Thought I’d put up a note that ALL this weekend is the CQ World-Wide WPX SSB contest. This is one of the very busiest weekends on HF for the entire year, and is a great opportunity to get some contacts on HF, even if you’re not a contester. Large contest stations with very capable receive antennas, which would not normally be on the air, will be operating worldwide – so you will be heard by more stations and further away than normal. People will want to work you.

Don’t be daunted by the fact it’s a contest – there’s no requirement to enter formally (though it’s encouraged) and all you have to do to complete a contact in this contest is give the report (always 5/9) and a number which you increment by 1 each time. For example, “you are 5/9 001”, “you are 5/9 002” etc. If you did want to enter, a contest logger is recommended (I like N1MM+) but not required – look on cqwpx.com for setup instructions for N1MM+.

Many large stations will be sitting there calling CQ continuously on one frequency for literally hours at a time. There will be busy times with huge pile-ups and quieter times where you’ll easily make the QSO. Rich pickings to be had for these on Sunday afternoon – work your way up a whole band and make easy QSO after QSO.

The permitted bands are: 160m, 80m, 40m, 20m, 15m and 10m.
Times are 0000 UTC tonight to 2359 UTC Sunday, i.e. 48 hours.
The full set of rules is here: https://www.cqwpx.com/rules.htm

Good luck, have fun!

Recently RADARC welcomed Dave Porter, G4OYX, as our guest presenter for an evening talk.

Dave is a well known author from, among others, VMARS’ magazine Signal, and joins us for a talk entitled “HF + No PTT”. I wonder what that could be about? Here’s a clue: the transmit powers involved are somewhat higher than most of us are accustomed to.

Join Dave G4OYX as he loses 249,750 Watts, goes “professional in Europe with home-brew”, but is on the air without a PTT!

Don’t forget to check out the club Events page for upcoming talks, also announced on the RADARC mailing list as well as our Discord discussion server – click the links to join either.

Recently RADARC was privileged to be given a talk by Mike Gloistein GM0HCQ of the British Antarctic Survey about his experiences past and present with said survey, on board the newly commissioned Research Vessel Sir David Attenborough.

Mike has worked for the British Antarctic Survey for over thirty years. Initially sailing as a Radio Officer until GMDSS came along, then as a Communications Officer and now as an Electronics Officer on board the RRS Sir David Attenborough.

In 2004 Mike was awarded the Polar Medal by Her Majesty the Queen.
During his time with the Survey Mike has operated as GM0HCQ/MM, VP8CMH/MM, VP8ROT, VP8SGK and VP8SIG.

Mike shared with us a hugely illuminating exposé of what it’s really like to live and work in this kind of environment – from technical, through practical and all the way to dealing with the local wildlife, of which there is plenty!

We are delighted to share our recording of Mike’s talk right here:

Don’t forget that RADARC have a YouTube channel where more of our talks and other content get posted when we can.

Hope you are all keeping safe and also well hydrated in this heat!

Some members may not know that RADARC is now running a Discord server. Discord is an internet-based chat tool that runs quietly in the background, and is great for those times between meetings that you just remember something you want to discuss, either to someone specific at the club, or as an open discussion. It’s much more lightweight and quick turnaround than email is.

It’s available for Windows, Macs, iPhones and Android phones, is free, and pretty easy to use once you’re up and running. There’s been lots of interesting chat already on lots of different topics, and you can mute what you’re not interested in. The only thing missing is you!

If you’re interested, ping someone on the committee directly for an invite, or email committee @ radarc.org.

Over the past few weeks I’ve put together a portable setup for operating our new geostationary satellite, and demoed it a couple of times at club meetings.

I promised I’d write it up- and so here’s the resulting article.

A few quick snaps taken of our members Michael M0MPM, Harry G3NGX and Jim G0LHZ enjoying a play with some man-portable vintage ex-military gear. With one of the radios dating back to WWII, and with the split frequency operating figured out, at least one legitimate QSO was had, with good reports both ways. With the solar cycle in full swing a new DX record was set, with a mighty 0.2km achieved across the front of the rugby club.

With thanks to our members for supplying the pictures.

Heard of QO-100? Also known as Es’hail 2, the first geostationary satellite carrying amateur radio transponders launched from Kennedy Space Center at 20:46 GMT on Thursday, November 15, 2018 and is now in a geostationary orbit at 25.9° East. These are the first amateur radio transponders to be put into geostationary orbit and the satellite footprint covers an area from Brazil to Thailand. The transponders are very wideband indeed, and have been designed to be relatively straightforward to access. Being a wide linear transponder, there’s plenty of room, but also plenty of activity, and the activity is in all sorts of modes, including digital ATV, digital voice, CW and SSB. The downlink is 10GHz and the uplink is 2.4GHz. These frequencies are no coincidence…

Receiving QO-100 is a matter of connecting an inexpensive commercial LNB, like you’d find on the arm of any Sky dish, to a suitable power supply via a bias-T, to an inexpensive SDR connected to your PC, including the RTL USB dongles, or indeed to any wideband multi-mode receiver that covers 7-800MHz. An unused Sky installation could be used pretty much as-is, by simply tweaking the dish to point to a very slightly different point in the sky – 25.9°. Indeed there are reports of QO-100 being heard via Sky dishes while the dish is still aligned on the Sky constellation at 28.2°E. PLL-equipped LNBs are better, but not essential.

Once you have a receiving setup sorted, it’s time to turn your attention to the transmitting side. The uplink is in the 13cm amateur allocation, adjacent to 2.4GHz Wi-Fi. There is a lot of room for creativity here, and lots of options. OE5HSR has pulled together an excellent PDF, which is pretty much a must-read for this topic. You can find this here.

I’m sure that some of our members will be having a go at working this unique satellite, and if you’re one of them, we’d absolutely love to hear from you at one of our show-and-tell evenings, or even better a live demo!

72000km+ SSB QSOs using a couple of watts and some recycled gear? Yes please!

Credit: AMSAT-UK for orbital and footprint information