Club Night Tues 12th March 2023
We wanted to offer something different this week and so we set about offering members and visitors the opportunity to join us for a special evening of “Show and Tell which we called “Bring a Rig to Club”.
It was great to welcome visitors from Trowbridge, Bath and Malmsbury as well as our Club members.
Brian G6HUI opened up the activities with his Ten Tec Century 22 Transceiver . He certainly had a story to tell on this one as he had been a previous owner and by chance recently saw it advertised and bought it a 2nd time.
Next up was Jon G0IUE who brought along the old and the new. No pictures here but Jon brought an Icom IC-24G which was his first ever 2m FM radio. Although not his original one he described his early purchase before he was licenced and how the older radios often sound the best on air. Jon's second offering was a brand new Uniden PC78LTXFM a 40 channel USA CB Radio operating on 26.965 to 27.405 Mhz. Nothing new there until you see this USA radio also has FM as well as AM and Jon explained how the FCC in the USA had legalised FM on CB Radio in 2022 and new radios keep coming along for the USA and Canadian markets with FM included.
Shaun GOBKU from Trowbridge Club kindly showed us his Ten Tec Triton a 100w HF transceiver. In its day this was a high end transceiver akin to Elekraft in today’s market. One of the quirks of this radio is that the seven segment LED display is red except for the last segment which is green ! Both this and Brian’s Ten Tec are 50years old and both still working although the “Knicker” elastic on the pointer dial had broken on Brian’s Century 22 meaning that the dial did not work but Brian so enjoyed the Ten Tec “Convention” – his words !
Meanwhile Ron G1OKD brought along his brand new TYT UV380 2m/70cm handheld and shared with us he was keen to learn more about digital modes and had decided DMR as Chippenham had its own DMR Repeater GB7WW.
Next up was Andy 2E1GQX who shared a very interesting presentation about Scanning using his wide band Whistler Digital receiver and also his T320 Network radio explaining the link between Amateur, CB and Hobby radio enthusiasts communicating via the ZELLO app. I’m sure Andy will be back to provide us with more info about Network Radios and Scanning – keep an eye on our events page.
Next up was Jacek M0PLS who brought along a complete HF portable station. Jacek is a keen HF portable operator and brought along his Discovery 599 transceiver with matching linear plus two Li-Po battery packs and his super cool Buddipole HF antenna . He has used this radio many times at the club but also advised he has used it with his touring caravan. No doubt Jacek will be setting up his portable station on the Club playing field over the summer season.
Finally up stepped our Treasurer and Membership Secretary Dave G8TTI. Dave brought along two crystals; one for S19 (145.475) and the other S21 (145.525). These crystals are the only remaining component parts of a 144Mhz transmitter that Dave made from a Practical Wireless design that was published in the late 1970s. Dave brought a copy of the design and also the entries in his logbook from 1979 which showed how successful his homebrew 2m transmitter had performed.
Well we hope you enjoyed our overview from last night’s meeting. We are really grateful to our members and visitors for coming along.
We would love to see more of you coming to Club. This year we need this more than ever as membership and attendance levels need to be consistent enough to keep our meetings viable. Without you we may not be here when you look for us in the future. Please support us if you can.