Club Call G4HRS Est. 1938
The Journal of
Horsham Amateur Radio Club
January 2019
Affiliated to: Sponsored by:
1 Contents In this issue
3. Notes from the Editor A new year
4. AGM Report and congratulations
5. Puzzled The answers!
6. Hot night Invitation to Southwater
7. Quiz event Crawley Horsham club results
10. Mystery location DF Hunt revealed
13. Seasonal evening Review of Xmas party
16. Tuning in Latest broadcast news
19. Diary of events Full listings for the month
Cover photo: Merry Christmas from The Owl
Published by Horsham Amateur Radio Club HARCNEWS is produced at home by G4JHI
2 Editorial
Welcome to 2019 and I have been informed by some friends that a visa may be required to go abroad later this year! How exciting or perhaps not but in the true spirit of amateur radio we’re not going to discuss politics! Let’s hope the outcome is good for us all…. As in previous years the committee has been busy preparing a great diary of events which will include guest speakers, outings and holidays, pub visits and contests and the HARC / CARC Challenge.
This magazine will continue in the same format since the last facelift (although small changes might take place) and include the same columns with Broadcast Listener and TV Addict appearing in alternate editions. Perhaps a reader out there would like to create a new column? It could be perhaps one that only appears from time to time. Maybe a DX report for DX on the HF / VHF amateur radio bands or something like that? We wait to hear from you! I will wish all readers a prosperous new year.
David G4JHI
Copy deadline for emailed items for February edition 20th January - For written items the deadline is 12th January.
For items sent by email please send to this address:
Amendment
Pete G3LET advises of an error on page 5, line 2 of HARCNEWS December 2018. ‘This was not a single but a multi-op entry, with Alister G3ZBU making a valuable contribution to our winning score’.
3 December Meeting
AGM
The Chairman Adrian G4LRP hands over the Webb Cup Trophy to David 2E0NKC
The 2018 AGM started with apologies for absence and the 2017 minutes were read out and accepted. In matters arising a question was asked as to whether moving to a bank account with interest had been looked into. This was not thought to be cost effective with the work involved to sort out. The Chairman’s report was read and accepted. In the absence of the Treasurer the Chairman ran through the financial report.
The club funds were looking good for the year but subs may need to be reviewed in a years’ time. It was mentioned that the club’s equipment was under used but there was no need to sell as the club has sufficient funds. Two questions arose; the petty cash amount is high – this was due to the junk sale, there hadn’t been any raffles at junks sales during the year – it had been decided not to have any due to the low attendances at junk sales. The accounts were then accepted.
The elections of officers for 2019 were proposed the same as the previous year for Chairman G4LRP, Honorary Secretary G3ZBU, Treasurer G4TMC, Newsletter Editor G4JHI and Web Master M0TWM and were duly elected. The ordinary Committee members would remain the same number at three. Any other business brought some comments from the floor; Could the website be looked at with a view to put a full list of club achievements and GDPR compliance up on a prominent spot.
These issues would be looked at by the Committee. Members were encouraged to come onto the 2 metre club net and 80 metre Billingshurst and district net. It had been noticed by members that the club events hadn’t been listed in RadCom recently – this was due to difficulties with some of the club diary events changing. Keith G4JDM the South East Kent RSGB Regional Representative was in attendance who suggested advertising the club events in the magazine anyway. Following the end of the AGM business the Webb Cup was presented to David 2E0NKC for his excellent and well written column in HARCNEWS ‘Broadcast Listener’.
