David Lloyd, G8UOD found us after about 50 minutes and travelled 15.4 miles. Gareth, M5KVK who did not have a directional antenna ran out of time when we called it a day after an hour.
As for the location, we were parked under trees on a triangular grass area at the intersection of three roads in Shillington. We all met up at the Brewery Tap afterwards.
Foxes for the night:
Ian G3ORG
Martin, M0XMP
The hall was in use for voting in the General Election
Members met at 1900 for a tour of the 306 Bombardment Museum hosted by Ralph Franklin
Don showed a film about the AR88 and Brian had two videos: “TEEVEE” an amusing film on a day in the life of a TV repairman. The second was “”Phoenix Tower – The story of the Crystal Palace TV Tower”.
The Chairman of the UK six metre group, Chris, G4IFX paid a visit to tell about 6 metres. He started with the history from pre WWll to 1988 and told how it’s use changed during that period, including ITV television from 1848 to 1982. He demonstrated signals recorded during various modes of propagation and explained how to identify the characteristics.
Chris then detailed various digital modes often used on the band, and concluded with the band plan as produced by the RSGB. Two amateur stations were described starting with the most modest at 25w to a vertical, followed by a station using 100w to a better 3 or 4 element beam.
Even with the modest station, DX signals can be worked on the band, but knowing when and where to look is the most important aspects of success
A nearly full house heard Brian, G8GHR begin by telling of the start of Pye in Cambridge as a breakaway group from the Cavendish and Rugherford laboratories of the University of Cambridge. In 1896 William George Pye, who was workshop superintendent at the Cavendish Laboratory, left to found a one-man business making scientific instruments. W. G. Pye Ltd prospered and grew and in 1925 diversified into radio broadcast receivers and in 1935 into television reception. Various items of equipment on display were identified and explained to the members.
Bryan, M0BIK then took up the story of Pye Ditton works who made portable and mobile communication equipment for commercial and government use. Numerous models of mobile equipment were discussed and smaller models lead to hand held versions for police and fire departments.
Graham, G3WQT told of Pye TVT and their involvement in early television systems of the forties up to the time of the Philips take over leading to the production of complete turn-key outside broadcast systems, high power fixed television transmitters and ultimately Philips withdrawal in 1986-7.
During the presentations, Paul Schimmel had a 1963 PYE CCTV camera once owned by former member, Joe Fitzgerald, G3EUS, (SK) trained on the audience and the result displayed on a monochrome 405 line monitor. The picture was excellent!
No meeting this evening as the hall was being used for local elections.
Sam travelled from Ipswich to give his talk, originally prepared for the 2016 RSGB convention. However, on this occasion Sam wanted to focus on the use of transverters at 2M. Starting with the basics, he detailed what was involved and how it could be accomplished with good design. An in depth description followed including phase and amplitude noise figures and how they affect received and transmitted signals. It soon become apparent that Sam had not lost his enthusiasm for difficult projects since his retirement as a radio engineer at the British Telecom Research Labs. Sam explained the short comings of many popular rigs produced to be ‘all thing to all amateurs’ while showing that highly specialized design might produce highly specialized results for those pursuing niche interests such as EME and DX using VHF,UHF and microwaves.
As an example of what these implementations might look like, Sam passed around the newest 144MHz Anglian 3 transverter for inspection
Due to the fact that our planned speaker couldn’t attend, we had an RSGB video from the 2015 RSGB Conference. The presentation was ‘Clean up your shack’ by Ian White, GM3SEK. While the subject was laudable the actual operations could have been covered in ten minutes instead of nearly an hour.
Maundy Thurs. No Club Meeting