Richard Allan, a retired electrical engineer, has spent the last fifty years collecting antique transistor, valve and crystal sets and has now shown off his impressive collection of more than 200 pieces…………Read MORE …….
Avro Lancaster 80th Anniversary Of The 1st Operational Sortie
In March 1942 the first sorties of the AVRO Lancaster aircraft took place. This commemorative event for Lancaster aircraft is being simultaneously partnered in the UK by callsign GB80LAN; and, in Canada by callsign VE80LAN organised by Hamilton Amateur Radio Club, and Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum and, in Australia by callsign VK80LAN organised by the Western Australian VHF Group. They want to commemorate those involved with the Lancaster.
Also of interest, is that the Lincoln Short Wave Club will be operating GB6IBC from the International Bomber Command Memorial on 5th March 2022.
Unusually Ofcom has given permission for the call to be used at several different locations. Currently confirmed operations will take place from the three active RAF Station Amateur Radio Clubs at RAF Waddington, RAF Cosford and RAF Halton. Also the call will be on the air from ex RAF East Kirkby which is now the home of the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre and Lancaster “Just Jane”.
CURRENT SCHEDULE:- (subject to amendment)
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RAF WADDINGTON 2nd – 8th
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RAF EAST KIRKBY 9th – 12th
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RAF COSFORD 15th – 21st
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RAF HALTON 1st & 22nd – 28th
In Australia, the WA VHF Group requested for the special event call sign VK80LAN to be available through March. VK80LAN hopes to be operating from the radio room in the Lancaster Bomber at the RAAFA Aviation Heritage Museum in Bull Creek, a suburb of Perth. A roster of operators wishing to take advantage of operating the special event callsign during the month is being drawn up.
Further info is available from the QRZ pages and Museum links as only snippets have been included here – https://www.qrz.com/db/VK80LAN
Also, checkout the WoSARS CALENDAR entry as to who is working the stations.
‘To The Moon And Back’ – The First Radio Attempts
Cindy Stodola Pomerleau (Author)
On January 10, 1946, the US Army successfully bounced radio waves off the moon–the first-ever extraterrestrial communication, the birth of radar astronomy, and the opening salvo in the Cold War. The author was just shy of three years old at the time, and her father, E. King Stodola, was Scientific Director of the team that carried out the experiment, code-named Project Diana.
To mark the 75th anniversary of this historic event, Cindy Stodola Pomerleau has written a series of essays using Project Diana as a lens for examining the transformations and dislocations occurring in the US during World War II and its aftermath. Nearly half the book is devoted to World War II, with particular attention to the history of radar at Camp Evans, starting with its fumbling beginnings at Pearl Harbor and culminating in its stunning success in Project Diana. The second section is devoted to King Stodola himself and an examination of the confluence of internal and external factors that made him the right man for the moment. The last section provides a sampler of Jersey Shore life (e.g., the boardwalk, the Neptune Music Circus), contemporary American life (e.g., Sears, nylon stockings), and the author’s little-girl activities (e.g., her parakeet Archie, her Islander ukulele).
Steeped in good humour and nostalgia, these wide-ranging narratives explore Project Diana’s historical, sociological, political, and scientific context, as seen from the perspective of the tiny coastal New Jersey community where fate in the form of Camp Evans deposited the author’s parents and their neighbours. The book is a unique eye-witness account of an event and an era that marked a turning point in American history.
Order from Amazon – HERE .
First Amateur Transatlantic Transmissions -100th Anniversary Stations
(First Published 14 July 2021 – Updates 3 Nov; 21 Nov; 29 Nov; 14 Dec; 17th Dec (COX))
BACKGOUND
The first one-way amateur radio QSO across the Atlantic that took place on 12 December 1921. The ARRL have joined with a group of UK operators who plan to recreate the event in December this year.
To celebrate the centenary of Paul Godley – 2ZE’s success, in collaboration with North Ayrshire Council, special event stations GB2ZE and GB1002ZE respectively will be operating from 1 to 28 December 2021 (added to CALENDAR).
An attempt was made using GM4AGG to contact W1AW. A report was produced by Jack GM4COX on the Club’s Programme Forum – HERE as to the outcome.
