New Society Call Sign

Thanks to the brilliant detective work and perseverance of our secretary Andy GD1MIP, we now have a new Society callsign "GT1IOM".

Thanks for that Andy, lets hope the new call get lots of use!

CQ World-Wide WPX contest

This week end will be a busy time on the air - have a look at:

http://www.cqwpx.com/rules.htm

4mt FM (70 Mhz) RAYNET

The RAYNET group would like to know how many Society members have access to 4mt FM equipment and would like to undertake some field tests around the Island in the near future.
Please let us know by e-mail to gd0nfn@manxbroadband.com.

73

John
GD0NFN Secratary RAYNET Isle of Man

ARRL ARES E-Letter

The latest news from the ARRL can be found at the following link:

http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/ares-el/?issue=2010-03-24

Power Line Telecommunications EMC

The following RSGB letter to OFCOM which highlights OFCOM's lack of action and protection of the radio spectrum may be of interest to members.

http://www.rsgb.org.uk/plt/docs/ofcom_letter.pdf

Isle of Man Amateur gets special award

Dayton Hamvention announces 2010 award winners

Three amateur radio (ham) operators who have made significant contributions to the Amateur Radio Service, will be honored guests when Hamvention® 2010 opens in Hara Arena on May 14.

In addition, a club of the year will be honored in keeping with the 2010 Hamvention theme, Amateur Radio Clubs Worldwide: The Lifeline.

Recipients of this year's Hamvention® awards are:

Special Achievement - Dick Ross, K2MGA for his excellent work over the past number of years on CQ magazine.

Technical Excellence - Simon Brown, HB9DRV for the invention and development of Ham Radio Deluxe.

Amateur of the Year - Jim Stafford, W4QO for 50 years of service to Amateur Radio and his support for public service and unending efforts to recruit and develop hams of all ages.

Club of the Year - North Fulton Amateur Radio League, NFARL, North Fulton, GA - Serving the greater Atlanta Area, the State of Georgia and the US with emergency services, training and the preparation of Amateur Radio in general.

" Choosing the finalists was a difficult process due to the number of fine nominations" said Frank Beafore, Chairman of the Awards Committee. This year, an additional award category was added - Club of the Year. This award honors a ham radio organization that contributes to the good of Amateur Radio.

"Although we narrowed our club choice to North Fulton, GA, we had a number of deserving candidates" stated Beafore. "The winner of this year's award is certainly a great example of the thousands of clubs and organizations around the world perpetuating our avocation".

An intimate dinner on May 15 will be held in downtown Dayton honoring the 2010 Hamvention Award winners.

News from the RSGB Tutors letter

Connecting Transceivers in Vehicles
Change of Recommended Practice
Guidance for vehicle installation was originally contained in MPT1362 issued by the Radiocommunications Agency after consultation with industry. That role has now passed to the Federation of Communication Services and re-issued as the UK Code of Practice FCS1362.
www.fcs.org.uk/my%20files/fcs_pdfs/codesofpractice/08-05-12%20fcs%201362%20final.pdf.
There is a significant change in the guidance, section which will affect the Advanced examination and the Advanced course book.
The advice in MPT1362 and all copies of Advance! up to and including the 2009 reprint was to connect the transceiver directly to the vehicle battery with appropriate fuses in both the positive and negative leads. Often there is an incidental DC route from the vehicle chassis via the antenna mount, coaxial cable outer, rig and negative power lead to the battery terminal. Some vehicle load current will take that route and if the battery negative to chassis strap fails then all vehicle loads including starting current (100A plus) could. Clearly a fire risk especially for the super thin coax intended to fit round a door or boot seal.
New advice.
The new guidance is to connect the transceiver negative directly to the vehicle chassis and no fuse in the negative. (Assumes negative earth.) The positive lead should still be fused and connected to the battery or in accordance with the vehicle manufactures specific recommendation.
Remember that transceivers should be specified for vehicle use and the manufacturer’s guidance on RF power limits, antenna placement and DC supplies must be followed. Failure to do so might affect your insurance cover and questions on this point must be directed to your insurance provider.
Effect on Examinations
Vehicle installations are covered in the Advanced specification, syllabus item 9c1. It is proposed to edit relevant questions shortly. Candidates may be asked questions to the new guidance from 1 September 2010 onwards. The old practice of a fused negative to the battery will not be used as a distracter, but from 1 September an unfused negative to the battery will be a legitimate wrong answer since that has always been wrong.

RNLI SOS Radio Week report

EVENT CALLSIGN : GD0MAN
Over £1,500 declared so far, over £2,750 expected
A month after the event and everyone's working hard to collect in the money and a great job you're doing too - thank you so much.
To-date we have cheques, cash and receipts totalling £1,526.98 and we've reports from others that will hopefully bring that total up to over £2,750 when their money/receipts are received. That's a superb achievment and one which you can be justly proud of.
We'd be really grateful if we could receive all outstanding money/receipts by the 26th March as we are now planning the 'grand' presentation and to do this we need a final total so that we can ready the presentation cheque.
In order to be able to draw a line under this year's activites we do need to hear from those of you who are yet to contact us following the conclusion of the event. Even if you did no operating during the week would would like to hear from you so that we know we're not waiting for your money.

Bring and Buy

Tonight’s Bring and Buy brought a smile to most faces!!

Do you have 1983 to 1986 Call sign books (UK)?

If you have some old call sign books and are able to look up the information on certain UK callsigns, could you please contact gd1mip@manx.net as Andy would like some data.

Many thanks in advance for your help.

Using the Society QSL Cards

When using the Society QSL cards, can you please ensure that it is clear where the card is to be sent to; cards have been returned to the Island because the first call sign seen is the GD or MD prefix.
If the text on the rear of the card can be changed using "TO" in the box on the right side top corner and "From" where it says "To Radio".
Doing this will ensure the cards get to the correct station.

Bring and Buy

This month’s Society meeting at Tromode (9th March) will be a “Bring and Buy”
Members will be able to display and sell unwanted items on the basis of donating 5% of the sales to the Society.
Members may also wish to sign in a guest and boost the numbers of potential buyers.

UK Bandplan on a spreadsheet

The UK Bandplans on a spreadsheet may be of use - here is the latest version.

http://homepages.manx.net/butler/rsgb_band_plan_2010.xls