Recent events
- 20th December 2024 – Christmas meeting with awards presentation
- 20th November 2024 – WW-Digi contest official results. We are #3 in the World !
- 2nd November 2024 – Deverall Hall 100th Anniversary
- 28th – 29th September 2024 – Ropley Station “Railways on the Air” 2024
- 6th April 2024 – FT4 International Activity Day
- Older events
(upcoming events may be found in the club calendar)
2024 Christmas meeting / Awards presentation
A fun evening with prize giving, good food, a quiz and a raffle. Here are just some of the awards handed out on the night.
The G4BEQ CW Achievement award for learning and improving skills in Morse Code
Martin G8IQL receives the Platinum award.
Nick G4ACW receiving the Gold award.
The 6 metre award for operating excellence, in memory of Stuart G0FYX
We were very honoured to have Stuart’s wife Maureen visit our club to see the presentation of the award in memory of her late husband.
The award was won this year by Rod G0ERS.
The Constructors award in memory of Ray Coley G3IFF
Nick wins the constructors expert section.
Claude M7TQZ receiving the novice award.
WW-Digi Contest
In August this year, our club assembled a team of ten members to participate in the annual WW-Digi contest. We came third in the world in our entry category. Sadly, not all participants were able to attend the Christmas meeting, but those that did each received a certificate.
Other awards
Nick wins the Alan Blake M0SNT memorial Trophy for his training achievments this year.
The HDARC award goes to Rod G0ERS. This is a fun contest where participants try to make QSOs until the last letter of each callsign completes a 56 letter phrase. The phrase changes for each years contest.
Thank you to Pete M3DCJ for providing all the food and drink, to Rod G0ERS for creating the quiz questions and to all others who helped.
2024 World Wide Digi DX Contest results
Between the 24th and 25th August, our club participated in the World Wide Digi DX contest in the “Multi Operator, One transmitter, Low Power” category. This was a 48 hour event, and our ten operators were split into teams, each doing a shift of about 6 hours.
Official results are now in, and we have bettered our last year’s placement.
This year we are #1 in England, #1 in Europe and #3 in the World !
Deverall Hall 100th Anniversary
Recently, our meeting venue Deverall Hall celebrated its 100th anniversary. As part of their celebrations, all regular hall users were invited to set up a display stand to inform visitors of the activities of their group.
Present on our stand were Simon and Julia, and our station master Adrian who shared his time between talking to stand visitors, and giving live demonstrations.
A video from the RSGB was playing on the laptop encouraging young people to become involved in amateur radio.
Upstairs, Adrian had set up a radio station, and was demonstrating digital communication using the FT8 data mode. Many contacts were made to destinations in Europe and the USA, and a few voice mode contacts were also made.
As well as embracing modern digital communication modes, our club encourages its members to understand and become active in traditional communication skills such as Morse code.
On our stand, we had set up a morse code practice key. This generated many comments from visitors who had operated ‘CW’ in the services. It also captured the attention of two young girls who had a wonderful time sending their names in code.
They did so well that Julia presented them with certificates, and we hope that they will consider amateur radio as a hobby in future years !
It was a very busy and enjoyable event, and we greatly value the opportunity given to us to participate.
Ropley Station “Railways on the Air” 2024
During the September ‘ROTA’ weekend, our club had the special event station ‘GB9WCL’ operational at Ropley station on the historic Watercress line.
The old waiting room was made available to us for the entire weekend, and in there we had three desks which were working 2m, HF FT8 and 40m SSB.
The 40m SSB desk was the most busy, with many pile-ups to be managed, and eventually clocking up nearly 140 QSOs over the weekend. And at times we had a canine supervisor to watch over the proceedings !
Simon and Julia hard at work on the 2 metre desk.
Ralph working FT8
A great fun weekend, and a big thank you to Jon M0VVX for obtaining the special event call sign and making all the arrangements with the station management.