A YouTube Video Of The W1AW End Of The Proceedings
KLARC OPERATIONS (Copied off KLARC Website)
“……..Kilmarnock and Loudoun Amateur Radio Club will activate a special event station adjacent to the original location of the Paul Godley experimental station at Ardrossan, Scotland in 1921. The activation will be on air from 1200 UTC on Saturday 11 December 2021 until 1200 UTC on Sunday 12 December 2021. The callsigns will be GS2ZE (licence holder Jason GM7VSB) and GB1002ZE (licence holder Bob GM0DEQ) using CW, SSB and data modes on bands between 160m and 10m. GB2ZE (licence holder Bob GM0DEQ) will be used by the Ardrossan station for the first hour of the ARRL/RSGB 160m QSO Party (0200z – 0300z). During this first hour of the 160m QSO Party at Ardrossan, GB2ZE will be exclusively on CW. The GB2ZE callsign will be taken over by members of the GMDX Group on an hourly rota for the remainder of the QSO Party. An attempt will be made to re-enact Godley’s original successful reception of transatlantic amateur radio signals at exactly the same time and on the same date as 100 years ago. Attempts will be made to record any US re-enactment signals received at Ardrossan and also at other UK locations for sharing with the amateur radio community…….”
And a KLARC summary of the Event over the weekend of 11/12th December – Copied off their Website:
Station Located @ Ardrossan (North Crescent Road) Scotland
We were on the air ahead of schedule and had our first QSO with DL1DCT on 30m FT8 at 11:37 UTC on Saturday 11 December 2021. The first SSB QSO was with LY3YY on 20m. Band conditions on HF turned out to be very poor overall and the highest band we made QSOs on was 17m. We made 401 contacts in 60 different DXCC countries using three callsigns – GS2ZE (licence holder – Jason GM7VSB), GB2ZE and GB1002ZE (licence holder for both – Bob GM0DEQ). The final QSO was at 11:21 UTC on Sunday 12 December 2021 with RM9W on 20m SSB. The callsign used for the majority of the activation was GS2ZE.
Thank goodness we had an FT8 station on air – it came to the rescue under the challenging HF propagation conditions we had and got some very good DX into the log. The map below, produced by Barry GM5BDX, shows the geographical spread of our contacts.
At the start of the 160m Godley Trans-Atlantic QSO Party (0200 UTC) we used the callsign GB2ZE . We tried to have a QSO with the ARRL station W1AW on 1814 kHz. We heard them calling us and tried to respond but they couldn’t copy us unfortunately. A video of our attempt is on The KLARC YouTube Channel – see below for link. The plan we had was for NA2AA to call GM3YEH initially and then change callsigns to W1AW and GB2ZE if contact was established. We then operated in the QSO Party using GB2ZE for 22 minutes and worked quite a few US, Canadian and European stations on CW (Morse Code) before going into radio silence to take recordings of the period during which the re-enactment transmission from W2RCA was to take place. A video of us operating in the QSO Party is on the KLARC YouTube Channel.
One major target was to try and hear and decode the re-enactment transmission of the original message that Paul Godley 2ZE heard at Ardrossan, Scotland 100 years earlier. At 02:52 UTC – exactly the same time and date that Godley copied his message in 1921 – we copied W2RCA (The Radio Club of America) on 1825 kHz sending the same message…SUCCESS! We have a video recording of this momentous event on our KLARC YouTube Channel. In addition to the KLARC Members and some others on site, the historic successful reception was witnessed by Stewart Bryant G3YSX, President of the RSGB. Also on the KLARC YouTube Channel is a video of how the W2RCA re-enactment transmission was heard by Don G3BJ in Shropshire, England.
After our spell using GB2ZE and the recording of the W2RCA re-enactment transmission, we used the callsign GS2ZE for the remainder of the time we were in the QSO Party. During this period we listened for the transmissions from W2AN/1BCG on 1820 kHz but heard nothing from that station.
We had 139 contacts on the network assisted FreeSTAR station running with GS2ZE callsign. The first contact was Oscar 2E1HWE in Essex. The farthest station to call in was ZL1BOB who congratulated the KLARC team and wished us well from New Zealand. There were several operators who were thankful for being able to call in through the network as they did not have HF capabilities at their location or could not reach us due to propagation conditions at the time.
We had a lot of visitors to the site including local folk and various radio amateurs, some of whom had travelled a distance to get to us. The visitors we had on site from southern climes apparently thought we had bad weather, but those of us from Ayrshire were not too troubled by the horizontal driving sleet, in fact it seemed slightly better weather than we had anticipated. The endless shared stories, jokes and banter that went on all weekend kept us all very cheery. On reflection, I think I agree with the guys who have said we should do this again…but maybe in the summer 🙂 We don’t need to mention all the people who contributed to make this activation such a massive success – there are far too many and you all you know who you are. It is, without a shadow of doubt, the highest profile event that KLARC has ever delivered…genuinely fantastic!
