Attendance was a little down on the night. Perhaps members are having an extended Easter holiday.  2 tables were in use for CW practice and the third was in the centre of the hall for those who wanted to chat.

Don’t forget!  Next week, 11 April is the Annual Spring Junk Sale

Looking Ahead:

There was a good turnout again for this year’s AGM.

Apologies for Absence were received from Richard Porter, G3NII, David Lloyd, G8UOD, Mary Williams, John West, G6RHL and Chris M0IDE

Reports followed without questions.

All officers and committee members were returned unopposed in the election conducted by Victor, G3JNB.  They are:

Paul Bradfield, G1GSN, Chairman
Ken Amos, G4YRF, Vice Chairman
David Lloyd, G8UOD, Secretary
Owen Williams, G0PHY, Treasurer
Don Ross, G4LOO, Equipment and Contest Officer
John West, G6RHL committee member
Terry Rose, G4OXD committee member
Graham Laming, G4JBD, committee member

During Any Other Business, Victor reminded members of the passing of Bob Heil, K9EID who was a great supporter of Amateur Radio and known for his brilliant audio products. Victor provided a copy of the obituary for the archive.

Another subject by Geoff, G4CEP was the need for a suitable sound system for those members who are not hearing very well. A product was suggested for the committee to discuss.

Victor wanted to make members aware that the 2m coverage of PI repeater is quite wide and at some times World Wide! He suggested we should talk about radio subjects.

The meeting closed at 21:30

Brian began by saying that for such an important company, there was very little written about it’s history which began in America in 1897.

Aside from their batteries, which were well known to the public, the company also produced radios in 1935 and onward under the name BEREC.  Included in the list of Ever Ready ‘Novelties’ were cigar lighters, night lights, and the Number 1 Ever Ready Torch, among many other items.

As sales rose in 1912, the shortage of workers led to women being employed for the first time.  Battery sales exceeded 15 million.  In fact, Ever Ready was a main supplier during the war and by 1942 they had supplied over 54 million Battery torches.

By the end of the war, Ever Ready employed over 15,000, but by 1950 production had been centralised into 12 factories with a labour force of only 7000.  From that date onward, Ever Ready sales had dropped and the company was eventually acquired by Hanson Plc for £95m in 1982.  The company then went through a series of other owners.

By 2010 the Ever Ready brand logo was replaced by Eveready and most of their products were made in the Far East.

Just a few of the items on display!

Where did Aspidistra come from, where it was located and why. How was it constructed and by whom were David’s opening to a very well researched presentation. In response to the propaganda sent out by Germany during the Second World War it was decided that we should do the same.

David said Richard Gamber Parry, who joined MI6 in 1938 was assigned head of Special Communications in 1939. Along with others in S.O 1 they planned Aspidistra, a medium wave transmitter which would be the strongest in the world.  The use of weaker transmissions would be recognised as not coming from within Germany. Fortunately, at that time in the U.S.A., RCA company had just produced a 500KW transmitter and were looking for a buyer.

The planners set about finding the right spot to locate the transmitter and decided on a high place along the South coast. Knowing it would be a target, the site was built under ground and reinforced with thick concrete walls and roof. The location was Croborough which was 620 feet above sea level and close to the coast. The large hole to put the building was dug by the Canadian Army Road Builders and took six hundred men six weeks. The station was ready for service in November 1942.

David showed some nice photos of the inside of the transmitter hall and said that after the war the station was used by several organisations including the FCO, BBC and also Voice of America. The station closed in 1982 and the site was dismantled in 1984. The Crwborough site was upgraded in the 80’s to become RGHQ 6.1 with extensive reinforcements to the structure and additional features eventually becoming a training centre for the Sussex Police.

A good turnout again for our fortnightly chat and CW practice. There were two tables for the CW practice. Richard, G3NII sent for the improvers group and G4YRF sent CW for the others while the rest of the group had a good chat.

Graham, G4JBD began by explaining his Major Project winner. As his HF rig wasn’t the easiest for scanning quickly between different frequencies, modes, bandwidths and power settings he designed the project to do just that. His unit is based on the Arduino interfaced through the CIV port on the rear of the HF rig. In all there are one hundred different frequencies with the necessary parameters stored in the memory. All the  design, building and coding were done by Graham. He did admit it took longer to debug than to build!

Since Victor, G3JNB was still a bit ‘under the weather’ Graham took on the task of explaining his Kit Project, the Rooster 2W 40M CW transceiver, supplied by Kanga Projects. The rig is direct conversion with crystal filters. RIT is provided to shift the crystal frequency a short way off the calling frequency, if required.. Upon finishing the project, Victor decided to check it out by using the Reverse Beacon Network and was pleased to see he had been received in over fifty different station from North and Sough America as well as Europe and the middle East!  Very impressive for a kit just slightly larger than a playing card.

Speaking as the winner of the Weekend project, Paul, G8IUG produced a range of projects built in the past. His winning project this year was an RF Linear Amplifier build from a kit.

There was a good turn out last evening for a chat or CW practice. I’m glad to say that most members chose the CW practice!  There were two tables for the CW, one at each end of the hall. The table nearest the entrance and hosted by Richard, G3NII was used by those learning the code and wanting some practice at their speed. While the other table, hosted by Ken, G4YRF was for slightly faster CW. For once, those practicing the code outnumbered those who wanted to chat. Good fun!

A good turnout attended the annual contest. In total there were eight entries but there can be only three winners. This year the kit category was won by Victor, G3JNB with his “Rooster”, a very small 40m CW transceiver providing two watts out with break in CW action.

This year’s Weekend project winner was Paul, G8IUG who built  a Linear Amplifier Kit.

The Major Project was easily won by Graham, G4JBD with a “User friendly Scanning Controller for the IC7300”. The unit was designed, coded and built by Graham and it was shown working very well.

Cups and plaques for the winners will be presented at this year’s AGM.

Also called 5WS the First to get across, this video is  the story of early amateur radio attempts to send and receive signals across the ‘pond’ in Feb. 1921. Nick told of the stations on this side being restricted to 10 watts and small antennas while the US were allowed  1 kilowatt and unrestricted aerials.  At that time all stations were using a frequency of 200M. In the US there were thousands of licensed amateurs while over here there were a few hundred. Operations on this side of the Atlantic were restricted to certain times while the US had no restrictions in operation time.

The tests were  organised by the RSGB and the ARRL.  Skeds were made for times to call but in the first instance no signals were copied.  In the end, the Americans sent an amateur over here to set up a receiving station. Signals were copied in December 1921 coming from US to England.  Later Philip Coursey and the RSGB team got a license for 1kW and a long wire aerial was strung from the top of a 200ft chimney at the generating station at Richmond.  Their exploits were covered by Wireless World in  December 1922 when (G)5WS was the first UK station to be heard on the East to West transmissions. The first  transmissions by 5WS copied East to West will be celebrated by the RSGB at the end of this year.

The entire video can be found on line if you look for RSGB 2022 Convention Presentations – Transatlantic Centenary Tests