We are deeply saddened by the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Our thoughts are with the King and the whole Royal Family at this sad time.

With immense sadness, I must report the following from Judith Bedwell, Graham’s wife. UPDATE 27th July:

You will be pleased to hear the celebration of his life was very well
attended both in general and by RADARC members. I suspect there were many BBC folk there too. The church was full.

“It is with great sadness that I write to tell you that Graham passed away on 9^th July 2022, having had a severe stroke on 6^th May.

A service of thanksgiving for Graham has been arranged as follows:

Venue: Rose Street Methodist Church, Rose Street, Wokingham, Berkshire, RG40 1XS

Time: 2.30pm

Date: Wednesday 27^th July 2022

Should you wish to attend, you would be most welcome to help the family celebrate Graham’s 80 years of life. As you probably know, Graham didn’t like formality, so we would encourage you to attend in bright and casual clothing.

We would ask you not to buy flowers, but would welcome any donations you might wish to make to one of two charities close to Graham’s heart; the RNLI (The Royal National Lifeboat Institution) and Action for Children.

Any donations in Graham’s memory may be made via:

Website: www.abwalker.co.uk

Email: heidi@abwalker.co.uk

Tel: 0118 978 4040

Please note that parking is limited in the car park adjacent to the church and in Rose Street itself, but there are two public car parks a short walk across town off Easthampstead Road (East Car Park, RG40 2EG and Easthampstead Road West Car Park, RG40 2EH).”

Chris G0JTN writes:

Graham, 
Where ever you are I hope you are keeping all the PAT testing up to date and that all the PA systems are working well. I will miss our evenings about this time of year going through all your collection of excellently maintained audio gear. Inspection and test was always an important part of your maintenance regime keeping the equipment in tip top condition. The club benefited greatly from your outside broadcast skills that you learned at the BBC.

You will be greatly missed.

Chris G0JTN

Brett 2E0HFW writes:

If there was a film in the style of Oceans 11 of Radio Amateurs, Graham would be in it.  

And like the film, Graham was one of the “A listers” in the local amateur club and brought with him many specialist skills. For starters he was a technical master in broadcast audio and above all an amazing Story Teller.

Graham had lived his life to the max, travelling the world and meeting many people, which gave him the material for many stories, which he would entertain us with on club evenings and nets.

One such net runs on 80m on a Tuesday morning, which I listen to occasionally.   Once the net had finished today I popped up just to say my good bye to him, in the hope he was listening on his new fancy radio in heaven.  

RIP Graham. You will be missed.
Brett 2E0HFW

“He was involved in a few different scout events that included Amateur radio, we had the RSGB satellite Van at Wings in Windsor park a week of International Scouts visiting the station, think he also did JOTA as well as many years at three Towers checkpoints including East Isley” — Ian G6IZA

From Charles Coultas:

During the pandemic, my doorbell rang. I gingerly opened the door and there stood Graham Bedwell, portable short wave receiver in his hand squealing away. Graham lives about 150 yards, line-of-sight from me. I got to know Graham through my work at Bletchley Park computer museum.

“There’s something broadcasting a strange noise on about 3.5Megs, and it seems to be coming from here.” he said.

“Well that’s very unlikely” said I, I am not an amateur but I do have have lot of electronic gear running in the house.

He stayed outside (distancing regs of course) while I went upstairs and started turning things off. He suspected a Chinese wall-plug power supply, I have lots of these. Eventually there was a triumphant shout from the open front door:

Graham: “That’s it, what did you turn off?”

Me: “The digital class D power amplifier that was driving two long unscreened cables to two loudspeakers”

Graham: “Well don’t turn it on again please!”

Me: “Very sorry, I now realise that class D amps modulate a carrier, up towards the megahertz region”

Graham: “Hmmph, that’s all right”. He walked back to his house standing a little taller.

Graham was a passionate defender of the airwaves – He cared deeply about the hobby and in particular, that the bands should be clear of man-made noise for the benefit of other amateurs.

That was the last time i saw Graham, my love and best wishes to Judith and his friends.

