ALL SHIPS, ALL SHIPS
ALL SHIPS, ALL SHIPS: Larry Bennett G4HLN advises that his latest book All Ships, All Ships has finally been published and is available via Amazon UK for £17.99. It’s a complete history of the UK Coast Radio Station service, and will act as an updated/expanded version of his former GKA colleague Brian Faulkner’s excellent publication Watchers of the Waves, which was published in 1995.
Sadly, Brian passed away a few years ago but his family have given Larry permission to use extracts from his book to act as an excellent source of reference.
It’s quite a massive tome, with over 500 pages in a large 10 x 7in format with numerous memories, press extracts, new photographs and detailed appendices. A limited number of signed copies will be made available for UK customers via the GKA website (below) in due course. www.portisheadradio.co.uk
OG2Y: OG2Y is the new Youth callsign for Finland. The IARU member-society Finnish Radio Amateur Association (SRAL) has announced that OG2Y is the new callsign for all youth activities there. OH2YOTA, the callsign by which young radio amateurs in Finland are best associated, is only available for events sponsored by the IARU Youth Working Group. However, OG2Y may be used freely for any youth project. It will also be available for amateur radio contests. The youth section of the SRAL website has more details.
TOUR DE TRIGS CANCELLED: We are informed that this year’s Tour De Trigs Hike has been cancelled, due to ongoing Covid concerns. Further information at: www.tourdetrigs.org.uk
JAMBOREE ON THE AIR: As part of the 2021 JOTA, Essex Ham was once again active supporting GB1BEL at the Belchamps Scout Activity Centre in Hockley, Essex.
With no JOTA possible in 2020 due to the Covid-19 lockdown, it was great to be able to get back to supporting JOTA. Scout Leader Derek Hagan M0SCE put a huge amount of effort into organising the event. As well as 2m and HF stations, there was a collection of military radio equipment organised by Gareth 2E0MZC and his son Jenson M6OIU. There were opportunities to see Morse in action, and various internet-assisted video and audio communication technologies on offer too. Greetings messages are a key part of any JOTA event, and this year’s team consisted of Dorothy M0LMR, Aubrey M7SDA, Mike G8EFG, Richard G7OED and Pete M0PSX. Learning from previous events, the team used wipedown crib sheets for the youngsters to use, to make sure that the more nervous Beavers, Cubs, Scouts (and leaders) had something to talk about. Each visitor had an activity booklet to complete with the more cunning cubs and scouts using their on-air QSOs to ask local amateurs for help with UK callsign prefixes and suffixes, to work their way towards the Communicator badge a little more quickly. Outdoor activities are always popular, with some direction-finding taking place, as well as a version of radio hide-and-seek. ADSB aircraft tracking was also being demonstrated to highlight other uses of RF technology, and for the more artistic visitors, a competition to see who could design the best QSL cards for the GB1BEL activation.
The event was certainly a busy one, with many of the youngsters making a 90-minute coach ride from Middlesex to Essex, as they were unable to find a closer JOTA weekend activity centre. Planning has already started for the 2022 JOTA event.
GB100BBC: Members of the BBC’s radio club, The London BBC Radio Group, have been granted an exceptional all-year special event callsign to help celebrate the BBC’s centenary year in 2022. Following months of negotiations with Ofcom, the group’s Special Events Officer, Steve Richards G4HPE, secured generous terms to use GB100BBC throughout the year, starting at midnight on New Year’s Day from the headquarters station in Broadcasting House, London.
Operating slots will then be allocated for use by individual members, and local groups of operators, from their home QTH, or BBC premises throughout the UK.
The group hopes to make thousands of contacts and has designed an online logging system to meet the strict licensing conditions, and the expected appetite for QSL confirmations. Group officers are expecting significant interest and are preparing for an influx of membership applications from BBC staff, freelancers, and retired staff.
The Group was launched in London in 2017, with the then BBC Director General, Lord Tony Hall, declaring G8BBC open with an on-air contact with GB2RN on HMS Belfast, thus reviving the long and rich history of amateur radio at the BBC dating back to the 1940s with station G3AYC. In recent times the group has adopted several other BBC heritage callsigns, and can now be heard regularly under contest conditions using the calls G5, G6, G7 and G8BBC.
Nick Totterdell G4FAL, the society’s HF contest committee chairman, reports that among all the other activities, there will also be a Transatlantic QSO Party to be held on 13/14 November, being sponsored by the Radio Club of America.
BATH BASED DISTANCE LEARNING 2022: The Bath Based Distance Learning team (BBDL) helped hundreds of students to pass exams under the old syllabus with pass rates consistently above the national average. After reworking their training material the team restarted their courses under the current syllabus in November 2020.
The first new BBDL course was for the Intermediate level. It achieved a pass rate of 94% and the Full level course that followed achieved a pass rate of 88%, both well above the national pass rates. A second Full level course is in progress and due to finish just before Christmas.
The next BBDL Intermediate course will run from 12 January to May 2022.
Students will receive weekly work packages via a virtual classroom. There will be weekly online tutorials and revision quizzes. Students will also have access to one of the BBDL remote tutors who will provide feedback and additional guidance when required.