4 HARC Christmas Crossword Answers
by Mike, G8CKT
Solution
1 T R 2 B I A S N 3 S K 4 5 K I R E S E 6 C R Y S T A L 7 Q O A R R L 8 S D R Y 9 10 A L C T 11 12 N A G C O 13 14 F E T N A D A P T E R E B B 15 16 17 N I A R U A T U N F I N N 18 19 S M A L O A D U 20 R O S L N 21 22 23 B B O F C O M A H 24 25 L S B O U C K 26 N O I S E
5 HARC Winter Curry Night
It’s back once again the regular HARC Winter Curry Night! As in previous years the Curry night will be at the:
Haldi restaurant in Southwater at 8pm on Thursday 24th January. http://www.haldirestaurant.co.uk
Meet in the Lintot from 7:30pm. https://whatpub.com/pubs/NSX/178/lintot-southwater ( Group may be upstairs! )
If you would like to come along and join in, please let me know no later than Friday 18th January. g4lrp
6 CARC-HARC Challenge
This time we were hosted at Crawley’s HQ. HARC had two teams of 4. Off the top of my head we had G3ZBU, M0TWM, G70DN, G4LRP, G3OGP, G4TMC, G4EFO and G4ANN (apologies for errors and omissions!). A chap called Ted had organised 12 puzzles, alas we only had to deal with 11 because puzzle 8 was left back at his home…
The puzzles:
1. Estimate the frequency of a signal 2. Build a leak detector 3. Estimate the resistance of two mystery resistors 4. Demonstrate standing wave on radio feeder 5. Flags and call-signs quiz 6. Listen to audio tape and decode mystery word 7. Q code quiz 8. Guess the town 9. Decode the pictures 10. SWR quiz 11. Which Club? 12. What’s faulty?
Various items, that may or may not prove useful, were placed on a desk, such as straight lengths of model railway track, LEDs, transistors, wire, a box of resistors, chock-blocks, a tool-box without screwdrivers, wall-wart power supplies and a PP3 battery.
There was also a covered signal generator on the desk that would output the mystery frequency. The cover was so one could not read the display of frequency or the fact that its output was disabled…
We built a Wheatstone Bridge to try to find the value of the mystery resistors with a pair of LEDs connected together and used the box of resistors to find which values caused each LED to turn on. Both resistors were about 1.65k we thought. In fact the actual ones were 1.47k and 1.20k, so we were near but ‘nil points’.
The track seemed to be ideal to look for standing waves by sliding an LED along, but the disabled signal generator did not have enough power to light up the LED…
The Flags and Countries quiz was quite easy because a list of 15 countries and 18 call-signs were offered for 10 flags.
The audio tape was of Morse Code, so we all thought. No-one decoded the answer, because it was a ‘Numbers Stations’ type of code in which the total number of dots and dashes led to one page and word, respectively, of a book.
Needless to say, the Q-code quiz was not too bad with only a few unusual ones such as QRH, QTC and QTR. The full listing on the HARC website would have helped out: does my frequency vary, how many telegrams have you to send and what is the correct time?
Decode the Pictures was good fun. A list of answers to pictures 2 to 11 had to be filled in. There were unnumbered pictures of radio kit where the first letter of the manufacturer made an anagram, so it didn’t matter that the pictures were not numbered. One of the pictures was missing though…
7 The SWR quiz was to calculate the VSWR if the voltage reflected is 50%. Everyone seemed happy with that.
Then there was a list of 7 club call-signs such as G4FUR and G2LW. We had to write down the club. Again, not too bad and we got 4 correct. Coulsdon and Crystal Palace if you would like to know.
Finally What’s Faulty, a page from a technical training book with a circuit of a mains power supply with Zener diode regulation. A table of voltage readings at various points on the circuit for 6 different fault conditions was given. By looking at these voltages it was possible to find the faulty component responsible for each fault. Some faults could be caused by more than one culprit but we only had to suggest one. We got all 6.
The evening ended when we had exhausted ourselves; after scoring CARC won. Fortunately there was a crate of beer on offer to HARC so we didn’t return empty handed. Our thanks go to CARC for an enjoyable evening.
8 G3ZBU
9 December HARC Fox Hunt Results
Nine teams took part in the November HARC Fox Hunt with 2E0XRT (aided by G8CKT) as the Fox who was concealed in the National Trust car park on Lavington Common. The first team to locate the Fox was John, G3WZT, and Jan, closely followed by Andrew, M0GJH, and Janet. The winning team arrived in 45 minutes having overshot the Fox location in order to make a stop at the viewpoint at the top of Duncton Hill. This seems to have been a popular error as several hunters made the trek up the hill which aroused the curiosity of the owner of a parked camping van.
Other teams preferred diversions via Fittleworth and Cowdray and, for the very FIRST time G3SWC came LAST! With only one exception (due to technical problems) all teams managed to make it to the finish by 11.45 am. The Fox and hunters then retired to the Foresters in Grafham for an excellent lunch, joined briefly by Santa (alias G4EFO) who was en-route in his sleigh for Worthing. Finally, a big thank you goes to Rik, 2E0XRT, for providing hunters with a lengthy description of his Thermos flask!
