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.