Due to a hardware issue on the earlier event we are running it again on September 12th 2018.

As before the Fox will be Paul M0ZMB and he will hide somewhere around Thornbury.

He will call in on 145.500 and then move to another frequency. It is hoped to be 145.4125, if it is available.

He will transmit for 2mins every 10mins.

Tonight is the clubs annual pedestrian foxhunt around Thornbury.

I will probably start from the Rock Street Car Park  as it  is slightly raised to find Paul M0ZMB the fox..

I am also going to have APRS running to se where I go and what transmission is like around Thornbury.

The mobile foxhunt was held on  a glourious evening.  The fox this year was Paul M0ZMB. There were four teams out looking for him. All the teams chose the same high point on the A38 to get the first direction.

As the my team was created from the guys who went to the Chantry we were the last of the teams to arrive at the high ground to get the first bearing. The first team were leaving when we arrived, the other two teams were still getting their bearings. We only managed to get a quick bearing before the first transmission finished.

Mark (M0RZS) was using a homebrew loop into a hand held, Roger (2E0FPV) was using a handheld and the body shielding to attenuate the signal and I was driving and drawing on the map. The car also had a mobile unit so we could monitor to ensure we did not miss a transmision from the fox.

The teams that left at the same time as us went in the opposite direction. Our second bearing was slightly off where the fox was hidden, so when we got to our third point we were expecting the bearing to be approximately due South to cross over where two previous bearings crossed. It crossed the first bearing line but further to the West.

We took our fourth bearing from outside the church at Cowhill. Even though the fox was reducing power by now the only way we could get a reduction in signal strength was to loose height. This was achieved by Roger (2E0FPV) putting his hand held on the floor and shielding the antenna.  Mark (M0RZS) had to use the hill to get some attenuation but had strong signals all around.

To get to the church we had driven past the fox. So we had to turn around and found the fox in the Anchor car park.

I hope all the other teams had a good night as we did. Thanks to Mark (M0RZS) and Roger (2E0FPV) for the team work and company. Thanks to Paul (M0ZMB) for being the fox.

The picture shows the bearing traces made.

Traces on the map.

Paul M0ZMB ran a beginners night with Arduino. This included what is involved in the Arduino ecosystem and how to get started.

The Arduino

Is an open source computer hardware and software company, project, and user community that designs and manufactures single-board microcontrollers and microcontroller kits for building digital devices and interactive objects that can sense and control objects in the physical world.

The Arduino project started in 2003 as a program for students at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Italy, aiming to provide a low-cost and easy way for novices and professionals to create devices that interact with their environment using sensors and actuators.

Since it was started it has grown with other people adding in new things including controller boards and sensor/device boards called shields.

Paul’s bag of tricks.

Paul had been tinkering with the Arduino for a while and previously gave a talk on some of his projects that he had created. From this Paul was asked to create a kit of bits to introduce the basics of what could be done. He created a bag of bits including the NodeMCU controller, a small OLED display, resistors, LED’s, jumper leads, switches and breadboard. All members had to provide was a laptop to run the programming software.

To start with the members had to install the IDE to be able to programme the device.  It also had to be updated to enable the controller that Paul chose. After this we were able to create our first programme called a sketch. This was to blink an LED built on to the controller board. Then finally to blink an external LED, using the bits in the bag.

Paul has created a few more projects to do with increasing complexity.

The time for the evening ran out, with everyone enjoying the evening.

John M0HFH is already think about things he might try and do with the Arduino family!

So this is most definitely to be continued…………….

Tonight was the mobile foxhunt. Peter (2E0UAR) was the fox.

Paul (M0ZMB) was first to find him

There were five teams out looking for the fox, of which four found him eventually. The last two to find did have to rely on some big clues from Peter to his location.

The fox was hidden at the bottom point of the small blue triangle to the right of the picture below.

Total distance travelled about 30miles. As you can see some of us went a bit further afield, even though we only started about a mile or so from the foxes den. The fox was well hidden.

Thanks to Peter (2E0UAR) for being the fox.

The route for the mobile foxhunt 2017

Hi All

Just to advise having just passed the Foundation exam I have secured the call sign M6TJV. RSGB and QRZ sites updated.

Thanks to all of you for your help, the Intermediate RSGB book has arrived so onwards..

Terry M6TJV

Well Wedensday 23rd November was a suprising talk by Garry (G7NVZ) on Networking  because it should have happened next Wedensday 30th November.

Thanks Peter (M6KVA) for pointing it out. Shame he left it until after the talk to let me  know 😉

So next week will be a programme planning / discussion night.

John M0HFH showing Scout members how to use the CW Trainer.

This year we setup various elements of amateur radio at 1st Olveston Scout Group HQ. The station consisted of HF, VHF, UHF, CW, SDR & Flight Radar. The callsign used for this event was GB1OSG.

John M0HFH setting up for the Scouts to do CW Live.

Friday was setup time, this went well with most things initially setup in a few hours. The TSGARC Friday net allowed us to test the VHF Station this was found to be deaf towards Yate so Saturday morning the antenna system was moved. Saturday  15th the final tweaks were made to the station then it was a case of waiting for the Scout Group members to arrive. During the quiet times members who attended got on with other projects including make a fan dipole for the club.

Saturday evening after Scouts and visitors had left for the evening John (M3EQQ), John (M0HFH) and Garry (G7NVZ) went searching for some DX on 20m and 40m. We heard a special event station with a call sign of DG500BIER which we tried unsuccessfully to get back to.

WIFI Down!

The weather overnight deteriorated which caused some adverse affects on the WIFI setup. The antenna was on a tripod which got blown down. Soon had the link back.

Over the weekend as well as UK stations we got to Germany, Russia, The Netherlands and Switzerland.

Some members of the club who are also members of Woodhouse Park Scout Radio Club (GX0WOI) and they also ran a successful event. At times we were able to provide mutual assistance by providing a good working link to each other, this was mainly used to provide the Scouts the opportunity to try CW over the radio. I believe Rex (G4RAE) was able to read all that was sent to him.

Garry (G7NVZ) doing cable management.

Sunday was busier than Saturday for Scouts. The same thing were on offer for Scouts to see and try.

As is usual when it came time to finish it took less time to pack up than setup.

Thanks to all members who came and helped and supported this event.

Ideas & suggestions for the rest of the year required for the programme.

As Wednesday 24th June is an on air night an I am going to on the road for at least some off the time of the evening I will put a few calls out via GB3AA when I  get south of Gloucester.