See our KLARC YouTube Channel for a selection of videos from the event.
IQ data recorded during the 160m Trans-Atlantic QSO Party can be downloaded from here.
Some photographs taken at the Ardrossan site can be found here ………….
RSGB VIDEO
WEB SDR
PUBLICATIONS
Within the RSGB’s WORLD AT THEIR FINGERTIPS (Page 64 in the Book – 81 in the .pdf) the following:
“……………………During the ARRL Convention held in Chicago that year (August 31 – September 3, 1921) is was announced “to a wildly enthusiastic audience” that a second series of Transatlantic tests would take place in December and that a well-known American amateur (Paul Godley, 2ZE) would be going to Europe……………………..
………..Godley duly arrived at Southampton on November 22, 1921……………………”
FURTHER INFORMATION
1. RSGB’s Website – HERE .
2. https://www.transatlantic.org.uk/
3. Programme Forum POST#1832 . (COX)
4. BBC Radio 4 NEWS ITEM (The World This Weekend – 22.40mins)
5. The-Classic-Beverage-Antenna-Revisited_QST-JAN-1982
History of the Ham Radio Callsign
Interested, then checkout this YOUTUBE video.
BBC TV Archive Clip of 1949 Ham Radio Contact – BBC TV Rx’d In ZS
Extract off ICQPodcast by Colin Butler – M6BOY
“The BBC Archive shared a clip of a news item about a radio amateur’s reception of BBC TV pictures in Cape Town, South Africa in 1949, it includes an on-air contact
The BBC news item describes the remarkable reception of BBC television pictures from Alexandra Palace, London on 45 MHz by Henry Rieder ZS1P in Cape Town, South Africa.
The clip features a contact between Mr C. G. Allen G8IG of Bromley, Kent and Henry ZS1P in which G8IG asks Henry questions about the TV reception.“
https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/1445803539431841792
A comprehensive article about the transmission can be found on EI7GL’s Website – HERE .
And from the South African Radio League’s( SARL) – Hall of Fame; Mike Bosch ZS2FM first to receive the BBC TV transmissions in 1956 on BAND I. There is a brief description of the equipment used – HERE .
GB100BBC – Centenary Callsign For The BBC
Members of the BBC’s radio club, The London BBC Radio Group, have been granted an exceptional all-year Special Event callsign to help celebrate the BBC’s centenary year in 2022.
Ofcom will permit GB100BBC to operate throughout the year, starting at midnight on New Year’s Day, from the headquarters station in Broadcasting House, London.
Operating slots will then be allocated for use by individual members and local groups of operators, from their home QTH, or BBC premises throughout the UK.
(Additional information for the article supplied by GM4COX)
The First Female Australian Amateur – A2GA
By Heather Holland <zs6ye.yl@gmail.com>
Florence Violet McKenzie OBE (nee Wallace) A2GA/VK2FV/VK2GA
Probably the best known lady amateur operator in Australia is Florence McKenzie (nee Wallace). Born in 1891, she became Australia’s first tertiary educated female electrical engineer, and opened a wireless/electrical shop in Royal Arcade Sydney in 1921. In 1925, Florence obtained her amateur licence and the callsign A2GA in 1925, our first known licenced lady amateur.
During 1922 Florence was involved with starting the Wireless Weekly magazine, along with three other people. This magazine later morphed into Radio and Hobbies and later still, Electronics Australia. The 1948 call book lists her as VK2FV which lapsed about 1959. Regaining interest in amateur radio in 1979, Florence again became 2GA, this time VK2GA, which she held until her death in 1982. In the mid 1930s Florence established the Electrical Association for Women which appears to have been formed mainly to teach women how to use electrical appliances in the home; she also wrote a cookery book for electric stoves, when none were available.
When Florence realised that war was imminent, “Mrs. Mac” as she was fondly known, became acutely aware of the need for radio communications as part of our defence, and the need for people trained in Morse code. She established a no-charge training school in a loft near her shop. Her students were initially, predominantly women and the school became known as the Women’s Emergency Signaling Corps. (W.E.S.C.) During 1940, in response to a newspaper advertisement by the Navy, appealing for trained amateurs to enlist as telegraphists, she offered her trainees. The Naval Director of Signals and Communications recommended to the Naval Board that they be employed at shore establishments and fourteen selected applicants took up their duties at the Harman Wireless Station in Canberra. From this beginning the Women’s Royal Australian Naval Service (WRANS) was established in 1941. It grew to a peak of 105 officers and 2,518 ratings during the war.
