Don began by telling the short history of the VNA. He then described the make up of the unit and the various iterations through it’s history. Don warned the early ‘Gecko’ version had been the subject of many fakes.

Although the VNA can work as a ‘stand alone’ it is easier to use connected to a lap top running readily available software. The initial calibration was straight forward since the step by step instructions are provided at each step of the action.

He began a live demonstration by measuring the VSWR and Impedance of an eight element yagi for the high end of 70 cms followed by a 2 m yagi. Both aerials were hand held and the VNA displayed the slight changes in the VSWR as they were moved about. Also strung up in the hall was a 20 m dipole which was shown to be in tune. Measurements of the passband of a high pass filter Don had built showed it was working as designed. He also measured TDR to find the length of various pieces of coax cable. Measurements made can be stored and recalled later. Don explained several of his files.

He pointed out that the single port device can not only measure VSWR but impedance, phase, return loss, TDR,  and produce Smith charts. The dual port device can also measure filter response and loss as well as check cavities and traps for response.

Unfortunately the VNA is supplied without a case, but an inexpensive ABS shell is available from other suppliers.

Martin Juhe passed away on the 27th of October and The funeral was held today at Harwood Park, Stevenage. He had been a member of the Shefford and District Amateur Radio Society since 2006. Although he couldn’t attend regularly, he did come to many talks and junk sales. He was also a member of the Stevenage radio club where he served as Secretary.

Martin enjoyed operating from many portable locations in Spain and France, and he also made twenty two trips to the Isle of Wight to operate from the station of G0UYN.

David, G8UOD, in the chair as quiz master, asked for team names and when the joker would be played.  As there were only eleven members present, the teams were of four and one team of three. The categories  announced by David were: 10 questions about Amateur Radio, 10 more about General Knowledge, followed by another ten about ‘Good Books’ and finally, the last ten questions about ‘Down Your Way’.  David said the questions were set to challenge the memory of those who experienced those years past.

The winning team this year, by a small margin, was ‘Wizards’ namely, Owen, G0PHY and Mary Williams, SWL,  Alan Little, G4PSO and Paul Bradfield, G1GSN who each received a box of chocolates. The team of three members (unnamed) received wooden spoons!

Robert began by saying that although the GPO stations at Poldhu and Caernarvon had been conducting two way communication prior to WW1 this was limited in range.  In1919 the GPO and the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company agreed to convert a redundant Imperial Wireless chain receiving station at Devizes, Wiltshire for long-range maritime use. There was a receiver and a 6-Kilowatt valve transmitter. Station ‘’GKT” was opened for service early in 1920, with a guaranteed range of 1,500 miles.

Later a new station was established at Portishead, near Bristol, and in 1927 Portishead Radio was on the air using callsign GKA. Portishead radio continued to expand and by 1965, 86 radio officers were handling over 11 million words of traffic per year, and communicating with over 1,000 ships each day.

With the compulsory implementation of the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS) in 1999 Morse Code was officially phased out as a compulsory communications system for the maritime world and Portishead Radio eventually closed on 30th April 2000.

Robert showed photos of all the ship he sailed on and relayed some stories about life at sea and shore time. He also explained the study and exams required to become a Radio Officer.

His first ship! They sailed from Liverpool in January 1971, the weather was so bad that he spent the first 5 or 6 days in his bunk with a bucket.  This was an old riveted ship and the bad weather caused a few rivets to pop and they started taking in water, they had to stop at the Canary Islands for repairs.

The liner he spent the most time on. In total it was just over 2 years. It had 300 cabin passengers and 1000 school kids in dormitories.

The talk was about satellites and the 2021 AMSAT UK Space Colloquium video.

Alan gave a brief history of AMSAT and early and continuous contributions by Martin Sweeting, G3YJO before the RSGB became involved.

In the video, Peter Goodhall, 2M0SQL asked where is 57° North? Then went on to explain where it is and why he decided to move there. It would improve his satellite coverage!  Peter showed his first station on the corner of a kitchen counter and then the move to a dedicated space for the equipment. He gave a run down of his aerials and other equipment, then explained about his quest of chasing grid squares from around the world.

Alan stopped the video at various points to explain some of the jargon and abbreviations associated with satellite work.