Charles Coultas

Ian Alderton G6IZA:

“He was involved in a few different scout events that included Amateur radio, we had the RSGB satellite Van at Wings in Windsor park a week of International Scouts visiting the station, think he also did JOTA as well as many years at three Towers checkpoints including East Isley”

From Simon G6ZTZ:

A photo of Graham “Ace” Bedwell (as he was known).

With Keith Burton on the right and Stanley Unwin centre

Colin M0XCA writes:
“Such sad news. I have often listened to Graham on the radio and the RaDARC Nets and will miss hearing him and his BBC memories.”

—

Graham was always someone I aspired to. Immensely talented and well known for his love of all things audio, it may be less well known his knowledge of radio and RF generally was second to none. Always miles ahead of me, his wit was always a pleasure to experience either in person or on air. But a kindler, gentler soul you could not wish to meet.

Graham was ever generous, particularly in his support for RADARC for which we owe a huge debt of gratitude.

RIP Graham. You will be missed.

John G4RDC

We were recently delighted to welcome Charles Coultas for his club presentation on “The discovery of encrypted radio signals, both Enigma and Lorenz leading to the development of Colossus” for a lecture covering:
– Why Bletchley Park was chosen, and who worked there
– Government concerns about what is going on in wartime
– Alan Turing who joined at the outbreak of WW2
– Enigma, how it works and how it was broken by Turing
– The purpose and importance of radio communications
– The mathematicians at Bletchley Park
– A light hearted dip into some aspects of cryptography
– The strange radio signals from 1941, what they were and how the code was broken, and how this shortened the war
– How the “computer” came about and Turing’s part in it

We’re pleased to say you can re-watch Charles’ whole presentation right here:

With thanks as always to our video editor Chloe 2E0JPM.

Further to the January 2022 RadCom article entitled “A Collaboration of Enthusiasts”, we recently welcomed club member Paul Hearn who gave us an introduction to Radio Astronomy and the UK Radio Astronomy Association.

Paul kindly gave his presentation in person at our new venue, the Scout hut. There’s something for all wavelengths here from VLF to microwaves!

You can re-watch the full presentation right here. Don’t forget to check out all of our other videos on our YouTube channel.

Following on from his November 2021 RADCOM article “Amateur radio and the arrival of the transistor” we recently welcomed Duncan James, M0OTG as our guest presenter.

Duncan gave an excellent talk showing the historical development of the transistor through the ages from primitive laboratory pieces through to today’s hyper-miniaturised devices.

You can watch Duncan’s talk again right here:

If you are interested in joining RADARC for our meetings either in-person or online, please check out the Membership page of our website.

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.

We are stunned to hear of the sudden loss of Bill G4WJS:

“Sad news and so suddenly for him to be taken from us.  I remember when Bill moved to Stokenchurch and his tower went up and I spoke to him just before we moved from that high location. Bill treated everyone the same and would help with his knowledge, a sad loss to us all. “ — Min G0JMS

“A most helpful gentleman. I had several contacts with him on the Bracknell 70 CM repeater using a Baofeng BFT-1 mini walkie talkie on the Sunday 1700Z net. SK was most unexpected.  DE G4ELD“

“That is very sad news indeed, he helped me a lot and he was always available. Even when his status on Discord was set to offline he was often still monitoring and answering. I worked him many times from home and from S5 in different modes, not just FT8, and only last week we discussed possible solutions to my windows-10 laptop crashing repeatedly. He will be missed,R.I.P. Bill G4WJS” — Michael M0MPM

“Bill was humble yet definitive at the same time! He is very well known in Amateur circles because he got involved in lots of conversations with new and old amateurs a like. You’d not necessarily know, that this man was instrumental in one of the leading digital modes that is used by many ham radio enthusiasts on the planet. Bill made his mark in so many ways. He is a seriously clever bloke! His depth of knowledge and understanding of a myriad of topics was outstanding. When Bill gave an opinion on something, you’d get the feeling that he had played through the thought process that came to the decision like a master chess player. Checkmate every time. Bill really knew his stuff. He was very kind with sharing his knowledge. He held strong to things he believed in. Bill was a star. The shiniest of stars, but he wouldn’t subscribe to that opinion of him. He would just carry on shining. ” — Brett 2E0HFW

