A busy couple of weeks

It’s been a really busy couple of weeks so I haven’t had much time to post anything here. I think that’s a good thing because the ‘doing’ is more important than the ‘writing’. I’m still short of time so this post isn’t going to be filled with details and deep thoughts, just a brief note of some of the things I’ve been doing and a few pictures to go with them …

Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory

I enjoyed a fascinating visit to the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory with the Camb-Hams this week. The Observatory is located in 500 acres just to the south-west of Cambridge and is home to some very interesting engineering and radio hardware. I learnt a great deal from our guides who were obviously both very knowledgable and passionate about the Observatory and its important and historic work.

The Cavendish Laboratory pioneered in this field under the direction of Professor Sir Martin Ryle, F.R.S. from 1945 to 1982. The first Observatory was on the outskirts of Cambridge. In 1957, through the generosity of Mullard Ltd. and with support from the Science Research Council, the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory (MRAO) was built 5 miles south-west of Cambridge, at Lord’s Bridge. The Observatory is operated by the Cavendish Laboratory, supported by the Particle Physics & Astronomy Research Council. The work of the MRAO was recognised by the award of the 1974 Nobel Prize for physics to Professor Ryle and Professor Hewish.

Photographs are available in my MRAO Gallery

UBN Reports for RSGB 80m Club Championships

The RSGB Contest Committee have started issuing UBN Reports for the 80m Club Championship contests. This is a very welcome addition to the already excellent on-line log submission and quick adjudication we have enjoyed for these contests.

UBN Reports highlight contest contacts which were judged to be Unique, Bad and Not-in-log during adjudication and can be used to help improve the accuracy of your logging. I received an email today with a link to my UBN report for the May RSGB 80m Club Championship CW contest, which highlighted exactly why I lost one of my claimed contacts during the adjudication process.

Adjudication report for M1ACB for 19 May 80m CC CW 2011 
Date     Time  Call  RepTX SnTX RepRX SnRX CSnRX Band Mode Reason
19/05/11 19:02 G4FKA 599   1    599   2    4     3522 CW   Broken:Serial RX

RSGB VHF NFD

I had a great weekend with the Camb-Hams operating G3PYE/P from JO02ed on 6m, 4m, 2m, 70cm and 23cm in the RSGB VHF NFD 2011. It’s hard work preparing, assembling, operating and disassembling a competitive station for this contest, but the Camb-Hams put a lot of effort into collecting some great equipment and operators and still manage to make it a lot of fun.

It was nice to get back together with many of the people who I travelled to the Isle of Arran with a few months ago for some more great radio.

Lawrence M0LCM and Dom M0BLF have both posted some photographs of the G3PYE/P contest site and G7HAH/P have posted a video of them receiving G3PYE/P.

Kite Antennas

I visited the Bury St Edmunds ARS tonight at their new second home at the Rougham Tower Museum – a great location.

Roger G4ROJ travelled to the club to give an excellent practical demonstration and talk about his experiences with Kite Antennas. Roger concentrates on the lower HF bands and has experimented with many different kite, balloon and antenna combinations. Roger publishes lots of information and pictures of his exploits on his www.kiteaerials.com website.

F&DARS Active for Mills on the Air

Felixstowe & District ARS were active for Mills of the Air today. They were running GX4ZFR/P from Buttrum’s Mill in Woodbridge. I wasn’t able to join them today, but I did speak to Iain G0OZS while he was operating the station on 40m.

I put a couple of spots on the DXcluster and then listened to the pile-up.

DG9VH   7153.0 GX4ZFR/P                                 1419 15 May
M1ACB   7141.0 GX4ZFR/P  Mills on the Air & WAB TM24    1211 15 May
M1ACB   7141.0 GX4ZFR/P  Buttrums Mill Woodbridge       1145 15 May

I recorded Paul G4YQC working through the pile-up which included Jack G0HJK from Ipswich …
GX4ZFR/P