Category Archives: Club News

Birthday Boy Gets Go Ahead For Annual Outing

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After missing out on his annual Birthday outing last year 2020 (because of Covid 19) Andy G7LRR plans his outing this year, to operate his birthday station for Lighthouse on the Air from JO03BN.
If you are wondering where that is, it is Spurn Head, the spit of land at the mouth of the River Humber, now a nature reserve run by the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust ( https://ywt.org.uk )
Over the last few years, the Humber Fortress DX ARC has had the privilege to have worked with YWT in operating from this rarely used locator square. (always around Andys birthday) The lighthouse is not operational anymore but acts as the visitor centre, still standing proud after all the years being bashed by the North Sea storms.
Logistics for getting on to the point for the event are dependent on tides, and for the 10 intrepid operators out on the point, which is nearly an island now since the breach a few years ago, becomes very isolated and dark, so dark you can see the night sky without the glare from modern life.
You have to be aware there is more wildlife than birds out there, foxes and stags are common, so take a torch at night and stay on the paths, during the day don’t touch the caterpillars.
Back to radio, I think I am going to save more for a follow-up after the event, I can include photos then. Listen out for GB2SL on most bands for the Lighthouse on the Air Weekend 21st and 22nd August, with lighthouse numbers Spurn High UK 0080 and Spurn Low 0081 coming from JO 03 BN.

Due to the tides, pack up will begin at about 14:30/15:00, hrs GMT or we will miss our lift until tomorrow, Monday 23rd

Yorkshire Wildlife Trust
International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend
Association of Lighthouse Keepers
Humber Fortress DX ARC.

73
John G6LNV
HFDXARC

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Posted in Club News, Events, Todays News

Phil M0VEY New Toy

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I just bought a secondhand Palstar AT4K ATU.. Just taken the atu out of my car and into the m0vey shack…

The first thing most of us would do is connect it up to the Transceiver and aerials in the shack… But not me..

First thing I want to do is take the cover off & see what’s going on “under the bonnet”..

Especially as the previous owner told me that it had been in storage over a year while he’d moved QTH…

Armed with this knowledge, I thought the first thing to do was give the atu an inspection & see if it wanted a service..

At first glance it looked quite tidy, but if you look close at the first 2 pics, you can see Mister Spider ??has been busy spinning a couple of webs ??..

These were soon removed with the hoover & duster combination..

All controls were checked for smooth operation & the Roller Coaster was also cleaned..

Mister Sheen shone the inside & outside of the lid & the covers were then put back on..

12v DC was connected & the lamp inside the cross needle meter lit up.. 

All in all a nice ATU.

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Posted in Club News

3/8 wave Inverted L for 160m

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Well we have the inverted L up in the air at last for 160m all 205 feet of it, and it tuned great using our reclaimed spc tuner the club had.

We have had to make a water proof housing for it , we did this with what we had laying around , it is nice to turn stuff you have in your sheds into useful things.

We have had good reports so far with it already, but as we operate more we will get a better picture.

Talking of pictures here is some photos as they speak better then words.

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Posted in Club News

Unadilla 40m trap refurbishment by Nick G0VQO

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As I find myself with spare time on my hands during lockdown.

I decided to pass some time resurrecting an 80m/40m  trapped dipole that I had used some years ago but took out of service as the traps had deteriorated.

On inspection I could see that the bolt fixing hardware was corroded and the resin former for the coils was cracked.

After removing them from the aerial  I made notes of how many turns there was on the coil then I removed the wire coil.

This revealed the cracks in the resin formers.  

I decided to use some epoxy resin the fill the crack.

The wire that I had removed was 1.6mm aluminium and it just happened to be the same wire I use on my quad elements.

I wound new coils on the former with an extra turn added.

I then measured the resonant frequency using my analyser and reduced the length of the coil to bring to resonance at 7.1Mhz and repeated the process with the other trap.

Once the aerial was assembled and raised to 40ft at the feed point in an inverted V configuration adjustments were made to the wire length for best SWR.

Its been in the air for a few weeks now and has been performing well.

A big thank you to Nick for the write up and photos

all the best from the Club and Good DX

 

 

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Posted in Club News
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