This year’s Harwell Radio Rally is planned for the 12th February 2017.
It will be held at the usual location, Didcot Leisure Centre.
We are planning to run one or more cars in the usual fashion.
If you wish to attend please leave a response and also indicate if you will be able to take passengers.
Paul
M0ZMB
Over the holi
day period a small group of us managed to update the WiFi connection to the club shack as was planned in the programme. It was all hands to the pumps and led by Garry and Paul we were also well oiled by regular cups of Tea and a few mince pies (allegedly as I didn’t see any of them,!!). The on-going good working relationship we have with the chantry meant we were given complete access to all areas so that we could scope and route cabling where we need to and facilitate a better more secure network.
I am sure Garry or Paul will update us in due course as to the current status of the new link and its capability (not my area) but Andrew and I had fun working at hight with the facility of my truck (seems he did all the hard work though).
Much fun
2E0RKM
Members are advised that the Direction Finding talk by Graham G4DPH has been moved to 8th March 2017. The 10 minute shack talks originally scheduled for that date have been brought forward to 8th February 2017.
Volunteers for the shack talk evening are required. Please have a chat with our Secretary, Garry.
Andrew
G0RVM
The Vision, Mission and Values statement (VMVS) for the TSGARC has been published here. It can be accessed by anyone visiting the TSGARC website and is to be found on the About menu.
The VMVS provides the ‘rudder’ that guides the future direction and evolution of our club.
Andrew Gawthrope
Chairman
It was recently put to me that the club was not value for money and I thought I’d take a few moments to reply.
First and foremost the TSGARC is a club; it is a group of people connected by common interests who pursue those interests together as a social group. What any member derives from the club tends to be proportional to what they contribute – its a two-way thing; a sharing experience.
Although its possible for a club to be purely virtual, existing in cyberspace alone, this is not the model for the TSGARC. We prefer to talk to one another; to share idea’s, concepts and experiences and we choose to do this face to face. We believe this approach delivers a better all round experience for members.
Meeting face to face though does require somewhere to meet; it requires a clubhouse. We are very lucky to have the use of a large room on a shared basis and the sole use of another, smaller, room full-time. These rooms do come at a cost, but we have secured an excellent rate from the Chantry and by only paying for the larger room when we use it we have an agreement that provides the space we need at a fair price.
Having sole, full-time use of a room allows us to have a radio room; a room in which we can setup radio equipment and leave it setup so any member may come and use the equipment at a time of their choosing and not be constrained by when the club meets. Having this room allows those who do not have access to their own equipment to experience the world of amateur radio and to further their learning and experience.
Our accommodation is dry, its warm, its comfortable, the club provides free tea and coffee and we even have free use of the wireless connection to the Internet because we are good tenants and help the Chantry from time to time. Together these things underpin our evenings at the clubhouse, providing a relaxing, friendly environment in which members feel able to share stories, advice and to learn from each other.
The club meets many of the costs associated with the activities its members undertake. It has recently started to upgrade its HF antenna and is in discussion with the Chantry to relocate and upgrade its VHF antenna. It has plans for the upgrade of our radio equipment. It has also supported recent activities such as field weekends by rewarding the landowner and supplying toilets without which the field weekends just would not happen.
The TSGARC must also stand on its own. It needs the stability and long-term survivability that a secure income permits. That income allows us to plan for the future, to evolve whilst supporting our members doing the things they enjoy. We have a club which responds to its members wishes; members are at the core of the club, they choose and drive what the club does. Its a great local club.
Andrew Gawthrope
Chairman
Over the last few months the committee have authored Terms of Reference or ToRs for their roles. These record the responsibilities of members who undertake committee roles both currently and into the future on behalf of the TSGARC.
A little terminology: A role is a set of responsibilities, a member may choose one or more roles depending on the size of the roles.
The ToRs have now been uploaded to our website and may be found under the About menu option.