Mrs. Mac trained the women to teach the thousands of men who wanted a skill to offer the Services. She could also see that if there were women in the services, who were competent in communication, it would free the men for other duties. In her valedictory published in Ditty Box, the ex WRANS magazine for June 1982, she was reported as being “eventually responsible for training more than 12000 servicemen”! American servicemen who were based in Australia were sent to Mrs. Mac for refresher courses. Initially skeptical, they were soon won over by her training methods. Continuing after the war, she trained many QANTAS pilots in Morse code.
Florence McKenzie was awarded an OBE in 1950 and became a SK in 1982 (2021-6-14 ALARA Column A.R. Issue 4 – Jen VK3WQ
Snips – News For Scotland – 18th July
- RSGB Survey results published
- Build Off in Cornwall
- New Full course from Distance Learning Team
GB2RS Script – HERE .
GB2RS Extract:
“……………………The Bath Based Distance Learning team is now planning another course for the Full level exam syllabus. The course will run from the end of August to December this year. Students will receive weekly work packages via a virtual classroom and will have access to weekly online tutorials. Students will also have access to one of the remote tutors who will provide feedback and additional guidance where required. There will be no charge for the training but applicants must work through a pre-course classroom and quiz to be eligible for a place. The deadline for course applications is the 4th of August. For full details, and an application form, email g0fuw@tiscali.co.uk…………………”
CLUB NEWS & NETS
The GB2RS News Service is seeking a volunteer in the Caithness and Orkney area. The successful candidate should have a good 2m FM signal into the GB3OC repeater. They would be joining the existing team that reads the news each Sunday morning at 0930 UK time. If you would like to find out more, without obligation, please contact the GB2RS News Manager, via email to gb2rs.manager@rsgb.org.uk
To celebrate the first one-way amateur radio QSO across the Atlantic that took place on the 12th of December 1921, there is a plan to re-create the event in December this year. Those involved are still looking for volunteers and anyone with vintage 1920s equipment that they might consider loaning for the accompanying exhibition. See GM0DEQ on QRZ.com for email details. (More info within POSTBAG – HERE )
The GB3FE repeater serving the Stirling area is now back in service, operating on reduced power.
TAGS: (Within GB2RS Script)
IARU workshop; Antenna Build Off; Bath Based Distance Learning; Full level exam syllabus; QSL Bureau sub-manager for the G4T to Z group; GB4RS; GB2RS continues to expand; Finningley ARS Car Boot; The Wiltshire Radio Rally, Electronics Fair & Car Boot Sale ; Dartmoor Radio Rally; GM7V during next weekend’s IOTA contest; C6AHA; GM3RCV; MM8C; 18th, the International Low Power contest; 24-hour Islands On The Air contest; UK Microwave Group contest runs from 0600 to 1800UTC; solar flux index remained in the 70s last week; a large solar coronal hole impacted the Earth; University of Massachusetts Lowell Observatory has now been fixed; Sporadic-E remains; Tropo ducting;
Snips – News For Scotland – 11th July
The news headlines:
- RSGB Convention goes online for 2021
- YOTA contest second leg
- National Radio Centre reopens
GB2RS Script – HERE .
CLUB NEWS & NETS
The GB2RS service is seeking a newsreader to cover the Western Isles of Scotland. You would be joining an existing team as a reserve reader and there are opportunities for more than one applicant to broadcast the News on Sunday using HF, VHF or UHF. You should be an RSGB Member and have good coverage of the region. If you want to find out more without obligation, please contact the GB2RS Manager at gb2rs.manager@rsgb.org.uk.
Now the listing of all known nets in Scotland, which is collated by RSGB Regional Rep Tony, MM0TMZ in association with Jack, GM4COX and the West of Scotland ARS and published at www.wosars.club/radio-nets.
The GB3FE repeater serving the Stirling area is now running on reduced power and this will affect the Stirling and Falkirk nets.
TAGS: (Within GB2RS Script)
RSGB National Radio Centre; G-QRP Club Convention; EMC help desk; Ofcom; AM QSO Party; Dragon Amateur Radio Club; East Suffolk Wireless Revival and McMichael rally & boot sale; Finningley ARS Car Boot; C6AHA; RI0FM; GB1COC & GB8CCC; IARU HF Championship; solar flux index declined this week ending at 76; Sporadic E season also continues to delight UK amateurs;