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Est. 1938 Club Call G4HRS

Sponsored by: Affiliated to:

The Journal of

Horsham Amateur Radio Club

February 2018

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Contents

In this issue

3. Notes from the Editor Reading material and a reminiscence

5. The Members night A square antenna and a jar of yeast extract!

9. Fox hunting of the radio kind

10. Contest corner Report on the latest club on air competitive activities

12. Aflyer Time for an auction 13. Terrestrial Retune event!

16. Conventional tuning David reports the latest happenings

18. Diaryofevents Full listings for the month

Cover picture: 1913 Special Edition Bradshaw’s Continental Railway Guide

Published by Horsham Amateur Radio ClubHARCNEWS is produced at home by G4JHI

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Many readers will see RadCom each month being members of the RSGB however; although I also receive that I take Practical Wireless and Radio User magazines too. The latter focuses on broadcast and utility reception and the former amateur radio.

Recent editions of PW and RA have had some interesting features recently

Editorial

including a visit to Woofferton, propagation which included grey line and NVIS techniques, antennas including loops (transmission and reception), and a new section on digital broadcast radio – a high percentage of this was based on DAB, various construction projects, 50 years of BBC colour television and a review of the Yaesu FT-70DE 144/433 MHz handheld with Fusion but does include FM.

(If you watched episode 19 of the amateur radio show TX Factor you would have seen an interview with the new owners of these magazines). The icing on the cake must have been how to get the Test Card back! This time it is Test Card W the letter denoting widescreen. In order to receive this you will need Freeview reception. I am not aware of any way to do this on satellite or cable TV. Below are the tuning in details.

Copydeadline for emailed items forMarch edition20thFebruary-Forwrittenitemsthedeadlineis17thFebruary.

For items sent by email please send to this address:

harc.news@g4jhi.co.uk

David G4JHI

Acknowledgement to RadioUser

2018 Subscriptions

Subscriptions are now due for the 2018 Club membership.

Please forward £15 to the Treasurer Paul G4TMC.Payment can be by cash, cheque (payable to H.A.R.C.) or via electronic transfer.Anyone wishing to pay electronically should send an email:paul.g4tmc<at>@gmail.comYou will then receive by return the HARC bank details.

Postal address: Paul Barnett, 8 Parsonage Road, Horsham, RH12 4AR.

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The first item was John G3WZT’s 160m direction-finding frame aerial. This was built to detect the source of some local QRM on and around Top Band. The QRM appears to have a 300Hz modulation,and is there all the time except for a couple of occasions. John uses an SDR Play receiver, which he thoroughly recommends. The 14-bit SDR Play has an amazing frequency range of 10kHz to 2GHz.

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January Meeting

Bring Show Tell

Direction-finding frame aerial for Top Band

Richard G4ANN brought along his digital frequency meter. It was designed as a Crystal Palace club project by G8NKM and covers 1kHz-75MHz and up to 750MHz with a prescaler. The ‘brain’ is an Arduino Nano. The frequency standard is a DS3231 RTC (real time clock) module. Full information is available on GitHub, and total cost was only £35.

The next item which was brought along by David 2E0NKC was a Tescun PL-880 LW/MW/Shortwave/VHF receiver with AM, FM and SSB modes, thousands of memories, alarm clock and timer. It is powered by a large 18650 series 3.7v 2000mA Li cell, and Nevada supply these plus suitable chargers. It may also be USB-powered.

Alister G3ZBU had a few items on show. Firstly two rather old thermometers, one with an analogue meter scaled 0-100C and the second was digital with a red LED readout. The latter operates from minus something to plus 999C in steps of 0.1, and is ideal for checking the set point of marmalade which is about 104C. The label on the back states 1982, but it seems to be fairly accurate because the batch of marmalade came out very nicely indeed.

Then we saw parts of his 50MHz antenna in readiness for the RSGB VHF contests on that band. He is planning to build a 50MHz version of the HB9CV design, because it has a very small element spacing and the feed point is easy to build. The alternative is to make a 2-element Yagi but that tends to require a Gamma-match and they have about 5 dimensional variables so can be very tricky to get right. Incidentally Homebase offer aluminium tube in 8mm and 10mm diameters. Bizarrely, a 2m length of 8mm tube is cheaper than a 1m length!