The Fox location in the NT car park on Lavington Common
10 Path profile from Garlands Farm (left) to Lavington Common (right) The green ellipse shows the first Fresnel zone at 145MHz
Results and times
Position Team Time taken
1 John and Jan (G3WZT) 45 minutes
2 Andrew and Janet (M0GJH) 46 minutes
3 Steve and Maria (G4TPO) 47 minutes
4 Robin and John (G3OGP) 56 minutes
5 Alister and Paul (G4TMC) 60 minutes
6 Jon and Lucy (M0TWM) 90 minutes
7 John and Irene (G7DQF) 92 minutes
8 Bryn and Eva (G3SWC) 108 minutes
9 Jenny and Jim (G7BBP) -
11 Hunters at the Foresters in Grafham
Bryn waiting for the roast beef to arrive!
12 HARC Christmas Bash 2018
A new venue was established for the 2018 HARC Christmas dinner being The Owl at Kingsfold just to the north of Horsham on the A24. This turned out to be a fine and very enjoyable evening and we had much of the pub to ourselves. The service was fairly quick and portions about the right size. The Editor thought that the turkey flavour was good in particular and we finished the evening with the usual hot drinks but somehow G4JHI missed out on the chocolates but managed to find one on the way out! Now you can enjoy a selection of photos.
West side table
East side table
13 Still some wine left
A penny for your thoughts
14 Relaxing
Cheers
15 Broadcast Listener
Roundup by David Ansell 2E0NKC
All times UTC and frequencies in kHz
Short-wave
Many stations have moved to lower frequencies which have improved reception. Italian Broadcasting Corporation has “Short-wave Panorama” in English at 15:00 on Saturdays only on 6070 with DX and amateur radio news by IZ3GOM. Some news is sent in digital MFK-32. Adventist World Radio heard at 21:00 on 7270 via Moosbrunn, Austria. Radio Tirana is on 6005 via Kall, Germany Monday to Saturday at 13:30. Preceding this Voice of Mongolia has English 13:00 also on 6005 via Kall.
‘Reach Beyond Australia’ is the only station on short-wave now from Australia. Heard at 11:15 on 15575 with the “Spotlight” programme. Transmitter site is Kununurra in the north-west. Recently they caused protests by broadcasting Korean at 15:00 on 7290 in the 40 metre amateur band. ‘Intruder Watch’ and ‘VK’ amateurs soon got them to move! China Radio International now on 9425 and 9535 via Kashi at 15:00 and on 9875 from 16:00.
All India Radio was “missing” on 7550 for its evening service to the UK for several weeks but is back but alas in DRM mode. Voice of Islamic Republic of Iran on new 6040 at 19:20. Voice of America from Tinang Philippines has new slow speed English 11:30 on 15715 heard with good signal. Radio Romania International has made many changes; at 12:00 on 11825, 17800 and 15640; at 18:00 on 5935; at 21:30 on 6170, 7310 and 7375; at 23:00 on 5980, 7220, 7325 and 9620. Radio Slovakia has expanded English on 6005 at 15:30, 16:30, 12:00 and at 20:00 on 3985.
Channel Africa from Meyerton has English Monday to Friday at 17:00 on 15325. Radio Nacional España has expanded short-wave from four to eight hours daily. English is back on short-wave from Spain at 23:00 on 9690 Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Radio Thailand on new 7475 at 19:00 and 20:30 in English. This has greatly improved winter reception from the Udon Thani site in north- east Thailand. Broadcasts are from the Public Relations Department of the Royal Thai Government.
Voice of Turkey on new 12035 at 13:30, on new 6050 at 19:30 and new 5960 at 23:00. Vactican Radio on new 7230 with World News in English at 17:15. At 20:00 this station can be heard on 6010 and 7365 and at 16:30 on 13830. Mass in English is at 11:30 Fridays on 15595 and 17590. Voice of Hope, Zambia has English Saturdays at 16:00 on 13680. Transmitter site is Makeni Ranch, Lusaka. National Public Radio of Armenia heard at 16:30 on 4810 with ID “Yerevan Kosum” and national anthem. China National Radio, Urumchi heard at 16:45 on 4850 with Chinese melodies.
