36 members and guests enjoyed the club’s Spring Junk Sale. We were pleased to welcome visitors from nearby clubs. Since the last sale was a ‘bit thin’ we had been concerned about this one, but our fears were unfounded. While not a vast amount of takings, the result was judged to be ‘useful’ especially in view of the antennas that need repairing due to the storm damage last October.        

Our club Dinner this year, was a Club Lunch!  Members, wives and friends met on Sunday mid-day at the Stratton House Hotel in Biggleswade, Beds.  The  attendance was up in numbers this year, possibly because of the mid-day meal and perhaps because it was such a sunny day!  Cups were awarded in various categories.  In total, they were:

 The G8EMJ Shield for Major  Project,  to Don Ross, G4LOO

The Dr Little Cup for the Weekend Special, to Don Ross, G4LOO

The G2DPQ Cup for Kit Construction to Larry, G4OXY

The G4CBI Cup for Best Talk by a Member to Brian, G8GHR

The G3JKK Shield for Club Support to Paul, G1GSN

The Round Trophy for Club Quiz Winning Team to the Luton VHF Group

 Unfortunately, not all the winners were in attendance, but they will receive their prizes at one of our club meetings.

Photo by Paul, G1GSN

We decided to have this Thursday off in the lead up to the weekend of our Annual Club Dinner.

Brian Farey hosted a discussion with John West and Ian Taylor about their recollections of the radio club when they were first involved.  It was noted that meetings were less structured than now. Many meetings were simply chat evenings and not always about amateur radio.  It was also noted that many members came to meetings by bike and on one evening two members departed on the same bike! 

 Early Field Days involved more than just the Shefford Club as the Bedford Club came to help at times.  At some point later, Field Days were moved to Topplers  Hill where a storage area in the water tower was made available to the club for masts, wires and cables.  Most equipment was homebrew as little was available commercially at prices the club members could afford. During Field Days, Claude Pettifer, G2DPQ, a co-founder of the club had a map with pins marking the 100 or so contacts made. Although, operators might have been in short supply, members and their families came as it was a ‘Family Social’ event.  Speaking of which, the numbers attending the Club Dinners far exceeded those of today.  A dinner was held at Digswell House in 1966 at a cost of six shillings each and consisted of Sausage and Mash.

 Early membership came from local Bases like Henlow and companies such as ICL, and a later boom in membership came as a result of the popularity of CB, both of which have now been in decline. Discussions turned to the future of the club and how to increase membership. Ian provided a ‘mind map’ showing aspects of Amateur Radio that might appeal to prospective members. It was agreed that the club must do more in the way of publicity,both in local advertising and as a stronger  online presence.

Called the ‘inside story’ because Colin McCartney told of the work done in design and build of this famous aircraft. Starting with the mathematics that describes flight and associated aspects, the story moved on to early lighter then air balloons and then to powered flight. 1962 saw the first steps in the design for SST (Supersonic Transport).

The efforts on this side of the Atlantic involved a British and French collaboration, and the first hurdle was choosing a name!  Concorde it was, but should it be spelled with an ‘e’ at the end in the French style? In the true British fashion of giving way on points that don’t really matter, the E stayed and the name was Concorde. Of course, on this side of the channel we measured in feet and inches and the other side in metric, which led to some interesting situations.

More of interest to Colin was the development and production of the nose cone to house the weather radar. Since the material couldn’t be metal, a glass fibre was developed to be strong and light enough to stand the stress and heat of supersonic flight while still passing radar signals. While the material had to be strong, it also had
to have the same temperature expansion and contraction as the metal to which it would be attached.

The whole body of Concorde presented some interesting aspects in design and choice of materials since supersonic flight over Mach 2 would cause temperatures to exceed stress limits of the of the aircraft grade aluminium. An interesting conundrum was that using stronger materials as the Americans did, increased overall weight which needed more fuel which made the aircraft heaver. The Russians found that trying to fly at Mach 2.5, or faster, did indeed increase the aluminium stresses to disastrous results.

