The Club participated in the ‘Railways on The Air’ weekend of the 27/28th September. The venue was, as in previous years, the Bideford Heritage Railway located at the old Bideford station at East the Water.
Unfortunately, on the day we only had John G3JKL, Alan 2E0EUZ and Mike G4KXQ able to support with the setup and operation. Terry G4CHD had to withdraw at the last minute due to illness. We were assisted by Ben 2E0FTZ during the day but for most of the time was just the three of us taking 20 minute stints at operator, logger and a short rest period. As per previous years we concentrated on 40m as a single band operation on SSB. A total of 130 QSO were worked, of which 17 were other Special Events Stations. We were active all day but were very conscious of a lot of stations were calling up but they were buried under quite high S9 noise. This was confirmed by Mike PGA who could hear lots of stations trying to contact us and failing.. Perhaps we should investigate alternative locations for next year. The operation continued until around 1600Z when we decided to draw stumps.

Sadly, due to the threat of high winds and rain, we have decided to cancel our participation in this years event. Hopefully we can do something else over the summer.

After a break last year, ADARC will be back at Bideford park, operating our club station, using GX2FKO. If you can come along to help set up, the current plan is to get the equipment on site before 9, and set up by 10am. Vehicles need to be moved off site by 10:30. This is further complicated by the park run from 9-10am, so no vehicles will be able to get on site during this time – you will be able to walk items on and off the park, but vehicle movement is prohibited to ensure the safety of the runners. And don’t forget, we also need volunteers for teardown at 4pm! Please join in with operating and logging too 🙂

The Railways On The Air (ROTA) weekend special event at East The Water was a great success with 159 stations worked on 40m, of which 16 were with other ROTA stations. Considering operating was only on the Saturday with 5 operators (roughly a contact every 2.5 mins) then everyone who came and helped is to be applauded and greatly thanked: Radio ops- Mike KXQ, Terry CHD Graham GRA, John JKL, Colin NBO, with Mike PGA and Dave IXK assisting.

Come along to our 3rd, 1st to the buzzer quiz! Test your radio knowledge and have some fun.

This month’s Meeting on August 21st is a talk by Martin Lynch (G4HKS) on the history of his World Famous Ham Radio Store. This is thanks to Mike (G3PGA) and definitely a
date for your diary, so look forward to seeing many of you there.