The RADARC Construction Contest 2022 was great success with so many brilliant entries it was almost impossible to choose a winner.
Joint second prize winners where Chris G0JTN with his SINAD meter and Denis G4KWT with his 70cms repeater for RayNet.
First prize went to Mike G8GYW for his HF QRP Power and SWR meter.
All the other entries where of a very high standard, a frankly all deserved a prize – thank you to Loz G2DD for organising it and to all those who entered and came along, it was a very enjoyable evening.
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 9th July 2022, having had a severe stroke on 6th 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 27th 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.
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).”
Graham G3XYX SK
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.
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
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!
In January, we were delighted to welcome the one and only Dr. Bob Heil K9EID for a talk entitled “The Science of Audio”.
Bob really needed no introduction. This talk is a “must” for radio amateurs and music fans. A tech pioneer in the 60s/70s rock scene he’s worked with many of the “greats” including Joe Walsh, Peter Frampton and Jeff Beck and sets the “gold standard” in audio.
He went on to define “the state of the art” in amateur radio audio with products many of you will be familiar with though “Heil Sound” and continues to innovate in all things tech. He’s too prolific for us to even begin to scratch the surface of what he’s done.
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.
Website for the Reading And District Amateur Radio Club
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