOB

To cut a long and boring story short, I decided the best option (for now) was a rotary dipole for 80m - and it needed to be discrete if it was to avoid complaints.

And withstand ‘very’ high winds on a regular basis.

The ingredients:

3 sections of 5 foot swaged alloy pole
1 tee-piece from Sandpiper
2 80m mobile whips bought on ebay
black silk spray-paint
lots of cable as the ’shack’ is now upstairs.

All in all quite a decent result - barely visible from all but one angle, until you get right up close - given the much higher contrast of the stairwell it would be a very unreasonable person indeed to whine about that aerial

The balun is simply about 18-20 feet or so of the coax close wound on a slice of cola-bottle and secured with gaffa-tape, then tied to the mast with cable-ties.

How well does it work?

On 80 it’s got a bandwidth of about 40khz without using the atu, and can still reach the USA at a readable strength despite being only 16 feet wide. The high-angle radiation that was missing from it’s predecessor makes inter-G contacts much easier.

It loads up quite happily for both 40 and 20 - I haven’t tried it anyplace else yet - and performs a lot better than I expected it to given the loading-coils.

I’m happy to call this experiment a success.

Sources:

Tee-piece from http://www.sandpiperaerials.co.uk/ (£5 plus postage)

80m whips from eBay seller chalesantennaman (about £11 each)

Sectional mast from http://www.haydon.info/
(I bought some rejects - 3 20 foot sets of 2″ mast for £49 plus carriage)