Peter spoke for over an hour without notes. His topics were well rehearsed and held the attention of the audience throughout.

He detailed the need for wireless security from the very earliest days of radio communications.

The organizations grew through the years to Bletchley Park and on to GCHQ.

Anyone with the slightest interest in radio security would do well to visit Bletchley Park for a tour, especially one conducted by Peter.

Our return following the Christmas break was led by Don, planning for the CQ WPX RTTY Contest in early February

It was a cold dark night and, well, you know what I’m going to say…
The turnout for the sale was not as good as years past, but there were visitors from other clubs and one from Somerset who combined his visit with other business. Waiting for buyers were eight tables loaded with goodies: Rigs, Power supplies, even linear amps. As usual, the auctioneers were Don, G4LOO and David, G8UOD while Owen, G0PHY collected the payments. By the end of the sale many items had been purchased but also leaving many for next time.

Our annual club quiz night provided by David, G8UOD was very interesting. Four categories, completely different from the last quiz proved to be very challenging. In the end there was a tie between the “Three DXers” comprising Victor G3JNB, Graham G4JBD and Ian G3ORG and the “3 Kings” consisting of Owen, G0PHY, Paul, G1GSN and Ken, G4YRF.  A tie breaker followed which seemed to be easy but proved to be otherwise: the answer was not a famous person but Mickey Mouse, and it was Owen who got it!

The winning team had their pick from a bottle of Red or White wine, a bag of chocolates or boxed Short Bread. Then everyone else had their choice as well, so there were no losers for the prizes.  David was applauded for providing another challenging quiz!

This evening’s talk was presented by Ron White G6LTT representing Hertfordshire and North and East London, along with Terry Baldwin G4UEM, the District Rep for Herts. and Beds.

Terry began by describing the volunteer leadership team as: The RSGB Board of Directors, General Managers and senior staff members, followed by thirteen elected Regional representatives whose prime role is representing the Society and its members in its 13 regions. Lastly, listed were the Chairs of the RSGB Committees and special Honorary Officers.

The Volunteer Leadership Team (VLT) was established in 2018 and comprises leading volunteers and key HQ staff member totalling sixty members.

The Board of Directors totals twelve members, all radio amateurs. Next to be described were the Honorary Officers comprising managers and advisors totalling ten.  Next to be listed were the Committees comprising The Regional Forum, ARDF committee, Contest support Cmte, EMC Cmte. Etc. totalling 16 in all.  Finally, listed were the seven Members of Staff.

Terry went on to explain the duties of the Regional Reps and the District reps. all of which are to support members and the Society.

A lively question and answer session followed the presentation.

Shown on the new large screen, the video tonight as chosen by the members who attended was the YouTube video from the 2022 RSGB Tonight @ 8 series titled 100 years of BBC Technology and Innovation by David Palmer G7URP.

David explained that there were many innovations and he would only cover the highlight. He said he would concentrate mainly on Radio, TV and Digital including online products.

Early after the invention of radio, there were radio broadcasters, mainly Radio Amateurs transmitting experimental from their homes. The group known as the London wireless club went on to be the Radio Society of Great Britain or RSGB and predated the BBC by some nine years. David explained that the BBC teamed up with the Marconi company to do their broadcast. David also detailed the development of new equipment for transmitting and recording.

Next on the scene was the sending pictures by wireless: Television, and later video recording, computers, and digital, both transmissions and over the internet. In all the talk was very comprehensive.

If you would like to see the presentation click play!

Graham’s talk described a versatile multi-band HF antenna which doesn’t need an ATU and which is efficient and can be used on any or all of the HF bands. It was originally designed by W6RCA and further developed by W5DXP *.

He explained that it relies on the simple notion that the impedance at the end of a length of 450 Ohm ladder line depends on the length of the line, when used with a dipole which is a 1/2 wavelength or longer on the band of interest.

Graham demonstrated how you can simply add or remove sections of 450 Ohm line to ensure that a 50 Ohm impedance exists at the connection end, for any band.

Graham’s live demo used a 1:10 scale model of an 80m inverted vee dipole, fed with 450 Ohm ladder line.

He connected that to a length of 50 Ohm coax, through a 1:1 balun or current choke.

Graham demonstrated how the SWR dips could be moved up or down in frequency, by placing shorter or longer lengths of 450 Ohm feeder in the line.

Graham also demonstrated that the extra length of feeder can be conveniently coiled for compactness, with little effect on its operation at the frequency of interest.

This was demonstrated on the projector using a RigExpert antenna analyser and AntScope graphing software.

At the end of the talk, Graham also briefly introduced the 1/2 wave controlled-feeder-radiation vertical dipole, which he recently made and installed for Victor G3JNB for use on 10m, so that Victor could benefit from the excellent propagation we are currently enjoying on that band.  The CFR vertical needs no radials, so is ideal where you want an antenna with little visual impact and good DX performance, which were Victor’s key requirements.  The antenna is also known as the flower pot antenna and VK1NAM wrote an article on his experience with it #.

* [ The W5DXP Antenna – Details ]
# [ Controlled-Feeder-Radiation dipole ]

David began by giving his requirements for a 4m and 23cm beacon: Transmitter location close to Central Bedford, Nominal tx power of 10w erp, Antenna omni or simple dipole with horizontal polarisation, Operation 24/7, FSK and Data operation, Mains power on site. Filtering of low and high power stages, and a Remote switch off. The site found had been previously used by another repeater now closed down. Construction of the beacon began with an RFzero commercially produced PCB available on line for about £70.

23cm Received signal reports on Beaconspot.co.uk showed best DX reported so far by G4DDK was 120km at Felixstowe and G8FIG in Rainham Essex, Also 73km by G4HTZ in Suffolk. Further measurements will give David info as to how weather and the Seasons affect signal propagation at UHF

Our first presentation in the hall’s new set up: a very large screen and suspended projector along with a new lecturn. Althouth the system appeared to be working during the test session days before, it just wouldn’t work on the evening!

But Sean’s professional background shown through as he did the lecture without the visuals for backup. He described early days in what would become Bomber Command during the First World War. He said it was apperent that much work needed to be done on the accuracy of hitting targets. Even during the start of WW2 the targets could be missed by as much as seventy miles! Even though the crew thought they had actually hit it.

Sean decribed the forming of the special groups which would become the Path Finders. He named may well known names from the time which he had actually interviewd after the war for the books he was writing. With the onset of Radar,and lots of training, the Path Finders managed to hit most targets, even in cloudy   weather.

Don began with a report of the contest last held which was IOTA in July 2024.Some photos from the field were shown then Don explained the two problems with the equipment. After giving the raw scores he pointed out our error rate of 3.53% compared to the average error rate of 4.23%. So, how did we do? 102 out of 226 in the World, 59 out of 130 in Eu, and 6th out of 9 in the UK.

On that note, Don moved on to the up coming CQWW contest on the 26th/27th of October 2024. For those members who might not know, Don explained what CQWW was all about, Most members were very much in the know!  Don pointed out where the “run”station would be situated and their equipment.. followed by the “multiplier” station.

Followed were details of logging and how to identify the multipliers and how the unwanted stations could be identified. (only work stations that come up in Green or Red in the log)

Don ran through the details about equipment operations, followed by a reminder of the Saturday set up time and Monday take down time.