“Bill helped me with many activities including testing my new 2m and 70cm antennas, my first MS contacts and my first EME contacts.   He even persuaded me to try a 2m Ionsospheric scatter contact (yet to be achieved).  We had lots of discussions both on the air and via Discord and Zoom.   Bill was a true inspiration. RIP Bill” — Mike G4CDF

“I first met Bill around 20 years ago when he moved to Stokenchurch and became active on the VHF Bands. We had a common interest in VHF dxing and Contests. Bill was degree educated, Chemistry if I remember correctly, but worked as a Software Engineer for local companies. My background was in mechanical engineering, so we were able to readily exchange ideas. During the following years we did many contests together from 160m to 70cm with the Maidenhead Amateur Radio Club of which we were both members and of which he eventually became Chairman. Following the clubs demise, we both joined the Reading club of which he was an active member until his death.

During our early exchanges I mentioned that I was using a piece of software called WSJT which had originally been given to me in 2002 at the Prague EME conference and updated at subsequent EME conferences. We spent many hours discussing this and my hardware disasters trying to use it. Following a call for help by Joe Taylor sometime around 2008, we discussed how he may be able to help. That led to his involvement with the WSJT-X program.

Bill had endless patience and had the unique ability to resolve issues over email in a way that very few people could. I remember one evening, we were doing a Pub Quiz, in the interval he was answering questions posed to him on the WSJT reflector, and there were many, all answered with the same patience and understanding.

More recently during the recent SV5/HB9COG EME dxpedition, there was a problem with the way Q65 was treating compound callsigns, Bill was able to remote into my shack PC and effectively sit on my shoulder and see what was going on in the software that was causing the decoding problem.

RIP Bill, you will be fondly remembered. ” — Dave G4RGK

Terrible news, hugely shocking. In amongst the tributes flooding in, there is a very touching tribute from Paul G4YKQ on the WSJT-X mailing list which I would like to draw people’s attention to: https://wsjtx.groups.io/g/main/message/30558. On November 14th, Bill sent the following photo of the birds on his mast to the antennas channel on the club’s Discord. It stood out from the noise to me somehow. I wanted to share it a little wider, I hope you don’t mind. — Tom M0LTE

Bill said “Getting to that time of Year when the Starlings really like aerials to perch on.”

Whilst most will know of Bill through WSJT-X, we were privileged to see many different sides to Bill. He loved amateur radio in all its forms. This shone through in his contributions to the club. He was equally at home encouraging newcomers or working through some tricky technical issue with the most experienced members on anything from RF/electronics to propagation queries. His knowledge and experience were truly vast.

As has been noted elsewhere, his clarity of thought was legendary. This wasn’t just evident technically. My phone QSOs via GB3BN with Bill when out walking were a delight. It’s a measure of the man that he could go to the most technically rarefied areas of the hobby such as weak signal work at VLF but still be quite happy to have a chat on 70cm FM.

It goes without saying his contribution to to WSJT-X is vast terms of code written. More often that not, Bill would be “pulling a release together” or working through some tests – never the easiest of tasks. His diligence and thoughtfulness in his support work speak for themselves.

Bill loved writing code. Any software engineers out there know what I mean. To this end, he had a few projects lined up involving microcontrollers, FPGAs and DACs. It’s impossible to believe they won’t now happen.

I only ever know Bill through local QSOs or through online media such as video conferencing or the club online discussion forum. His presence was always such that I can hardly believe this is the case.

A star that shone so brightly.

RIP Bill.

John

G4RDC

RADARC Secretary

Update 29th January 2022

Bill got a great sendoff yesterday at Amersham. A beautifully conducted service by a close friend, we learned of Bill’s other passions including fast cars (preferably being driven by him), real ale/beer, sailing, scouting and the great outdoors. A difficult day for everyone (I can certainly attest to that) but a get-together at a fine establishment in Bolter End provided a chance for us to support each other and celebrate his life. I’m not sure Bill would approve of the “celebration of him” bit, but he would certainly would approve of us all enjoying a drink together.