There will be lots of practical exercises to bring the theory to life. Students will be expected to do the exercises at home and report their results. At the end of the course there will be a number of mock exams.
There will be no charge for the training but students will need to provide their own textbook, scientific calculator, electronic parts and toolkit. Students will also have to arrange their own exam at the end of the course, but advice will be provided at the appropriate time.
As part of the application process, there will be some pre-course work to ensure students are able to use the online learning systems and they are ready to study in January.
Another BBDL course for the Full Licence will follow on from the Intermediate course, running from August to December. A further announcement will be made when that course is ready for enrolment. However, the organisers are encouraging all those who intend to study for the Full Licence and passed the Intermediate before September 2019 to join the Intermediate course for revision and to bridge the gaps created by the syllabus changes.
To receive course application details, please e-mail BBDL Team Leader, Steve G0FUW, via g0fuw@tiscali.co.uk
The deadline for course applications is Wednesday 15 December.
SIMPLE FT8 TRANSCEIVER PROJECT: Probably the most interesting facets of amateur radio in 2021 lie in the realm of digital modes. Using the limitless possibilities of software defined radios has freed digital radio communication from the limits of what could be done with analogue electronics alone, and as a result this is a rare field in which radio amateurs can still be ahead of the technological curve. One of these newer digital modes is FT8 created by the prolific Joe Taylor K1JT.
And it’s for this mode that Charles Hill has created an easy-to-build transceiver. Its brains are a Teensy 3.6, while the receive side is an Si4735 receiver chip and the transmitter is an Si5351 programmable clock chip driving a Mini-Circuits GVA84 power amplifier with an appropriate filter.
The interface is via a touchscreen display. It relies on existing work that applies a patch on-thefly to the Si4735 receiver chip for SSB reception, and another project for the FT8 software. Read the full Hackaday article by Jenny List at:
FOUNDATION PRACTICAL ASSESSMENTS: Following a meeting of the RSGB Examinations Standards Committee at which Ofcom was represented, the current mandatory Foundation practical requirements are, with immediate effect, permanently removed. If clubs want to retain a practical element of training to support the learning of their candidates, either as demonstrations or hands-on, they are strongly encouraged to do so.
For the full announcement please see the RSGB exam announcements web page.
FACE-TO-FACE EXAMS: Now that Covid-related restrictions are ending, from Wednesday 6 October clubs will be able to start booking online exams for groups of candidates using a new club online booking system. From 1 November, clubs will be able to book paper-based exams. All bookings must be made online. The RSGB expects to phase out paper exams in the future except where candidates have specific additional needs. Further details will be available in the coming weeks but you can see the full announcement about face-to-face exams on the RSGB website.
RSGB 2021 ONLINE CONVENTION: The RSGB is delighted that its 2021 Online Convention was watched by thousands of people across the world, many of whom have since thanked the Society for the excellent content and professional production. Hundreds more have watched the streams subsequently and are enjoying the 15 presentations. If you weren’t able to watch the event live, the two streams are available on the Society’s YouTube channel and you can also see the extra content and interviews that were broadcast from the RSGB National Radio Centre between presentations:
The individual presentations will be released in due course.
NEW PREFIX FOR SOUTH GEORGIA AND SOUTH SANDWICH: Chris VP8WOS (G3WOS) recently posted, “We are pleased to announce that South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands will adopt the prefix of VP0 for their amateur radio callsigns.
This is brilliant news as it aligns with the prefix policy of many other South Atlantic and Antarctic DXCC entities. There is still clarification required to understand the use of ‘G’ and ‘S’ in suffixes, but this is in hand.
“This has taken tremendous effort by and myself, together with other Antarctic amateurs over the last two years. We want to thank the SG&SSI Government team for all the efforts and enthusiasm they have displayed to create the new telecommunications policies, laws and licenses and policies to enable this to happen”.
RAILWAYS ON AIR 2021: The Bittern DX Group was pleased to be invited to Whitwell and Reepham Station to activate GB2MGN during Railways on Air weekend. Due to Covid restrictions this was their first Special Event Station for almost two years and they worked closely with the management at Whitwell to achieve a Covid-safe environment for both operators and public. The following four members participated: Alec G3YOA, Linda G0AJJ, Peter G6ZRV and Steve, who hopes to obtain his callsign in the next few weeks. It was a busy weekend as the railway station hosted a wedding on Saturday and a Fabrics Sale on Sunday in addition to the usual motorcyclists; peddle cyclists and hikers that regularly frequent the site for refreshments and a welcome rest to soak up the 1950s steam railway atmosphere. Two radio stations were running most of the weekend on both FT8/ FT4 and SSB logging around 130 QSOs from 29 countries. A TS590S running 75W into a Windom antenna was used for the data station and there wasa good spread of European contacts, which included the special event GB1SLR (Stansted Light Railway) and others. The photo shows (left to right) Linda, Peter and Steve.
In related news, after their AGM in August the Bittern DX Group has a new Chairman: Peter G6ZRV (see second photo). Grateful thanks to Steve M0HET for his sterling work for the club over the last years. Steve will carry on with duties of training officer for the club.