Electromagnetic Field 2016

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As some of you may be aware, last weekend I went to Guildford to attend this year’s EMF camp. Electromagnetic Field is a camping festival geared towards hackers and makers. The weekend is filled with interesting talks, demonstrations and crazy projects.EMF Sign

Arriving on Camp

Car

My idea of a camping trip!

I arrived on site with a reasonable idea of what to expect, but this was reinforced when someone whizzed past me in a Sinclair C5. This turned out to be only a taster of what was to come.

I was to be joining a group of amateur radio enthusiasts who were running the EMF hams village. There were 16 of us and we had all come with a variety of equipment. Using the special event callsign GB4EMF, we operated using the following stations:

  • HF Station – Yaesu FT-1000, Mosley Mini-33-aw beam, SCAM-12 mast
  • VHF/UHF Station – Icom 706, 2/70 Beam, telescopic mast
  • Satellite Station – Yaesu FT-847, 2 & 70 ZL Specials on G-5500 Az/El rotator, tripod
  • Local Comms – Crossband repeater, Yaesu FT8900, X-50, 5.4m Clansman mast

EMFhams Setup

This was all made easier by the network of datenklos (data-toilets). These were power and networks hubs being kept dry using porta-loos. Over the weekend we maxed out at over 100kW pulled off two generators, 66  Wi-Fi access points, 4500 networked devices and 3.5TB of data going between our network and the internet.

 

Things to see

There was a lot of ‘stuff’ at EMF this year. A few honourable mentions go to the high altitude ballooning village, fire pong, just add sharks laser cutters, blacksmithing tent, lockpicking tent giant guitar hero, the music powered quadruple flamethrower, retro arcade tent and the amateur radio village of course.

JustAddSharks Laser Cutter

HABville's weather balloon tracking station

HABville’s weather balloon tracking station

Pub sign!

Pub sign!

Overall EMF camp this year was a fantastic event, full of technology and ideas. The talks I attended were very interesting, and all available of the EMF Youtube account. I’m definitely signing up for the event when it next runs in 2018. For more info see emfcamp.org, wiki.emfcamp.org, and for more photos see https://www.flickr.com/groups/emfcamp/pool/.

View of site

PS: I’ve got my new callsign, 2E0UAR

 

-Peter Barnes (M6KVA, 2E0UAR)

Belated Contact

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Folks rather belatedly I have to announce a rather interesting contact made last Weds evening when it appears an uplift (or what was perhaps left of it that day) on 2M meant I could make a successful contact from a stationary position on the edge of the Solent at Lea-on-Solent. The contact was made on FM without use of a repeater and with a station operating from a club base somewhere near Wimborne Dorset (GX4RFR I believe from memory). The usual RST and pleasantries were exchanged and although weak signals both ways of course, we could both continue a sensible QSO. I was given a 4 and 4 and he was 3 to 4 and 4 (again from memory  – never prepared mobile when you went to be!!). Proves that when conditions prevail….. .

 

Congratulations

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Today we had three candidates taking the Foundation and Intermediate tests. All three candidates passed.

Congratulations gentlemen.

Group 2 50percent

The photo above shows Rex (G4RAE), Ron , Mark (Intermediate pass M6KMJ), Peter (Intermediate pass M6KVA), Ron (Foundation pass), Peter (G4OST) and Paul (M0ZMB).

Thanks go to Ron and Rex for invigilating also to the Woodhouse Park Amateur Radio Group for providing the space.

Paul
M0ZMB

 

Cable Access Kit AKA Hexbeam parts

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Some members are building Hexbeams out of the cable access kits to be found at Aldi this month. Knowing that the Thornbury Aldi only had 6 packs left I went to the Bradley Stoke store to find they have approx. 30 left. So anyone wanting them get yourself down to Bradley Stoke.

Cable-rods

Paul
M0ZMB

2017 calendar

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The Chantry are looking to book the rooms for 2017 and have asked for dates we DO NOT require the room I have suggested the 7th June, mob FH, 5th July ped FH and 27th December between Christmas and New Year, is this OK

Stan

Hosting migration

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I’ve had a busy afternoon migrating this website from a server of my own to a hosting service funded by the club.  Its taken a few hours as there where a few problems but it now seems to be working albeit a little more slowly. 🙂  If you do notice anything strange please drop me an email.

As part of the migration we can now have club email addresses.  I have created role based ones for the committee (e.g. chairman @ tsgarc.uk etc) [remove the spaces] and can do so for any member requiring a club email address.  If you would like one, please let me know.

Andrew
G0RVM