OPEN UNIVERSITY AMATEUR RADIO CLUB
NEWS LETTER no:1
G0OUR Affiliated to the OU Club and the Radio Society of Great Britain
Welcome to the first OUARC news letter. It is hoped to produce these on an informal basis from time to time to keep members who are not able to attend club meetings regularly, up to date with goings on.Ted Fountaine has reported that the planning application for the clubs mast has been approved. This is great news, and the many members who have put so much effort into this project can now breathe a sigh of relief!
The mast is a 60' crank up/tilt over type, with a 15' aluminium extension on top. This currently sports an 80m dipole plus a 2m groundplane at the very top. The 80m dipole is fed with open wire tuned feeder, so should also give a good account of its self on 40m and the other bands. Lower down the mast is a "Cobweb" which is on loan from Tom G0PSU. This is basically a nest of dipoles for the 20,17,15,12 and 10m bands. Just below this there is a 4m vertical dipole. Thus most bands are now catered for, and there is plenty of scope for expansion.
Ian has finished building the clubs TNC for the packet radio station. This is now set up in the shack, along with a 4m radio and dumb terminal which are on loan from Ian. We hope to obtain an old PC to replace the terminal which will allow much greater flexibility, as well as supporting other amateur radio software.
The clubs address for packet mail is G0OUR@GB7BEN, using the mailbox in nearby Bletchley. We also have a good link to the Hemel Hempstead DX Cluster, via the BFD41 node near Bedford. This is currently all on 4m, although there is no reason why we should not use 2m, or perhaps 70cm in future.
More good news: the clubs QSL cards have just arrived. These were produced in association with the O.U. Public Relations department, who kindly paid for the printing and prepared the artwork. We have 1000, so that should keep us going for some time. The cards are double sided, printed blue on white, and contain info on the University. It is hoped they will help in a small way to raise the profile of the O.U. around the world. Ben Bristow has agreed to act as QSL manager for the club, so will soon be replying to those cards we have already received, via the RSGB bureau.
The club will be manning a stall at the Milton Keynes ARS "Boot" sale at Cranfield Aerodrome on sunday 6th September. We are collecting anything saleable and the pile is growing healthily, so we hope to raise some money for the clubs future projects. Any help on the day would be appreciated. We will also be happy to sell equipment there on a commission basis.
Some members will be helping out at the 50's & 60's disco at the O.U. on 17th October. They will hopefully earn some money for the radio club.
Jim Lee has been busy building additional bench space in the shack, since we were starting to get very cramped! He has also initiated the clubs tool box. Any donations to that gratefully received, have a look in your garage or shed to see if you have anything going spare!
It is hoped to run an R.A.E. course on campus again this year. If you know anyone who may be interested in enroling contact Ted on ext 3198.
Members tit bits: Congratulations to Ben who passed the May exam. He is thinking of booking G7MOG since he is a Morris Minor freak! Welcome back to David Butler who has just returned from his world tour. Fraser christened the 80m dipole by taking part in the RSGB ROPOCO contest from the club shack last sunday. We plan to take part in the Club Calls contest later in the year to give G0OUR an airing. Tom G3LMX will be using the club call on the BBC net, on the first sunday of each month at 1000z on 3670KHz.
We are now getting to the point where we can embark on new projects, subject of course to fund raising. A few ideas that have been put forward include a VHF rig for the club station, and some beam aerials for HF and VHF, plus rotator of course. Having got the mast it's a shame not to take full advantage of it! It would be nice ultimately for the club to buy its own HF rig to replace the FT401 currently on loan from Tom. If you have any further ideas we want to hear them.
Thats about it for now. Please send any items for inclusion in the next news letter to Fraser.
73s for now...
Contact: Adrian Rawlings adrianrawlings@googlemail.com