It’s indeed unfortunate that Concorde is no longer flying today.  An interesting side story was that a French Concorde nose cone (Radome) was sold at Christies for a staggering 480,099 Euros, which prompted Colin’s work associate to suggest they build some more!

Contesting on the Mull of Kintyre takes a good bit of forward planning.  Paul, G1GSN, Howard, G0VTL and Keith, G4ODA , all members of the Five Bells Contest group  made the journey in two four-wheel drive vehicles. Including the loading up, the trip took a whole day. The site had been preselected after some earlier contest operations and discussions with a local farmer who informed them that other contest groups had used the site in the past.

While the site looked ideal at 300 ft asl, getting on it proved to be a problem since once off the track the vehicles were in danger of sinking into the boggy ground.

For power the group relied on a 2 KW generator powered by liquid gas. The unit proved to be fine for VHF although it did make noise at HF.  This was not a problem since the team were there to participate in a four metre FM/SSB contest.  The assembly of the two eleven element homebrew beams was quickly accomplished and the two antennas were mounted one above the other with one wavelength separation. The contest went well, even without access to a data link for the cluster.  The radio equipment was a  homebrew transverter and a homebrew amp.

They had arrived on site on a Friday to set up for the contest on Sunday.   By 3 o’clock Sunday the contest had finished and by 4, the entire outfit was packed and ready to set off for home.

That’s organization!

We’re back after a short break. Hope you like the “new look.”
Our PowerPoint Quiz turned out to be a bit more taxing than expected.  The inclusion of questions concerning radio amateurs from America was a surprise to most as were some of the more ‘obscure’  country capitols and prefixes. Most members judged the quiz to be ‘interesting’ and the winning team was John West, Gareth Howell, Alan Little and Ian Jefferson who each received a bottle of the red stuff.

In the first instance, Larry, G4OXY, the regional representative for region 9, asked the members how many radio amateurs there were in the UK. Most guesses were rather wide of the mark of 40 to 50,000. The apparent vagary in the numbers is caused by amateurs holding more than one callsign.  However, it was revealed that the RSGB membership now stands at 21,500 members. When a poll was taken of members present, only a very few were non members of the Society and Larry offered to sign them up right there and then!  

 Larry went on to show the many ways in which the Society helps amateurs. The list which was not definitive but listed services such as support of Contests, Planning assistance, EMC , Propagation information, IOTA, Technical forum, Spectrum Planning, Exam activities, NOVs, ARDF, Beacons and Repeaters, GB2RS news, Awards, Intruder Watch, Aros, and Ofcom  and IARU liaison.

The problem facing many clubs is the ageing membership and what to do to get younger people interested. It was mooted  that modern technology would be more of interest  and to that end  the idea of remote control of communications equipment  might give the possibility of using amateur radio in areas where big masts and large antennas are not possible.  

25 members arrived in time for a 20:00 start to the Club’s 66^th Annual General Meeting.  Business flowed steadily with no major sticking points. All the Officers and committee members were returned unopposed and we also welcomed back to the committee our webmaster.  The elected are:

Ken Amos, G4YRF, Chairman

Bryan Borne, M0BIK, Vice Chairman

John Burnett, 2E0OAK, Secretary

Steve Durham, M0DYR, Treasurer

Don Ross, G4LOO, Equipment Officer

Committee members:

Paul Bradfield, G1GSN

John West, G6RHL

Paul Godfrey, M0PSW

David Lloyd, G8UOD

Ian Jefferson, G1JCC, webmaster

Bryan, M0BIK told of the Luton VHF Group’s IOTA trip to Holy Island near Anglesey in 2013. The group of five rented a cottage near the sea and erected a 3 element tribander as well as a new portable 40M Four Square antenna.

 While they were in Wales for the week, the group also activated Holyhead mountain as part of Summits on the Air (SOTA). More details and photos can be found on this site under ‘Links’, -Club Sites, -Luton VHF Group.

                                                     Terry, G4UEM operates HF from Holyhead mountain.