Analogue thermometer

His Canon camera suffers from poor lead-free soldered joints on the battery connections, and one is very difficult to reach. Some people on YouTube suggest bending the outer contacts and the extra pressure on the battery can help push the inner contacts against the pcb, but all that bending can cause the metal to break.

Canon digital camera

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David G4JHI also had several items on show. The first item was a book, a new print of the 1913 edition of ‘Bradshaw’s Continental Railway Guide’. Then a magic sponge for cleaning the inside of mugs to remove the tea and coffee stains. A large jar marked Marmite containing, guess what, a jig-saw. No-one guessed correctly! A very powerful explorer 800 torch and finally three books about Radio 1: The Golden days of Radio One, Inside Radio 1 and Radio 1 The Inside Scene.

Finally Jon M0TWM showed us a collection of Arduinos and most of the different versions of the Raspberry-Pi. He had three boards talking to each other via a variety of radio links, such that current, temperature and humidity sensors sent their readings to be ultimately displayed on raspberry-Pi’s £20-ish touch screen LCD. The little 2GHz transmitter boards used something like 10mA but the Wi-Fi circuit in the middle took half an amp.

Marmite jigsaw and magic sponge in a railway mug

Collection of Arduinos

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Jon showed us printouts of the ‘C’ source code software. Admittedly there were no practical uses of this but it shows what can be done. The circuitry was powered by the same size Li cells as used in the Tescun radio. A special battery pack also contains a DC-DC converter to give 5V output. Some of these up-converter circuits generate a lot of RFI, but the circuits which drop a higher voltage down are quiet.

The evening was rounded off by the hon. Chairman G4LRP stating that we had seen a great variety of interesting items.

Jon M0TWM

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G3ZBU

The first DF hunt of the year takes place on Sunday 25th February -

Start at: Mannings Heath green TQ205289

Start time: 1000

Target end time: 1200

Transmissions: 1000 then every 10 minutes with 2 minute duration

QRG: 144.725 Mhz

Maps: Landranger 187, 197 & 198

Call: G4HRS

Advice: Fill your tank, bring beer money & listen out for obscure clues!

Pub afterwards: Lunch may be booked for those that notify me latest 12th February – G3SWC<at>bevrynn.eu

Hope to see you there!

73Bryn – G3SWC

HARC 2m DF Hunt

Sunday 25th February

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UKFMAC and UKAC Contests

A brief summary by G8CKT

This year’s RSGB VHF UKFMAC and UKAC contests got off to a good start in January with activity from G3OGP, G3WZT, G3ZBU, 2E0NKC, G4TMC, G3VQO, G4EFO and G8CKT (with apologies to anyone I’ve missed or simply didn’t manage to hear).

In the low power section of January’s UKFMAC contest, G3OGP and G4TMC shared ninth place with G3VQO and G3ZBU close behind in 11th and 12th places respectively. In the 50W section, G8CKT, came last (in 26th position) with just one QSO completed. Time for a new antenna I think!

More activity was evident in the UKAC contest with Horsham taking 22nd place nationally (just behind our good friends in the Crawley Club). The adjudicated results of this contest have just been published and Horsham members were placed as shown below. At the time of writing, results have yet to be published for the January 432MHz and 50MHz contests but they should be available by the time you read this.

Several HARC stalwarts also took part in the 432MHz and 50MHz UKAC contests. G3WZT did particularly well on 50MHz with G3VQO, G3ZBU and G8CKT also present. G8CKT also managed to put in a solo entry on 432MHz with 30W to a 10-element antenna in the loft.

One of the nice features of the UKAC and UKFMAC contests is the availability of a map showing the location of all contacts made. If you’ve not seen these before I’ve included some maps showing my UKAC contacts on 144MHz and 432MHz during the January UKAC. Finally, don’t forget that each new square worked gains you a substantial bonus. This can make all the difference to your score. See you next month!

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HARC SPRING JUNK SALE

Thursday March 1st 2018

2000 Hours start Doors open 1930 for viewing and arrival of items Free entry Food available The Guide Hall Denne Road Horsham RH12 1JF See you there!