Andrew Gawthrope
Chairman
Our TSGARC Christmas meal was at the Anchor in Thornbury this year. It was well attended and everyone had a good evening. The food was great. I particularly liked the roast beef 🙂 Yum.
Big thanks to Stan, G0RYM for making it happen 🙂
Andrew
G0RVM
For some time I’ve been thinking about replacing the IC-706Mk2g in my pickup with a newer radio. The obvious choice was a IC-7100 as it has all the same connectors, including that for the AH-4 auto-coupler. As a bonus the radio is the same size and uses the same mount bracket. I had held off getting the IC-7100 for quite some time as I wasn’t convinced its ‘L’ shaped head was suitable for mobile use. Having owned it for a month I’m still not convinced but do like the radio and its odd shaped head unit is growing on me.
D-Star was not a selection factor for the IC-7100 purchase, but since the radio had this capability it seemed wrong not to give it a go 🙂 D-Star could be a news item in its own right, but suffice to say my experience thus far is not great. Several of the repeaters around the Bristol area have either migrated to alternate digital systems, don’t seem to be operational or are not connected to the D-Star network which undermines usefulness. As the memory channels in the radio are programmed with many, many repeaters, selecting one in the vicinity of my location whilst driving was tricky. But IC-7100 has the ability to receive NMEA data from a GNSS receiver and use geolocation information to identify repeaters in the vicinity of the radio that may be used. I was keen to give this a go but needed a source of NMEA data. Unfortunetly, the IC-7100 does not contain a GNSS receiver but it does present a three-pole, 3.5mm NMEA interface. The pins are: Ground, TxData and RxData.
Locating a suitable GNSS receiver was not as simple as it should have been as most nowadays implement either Bluethooth or USB as the physical interface rather than NMEA. However, some research identified the G-STAR IV from Globalsat. It does have an RS-232 physical interface and as NMEA is compatible with RS-232 at the physical layer it worked fine. However, the G-Star IV used a 6-pin mini-din plug rather than the more conventional 9-pin ‘D’ connector associated with RS-232 plus it required a +5V DC, 80mA power feed.
Clearly, it was necessary to construct an interface between the radio and the G-STAR IV receiver not only because the physical connectors were different but because a power feed was needed. After some investigation, I decided to use the +12V DC power from the truck batteries reduced to the level required using a small voltage regulator, 7805, circuit. This worked great providing a rock-sold power feed. A byproduct of connecting to the truck batteries was that the power was always ‘on’ and thus the GNSS receiver was powered and consuming current. So, my design included a power switch to remove the GNSS receiver from the power when not in use.
The interface unit was quickly assembled using a plastic case, suitable connectors and a small piece of Veroboard onto which the voltage regulator and some electrostatic smoothing capacitors were attached. A small red LED was also included for diagnostic purposes. This lit when power was being provided to the GNSS receiver. Once assembled it was tested on the bench using an oscilloscope to monitor the resulting NMEA data. This data appeared as a square wave of the correct frequency so I had a high confidence that all was working well.
The pictures in the article show the completed interface unit. I’m happy to answer any questions if someone has a need for something similar.
Footnote: Everything worked great on the bench, however, on migrating the unit to the truck I realised that Icom and rather annoyingly used a 3-pole, 2.5mm connector for the GNSS receiver. This meant the whole project was delayed whilst I sourced a connector which as it was at a weekend – Maplin Electronics. Making the cable really was a short job but it took another 4 to 5 hours to get everything working reliably as there was a weird mechanical failure on the centre tip of the 2.5mm connector resulting in an intermittent connection. I really don’t like Maplin these days and this experience only served to reinforce my view that their products are of the lowest quality.
Andrew
G0RVM
After last nights excellent and informative talk by Gary on Network systems in which a 5G was mentioned, there is a talk at the RSGB meeting in Redland on Monday 28th November by Prof Andrew Nix (University of Bristol) on the 5g network being tested in Bristol.The Network uses Rediffusion infrastructure in the form of underground cabling bought by Bristol University for experimental purposes many decades ago.
Please see the Link to the event below
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.