KSDA, Agat, Guam, Northern Marianas Islands, West Pacific heard with English ID then Russian on 9640 at 11:00. Radio T8WH, Palau heard at 11:00 on 9930 with English religious programme. Shannon Volmet, Eire can be heard on 3413.20 USB evenings with WX reports. Charleston Radio International heard on 5140 at 21:00 with dance tunes.
16 Chinese Standard Time and Frequency Station ‘BPM’ heard at 21:00 on 5000 with CW ID then ID in Chinese by a woman and then time “pips” each second. Transmitter is at Pucheng, Shaanxi Province in East China. Radio WRMI, Okeechobee, Florida was off air for many months after antenna damage due to hurricanes. However it was noted back on 15570 at 15:00 with sound relay of Supreme Master Television ( see http://suprememastertv.com/en1/ ). Programme was called “Noteworthy News”.
China Tibet Broadcasting, has English “Holy Tibet” programme on 6130 at 16:00. Reports to China Tibet Broadcasting, 41, Beijing Zhonglu, Lhasa, Xizang 850000, China. Voice of Tigray Revolution heard at 16:00 on 5950 from Addis Ababa with local music and language. Radio Wewn, Birmingham, Alabama, USA heard at 10:00 on 9470 with “Chapel of Divine Mercy” programme.
A mystery test transmission was heard at 12:00 on 5975. Reception reports were requested to be sent to testtransmission
Medium-wave
DX signals this winter have been stronger than usual. China National Radio, Xingyang, Hube I Province heard at 22:00 on 1377 with ID in Chinese, time signal and time given in Beijing time. China Radio International signs on at 16:59 in Russian on 1521 with Chinese music and ID in Chinese and Russian from Urunchi. One day the signal was stronger than co-channel two megawatt Saudi Arabian transmitter.
New DX is Asianet Radio from Al-Dhabbiya, United Arab Emirates on 1539. Recently it QSY-ed from 657. Heard evenings Trans World Radio, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan signs on at 1645 with “jingles”. Signal is weak with heterodyne interference from Iranian transmitter off frequency. One evening Voice of America, Pinheira, Sao Tome E Principe on 1530 was as strong as a local station. All the above MF DX was on my Sony portable with internal ferrite rod antenna! This allows me to null out unwanted co-channel stations.
Digital
‘Glen Hauser’s’ “World of Radio” programme is now on Saturdays at 17:00 on Sky EPG 0122.
World Radio and TV Handbook
2019 has arrived. More details in the “Bring Show and Tell” at January 3rd club meeting.
17 QSL’s received
G0HEL/P ‘White Horse’, Westbury, Wiltshire IO81WG – card for QSO on 432.235 MHz
China Radio International 9675 via Jinhua, Zhejiang – card, schedule and report forms received
EV. Missions Gemeinden 6055 via Nauen, Germany – card
Adventist World Radio, 7270 via Moosbrunn, Austria – card, schedule and personal letter from AWR HQ in Bracknell, Berkshire
Deutscher Wetterdienst, Pinneberg, 6180 JO43VQ – card schedule received
Voice of Hope, Makeni Ranch (22 miles south-west of Lusaka), 13680 – card showing TC! Model 527 super high gain log-periodic antenna
18 Diary
Jan 1st, HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Jan 3rd, Club Night: Bring Show Tell
Jan 5th, 80m-40m AFS CW (Super League) 13:00 - 17:00
Jan 13th, 80m-40m AFS Data (Super League) 13:00 - 17:00
Jan 17th, Social Evening: The White Horse Inn - Maplehurst http://www.facebook.com/whitehorsemaplehurst
Jan 19th, 80m-40m AFS SSB (Super League) 13:00 - 17:00
Jan 24th, Winter Curry Night - Haldi - Southwater (G4LRP) http://www.haldirestaurant.co.uk
Feb 4th, 80m SSB Club Championship
Feb 7th, Club Night: From Key to TV!
For details on the above contests use this link and follow to the appropriate section http://rsgb.org/main/radio-sport
All above times are UTC
Committee/Club Meetings and Socials start at 20:00
19