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TV Addict

by David G4JHI

Next month another retune is to take place for Freeview viewers. Other platforms such as YouView will also be affected. Following previous information in this magazine we now have the details that you really need to know. For those who are not sure why this is happening it’s because Ofcom are selling off to mobile operators the 700 MHz UHF spectrum currently used by TV broadcasting. Future 4G and yes 5G (even faster!) mobile broadband services are due to start rolling out in 2020.

You may well remember the worry about potential interference to TV viewers from 4G using the 800 MHz spectrum; well in the future viewers could potentially need new filters to avoid interference from mobile operators using the 700 MHz spectrum! The good news is that the amount of viewers that were actually affected was much less than predicted. The retune in our area has in fact been brought forward so previous dates should be ignored.

Since the majority of HARCNEWS readers will be watching either the London or Meridian region TV services that’s where the following information will concentrate on. We are going to deal with a limited amount of transmitters which cover the Horsham and surrounding areas and online a full list of changes can be found by following the web links at the end of this article which covers all TV transmitters across the country.

London RegionCrystalPalace(Mainstation)Retune date 21st March 2018Current Aerial Group A – New Aerial Group TLOC1 moving. Com7 and Com8 multiplexes moving from UHF channels 33 and 35 to temporary 55 and 56 respectively (See Note 1 below) and some viewers may lose the channels on these multiplexes as a result of continuing to use a Group A aerial.

Guildford(Relay)Retune date one 14th March 2018Retune date two 18th April 2018Current Aerial Group B – New Aerial Group KCom4 moving on first retune date.

Reigate(Relay)Retune date 21st March 2018Current Aerial Group T – New Aerial Group APSB1, PSB2 and PSB3 multiplexes moving but due to the frequencies involved viewers should already have a suitable aerial.

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Meridian RegionMidhurst(Mainstation)Retune date one 21st March 2018Retune date two Q4 2019Current Aerial Group CD – New Aerial Group K (See Note 2 below)PSB1, PSB2, Com4 and Com6 multiplexes moving and some viewers may lose the channels on the latter two multiplexes as a result of continuing to use a Group CD aerial.

On the dates mentioned above the work should be completed by 06:00 at Main stations and at Relays during the afternoon after which time viewers can perform a retune of their equipment.

Some of the channels to be found on each multiplex as mentioned above:-PSB1 BBC One / BBC Two / BBC FourPSB2 ITV / Channel 5 / ITV2PSB3 BBC One HD / Channel 4 HD / CBBC HDCOM4 ITV3 / ITV BE / True EntertainmentCOM6 Yesterday / CBS Action / Drama COM7 BBC Four HD / BBC News HD / 4 Seven HDCOM8 5 Star+1 / More4+1 / QVC HDLOC1 London Live

UHF Aerial GroupsA Channels 21 - 37B Channels 35 - 53CD Channels 48 – 68E Channels 35 – 68K Channels 21 - 48T Channels 21 – 60W Channels 21 – 68

For those viewers who already have a wideband aerial for TV reception that will be future proof as far as the frequency changes are concerned but of course you may not know what you actually have fitted. My recommendation for now unless you are having any aerial work done is to wait and see if you are affected next month. The aerial on my roof is already a wideband type so no issues there.

For those who historically have two aerials on the roof with a diplexer which in this area would typically be a Group A and Group CD for Crystal Palace and Midhurst still in use, this could be a problem. Each aerial is connected via a filter which effectively blocks out the other groups frequency range. This may well cause no appearance of some multiplexes after the retune dates.

Note 1] Com7 and Com8 are due to be retired in 2022 and it is not clear as to what will happen to the channels currently broadcasting on those multiplexes after then.Note 2] Between the retune on 21st March 2018 and Q4 2019 at Midhurst either a Group T or W aerial are recommended for reliable reception of all services if viewers have any difficulties and will still be suitable after the retune is complete.

