|
|
Homepage for Mid Warwickshire Amateur Radio Society
Amateur Radio in Mid Warwickshire
|
Mid Warwickshire
Amateur Radio Society
Call signs
G3UDN & G6WAR
Repeater frequencies:
145.775 (GB3WK) and 433.250 (GB3MW)
|
Open to all with an interest in radio communication. |
Warwickshire Avon RAYNET Group
Raynet details |
|
Not brilliant news regarding the future prospects for high frequency communications. The eleven year sunspot cycle has long been known to create good or bad conditions for long distance reception of high frequency radio waves. For the past 3 or 4 years things have been difficult and we have been looking forward to an upturn. But now there is, we understand, some quite pessimistic news:
|
|
|
Advanced Notice: Field Day 2009: see "Events Page".
Members and invited guests - visit a meeting for further information (e.g. meeting-up time/ location).
|
|
|
Delfi-C3 satellite news.
One of our members has recently downloaded telemetry from this amateur radio satellite using the software which is available from the Delfi-C3 website. He uses a steerable quad antenna and this gives an adequate signal soon after the satellite comes above the horizon at about 1400 miles distance.
The satellite size, excluding small solar panels, is 15X15X45 cms, and it has no batteries so is only active when in sunlight. The downlink is on 145.875 MHz plus and minus Doppler and a connection is required between the receiver audio output and the computer soundcard (as for terrestrial PSK reception).
See the Delfi website for more details including current operating mode.
There are many programs, which predict the details of satellite passes, and which can be downloaded from amateur radio websites, including Amsat.org.
|
|
Link of the month: Finding an unknown location using intersecting bearings. This is also known as triangulating as per this link.
Direction finding is a topical subject in view of this month's event (see Events Diary page).
When locating an unknown transmitter, bearings ("DF bearings") are taken from widely separated points. Depending on the accuracy of the bearings, and the 'base-line' separation of the locations used for observing the direction of the signals, the unknown transmitter location may be estimated.
The traditional way of doing this has been with ruler, pencil and map, but this falls down when the unknown transmitter - which is probably illegal given that it refuses to tell us where it is - fails to oblige by positioning itself off the map which shows where we (i.e. the observers) are.
GPS (proper GPS for walkers and navigators, that is) has a built-in triangulation facility which gets over this problem. However such advanced technology is not needed where distances are short compared to the radius of the Earth. Then the curvature of the Earth may be ignored and the angles of a triangle drawn on it assumed to add up to 180 degrees.
See the Wikipedia entry here on how to do the elementary calculations to get the full co-ordinates of the unknown transmitting station. To complete the picture the base-line separation may be easily found (at least in the UK) using co-ordinate differences and applying Pythagoras' formula.
|
|
|
The Mid Warwickshire Amateur Radio Society (MWARS) is a club for radio amateurs - or indeed anyone interested in radio or radio Mrelated technology - to practise and learn more about this mode of communication.
The society normally meets on the 2nd & 4th Tuesdays of the month with a break during August. Activities include talks, demonstrations, visits and 'on-air' operating (see diary for forthcoming meetings and events and archive for summaries of past events).
We offer would-be radio amateurs all the necessary preparation for the examinations which qualify you to become a Radio Amateur. So you can enjoy the hobby to the full, and, with your UK licence, continue to enjoy amateur radio communications when travelling abroad.
Please contact M0JDB for more info.
Our normal venue is the St. John Ambulance headquarters, 61 Emscote Road,Warwick, CV34 5QR, but sometimes meetings are held elsewhere. We are always pleased to see new people at our meetings, but please do contact the Secretary for confirmation beforehand.
Further details of the society's activities can be obtained from the Secretary. If you would like to find out more about amateur radio try the web sites listed here.
|
|
Brief summary of the Amateur Radio scene in 2008/9.
In the UK you don't need a licence to listen to amateur transmissions, but one is required to transmit and so contact other licensed amateurs.
Since 2006 the licence is free! (Providing you register on-line, much easier than writing a letter......)
A very wide range of different frequencies is allocated for amateur use, from extremely high frequency where contact is limited virtually by line of sight, through 'short wave' bands where intercontinental contact is common, right down to frequencies which are so low that it is difficult to get more than a few milliwatts of power launched from the aerial. There are very many enjoyable technical challenges which can be met by both 'off the shelf' purchased equipment and home-built kit.
To become a licensed UK amateur a short (two weekends') period of study is all that is now required - and the need to take a Morse test has been dropped. (But see below..)
Regarding the new licence qualification requirements, we can help arrange places for novices on the appropriate course.
We have put some pictures on this site to give some flavour of amateur radio in the 21st century: picture gallery
Footnote about Morse Code: Morse and other non-voice modes are not "dead"! If anything, because of the advantages of digital modes of communication, they have a wider following now than at any time in the past 20 years. Your journey of exploration into this very much non-dead mode could start with the American Radio Relay League site. ...... or you could go straight to the ARRL 5 words per minute downloads for your mp3 player. Faster (i.e. 7.5 ,10 and upwards words-per-minute) recordings are available in a graded series.
|
To find out more, come along and see and talk to us by contacting us via this link........also see our RSGB members only website here..
Raynet on Fridays and Sundays at 21:40 local time. Frequency 144.650 plus or minus 25 Khz.
Pages created by John Pollard, M0JDB.. |
 |
|
It doesn't have to pretty! Out of sight, but highly functional, this loft antenna is made out of ordinary flex. It works well enough to contact the world on the 20 metre amateur waveband. |
| Picture credits: Rod (G0FBY) ; Roger (M0RJG) ; Fred Pauling ; Brian (G4DF) |
| Return to the top of the page |
Last Updated: 18/5/2009
|