Peter explained that by moving to 57° North he was able to increase his total of grid squares to 806 worked and 627 squares actually confirmed. He’s now looking for California and Arizona since they are the only two states he still needs to contact. His contacts at U.S. grid squares was helped by the Americans’ use of ‘Rovers’ who would go out mobile to give isolated squares to satellite hunters. Peter also described how he would go portable at nearby locations in different squares using a hand held yagi and carrying the rig and battery to make contacts. A system was devised to record the audio of the contacts for later inspection, if necessary. While out portable, Peter would put his location square on Twitter to alert other satellite operators of his rare locations. While at nearby Peterhead, he increased his all time QSOs via satellite to 11132, and total grid squares to 806 and WAS to 47.

Don, G4LOO began by saying “I suppose you’ve heard enough of my contest presentations by now” but I want to let you know what went wrong and what went right.

First of all, not a lot went wrong! The aerials used were the A3S for 20m and up while dipoles were used for 40 and 80m and lower. The team of two operated as a “run” station throughout but looked out for multipliers as they went. Don did the first shift until very late when Terry, G4UEM took over for his shift

This year also saw the use of the aerial rotator connected via the logging program so that callsign entry followed by a function key would automatically turn the beam to the correct heading.

This year the QSO number was almost double mostly due to  last year’s  problems with the 40m and 80m Four Square aerials.  Hence the use of dipoles this year. Of course, this year’s score was higher due to conditions over the weekend being very good; even 10m was very active. Don finished by showing graphs of activity by band and time for this year and last.

4 Nov 2021 – Victor’s QRP operations

Victor made the point that DX, that is, distant stations, is relative, mainly due to your location, aerial and power. An amateur starting out might regard the EU as distant since that’s all he is able to contact at first. With slightly better aerials and more experience, DX is those stations much further away perhaps even the other side of the earth.

Victor explained the role of the American Amateur Radio Society called Amateur Radio Relay League or ARRL in making a list of countries and territories with Amateur Radio callsigns assigned by the ITU. Many amateurs strive to contact and confirm all those listed and find it’s work of a life time!

He then showed the aerial layout in his garden, where and how they are set up. Several were basic verticals and consist of a glass fibre pole with wire wound in a helix around and tuned to the band required. They use elevated feed points with 3 or 4 radials from that point to earth. Using these aerials and a few watts of power and CW, contacts are made across and around the world.

The total world entities according to the ARRL currently stand at 340 and Victor has worked 332. Those ‘countries’ still outstanding are mostly uninhabited islands and are only available if someone goes there to set up a station, but permission is very difficult to obtain and the cost of travel is extremely high. From time to time various groups do manage with months or even years of planning and fund raising.

Members discussed ways of identifying the type and content for future lectures that would be of interest.  Ways of increasing the appeal of attending was also discussed.    David said “we need a set of topics that the members can get involved in and make a contribution”.

Don, G4LOO began this time by showing a comparison of contest statistics from 2000 to 2020. The results attained in the contests were about midway between highest score and the lowest score submitted by all stations in our class. The statistics showed that contesting was as popular now as in years gone by, perhaps even more popular at times, although the operators’ ages were tending toward the older end of the spectrum.

A number of RTTY contests done by Don from his home station were single operator, multi band using about 50W power. In these contests the results were about half way between highest and lowest scores as reported for Europe, but considerably higher with regard to UK scores

Don, G4LOO began by showing statistics from our CQ-WW SSB entry from 26-27 Oct 2019, followed by several photos of the site set up.

That year we did experience several equipment problems which were reflected in the score. However, we did manage to be fourth in our class in England out of 8 entries.  Don showed the statistics covering bands worked and results achieved hour by hour during the entire contest.

Of course, 2020 reflected the operating restrictions due to the Covid Pandemic lockdown. Only two operators took part working one at a time. Their score in Europe was 57 out of 88 stations in their class. However, in England, they achieved First place in their class!

Don then explained the equipment to be used this year and how the stations would be set up and run. The aerials will be about the same as 2019 with an eye on the pitfalls experienced in 2019.

Members watched a video by the RSGB on filling out the latest EMF calculator.  Quoting from their web page: “The New Amateur Licence now requires all amateurs to check compliance with EMF exposure limits. Compliance is required after 18 November 2021 for frequencies above 110MHz, after 18 May 2022 for frequencies above 10MHz but below 110MHz, after 18 November 2022 for frequencies below 10MHz”.

As presented, the calculator only shows results for frequencies above 10MHz, the lower frequencies will be covered in a later publication.

Discussions followed the video, including some speculations about what will befall the lower frequencies.  The calculator can be found at www.rsgb.org.uk/emf      Look for RSGB/Ofcom calculator (3.6 MB MS-Excel Worksheet version rsgb11a) V0.1.2