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For further information and details of other transmitters retune dates this can be found on the Digital UK site:http://www.digitaluk.co.uk/operations/700mhz_clearance

Individual transmitters:https://ukfree.tv/transmitters/tv/Crystal_Palacehttps://ukfree.tv/transmitters/tv/Guildfordhttps://ukfree.tv/transmitters/tv/Midhursthttps://ukfree.tv/transmitters/tv/Reigate

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Broadcast Listener

MonthlyRoundup

byDavidAnsell2E0NKC

All times UTC

Medium-wave

The following Medium-wave BBC local transmitters have closed:- Radio Sussex, Shoreham 1485 kHz, Bexhill 1161 kHz, Radio Surrey, Duxhurst 1368 kHz. Radio Kent, Rusthall 1602 kHz, Littlebourne 774 kHz. My monitoring shows Radio Solent, Fareham 999 kHz and Radio Essex, Chelmsford 765 and Manningtree 729 kHz are continuing. Malin Head Coastguard heard with navigational warnings on 1678 kHz USB at 16:35. These broadcasts are rare on this band these days.

Long-wave

Icelandic Radio heard in Icelandic on both 207 kHz and 189 kHz at 21:15 with the help of my ATU. This is either side of the powerful BBC Radio 4 from Droitwich.

Short-wave

Radio Japan heard in English via Vatican relay at 19:30 on new 9485 kHz. Xinjiang Peoples Broadcasting Service heard at 15:00 on 4500 kHz in Mongolian via Urumchi, China. Radio Mi Amigo heard December 24th with “one of” Christmas Eve broadcast at 19:00 on 5845 kHz via Uzbekistan relay. Pyongyang Peoples Broadcasting Service, North Korea heard at 16:00 on 6400 kHz. Weak AM signal but best in LSB mode. This is a domestic broadcast and there was some beacon QRM.

Radio ‘ Reach Beyond Australia’ heard via Kunnunura, North West Australia at 12:45 on 11865 kHz in English. Voice of Mongolia heard at 13:00 on 6005 kHz via relay in Kall, Germany. The new Short-wave radio for the UK from Germany has started regular broadcasts. It is on 10:00 – 22:00 Mon – Sat on either 6160 kHz or 3975 kHz.

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QSL-‘sreceived

HCJB, Weenermoor, Germany 5920 kHz – QSL showing transmitters for report sent May 2016. Took 1½ years for them to reply!

Radio Romania International 6170 kHz – schedule + QSL card showing picture of Mogosoaia Palace

KBS World Radio, Seoul, South Korea – letter schedule, calendar for 2018 showing “old houses of Korea”

Voice of Vietnam 9730 kHz – QSL showing terraced fields in Sapa, Vietnam + New Year card + 2018 calendar on a wooden scroll

Radio Mi Amigo 5845 kHz via Uzbekistan – QSL for special Christmas Eve broadcast

Norddeutscher Rundfunk 6080 kHz via Nauen – QSL for annual Christmas Eve broadcast to ships called “Gruss an board” (Greetings on board)

Radio Taiwan International 6185 kHz via Tamsui, Taiwan – QSL showing picture of Yushan National Park

Diary

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Feb 1st, Club Night: FPGA Programmable Logic - G3ZBU

Feb 4th, 432MHz AFS (Super League)

Feb 5th, 80m SSB Club Championship 20:00 - 21:30

Feb 6th, 144MHz FMAC and UKAC 19:00 - 22:30

Feb 8th, 50MHz UKAC 19:00 - 22:30Committee Meeting - QTH of G8CKT

Feb 11th, Harwell Radio & Electronics Rally - Didcot Leisure Centre 10:00 - 15:00http://www.g3pia.net/radio-electronics-rally

Feb 13th, 432MHz FMAC and UKAC 19:00 - 22:30

Feb 14th, 80m Data Club Championship 20:00 - 21:30

Feb 15th, Social Evening: The Selsey Arms - Coolhamhttp://www.selseyarmscoolham.co.uk

Feb 17th-18th, Guides Thinking Day on the Airhttp://www.guides-on-the-air.co.ukFeb 18th, Audiojumble - The UK’s largest second-hand and vintage hi-fi event - The AngelLeisure Centre, Tonbridge 09:30 (Early Entry) 10:30 (Standard Entry)http://www.audiojumble.co.uk

Feb 22nd, 80m CW Club Championship 20:00 - 21:30

Feb 25th, Sunday Morning Fox Hunt - Bryn G3SWC 10:00

Mar 1st, Club Night: Junk Sale

Mar 5th, 80m Data Club Championship

For details on the above contest use this link and follow to the appropriate sectionhttp://rsgb.org/main/radio-sport

All above times are UTC

Committee/Club Meetings and Socials start at 20:00