Having travelled to the Newark Hamfest we have a tale to tell and some goodies to show.
Tea coffee and biscuits as usual thanks to Arthur GD3TNS. All welcome.
19:30 hours start at the Sea cadet hall Tromode.
Mobile shack has first outing
Stuart Hill and Andy Morgan are pleased to announce that the mobile shack survived a 6 mile test run around the north of the island.
We even included it’s fist radio contact with MT0GLK. Castle Rushen High School radio club and Matty MD0MAN.
We now look forward to the final electrical installation and it can then be used for /P operating (oh and a tin of paint).
IOMARS WWW presence.
I have been secretary since 2009 and I have had to put up with much moaning from some amateurs on the island on how the club is not as good as it could be.
Based on some negative comments yet again recieved about our lack of an internet presence and treatment of some amateurs web sites I have taken the decision to write the below…..
The current IOMARS committee have in my opinion had a hell of a time with a minority of people (both current and ex members) bad mouthing everything they do. Usually (in my experience) the worst detractors are older (in age) and often once held a committee position.
If we turn the clock back to the AGM of 2009 none of the detractors who are members wanted to help run and steer the society, since that date the committee has been re elected because no one else has offered their time.
As the new committee in 2009/10 we discovered the www was littered with web sites about the society, some proclaiming to be official Isle of Man amateur radio society sites and others just giving contact details for the club. All were incorrect in detail, giving obsolete email addresses and in one case listing a deceased committee member. This came to a head when amateurs from another country got the wrong contact details for the society from an incorrect web page, in a nutshell they thought we were ignoring them. We were not, they had simply sent mail to an obsolete address once owned by a long resigned committee member.
As the IOMARS secretary I was tasked with getting these web sites updated. Some had no current ‘owner’ and in these cases I had to apply to the web company to have the site concerned deleted. Other cases had old incorrect details on them but their ‘owners’ identity was known, they were contacted and asked to keep their web page up-to-date or remove reference to the IOMARS altogether to stop confusion.
After that we had a problem with the original http://iomars.blogspot.com run by another ex committee member. Simply put the ‘owner’ insisted on editorial rights on that blog and had edited official IOMARS information changing it’s meaning as he did not agree with it. The IOMARS committee could not accept that and the new blog http://iomars.wordpress.com was started.
Hope that clarifies the matter, moan over. If you want to discuss this I am in the phone book.
PS the AGM is on December 11th 2012. You can always offer yourself for election.
regards Andy
GD1MIP
New club ID badges given airing at Eary Cushlin. :-)
Isle of Man amateur radio society Amateur radio foundation exam October 13th, all day.
The date for the exam is set for 13th October 2012 with a days training before the exam which is 25 multiple choice questions to be answered in a maximum of 45 minutes. We will also meet for some evenings before then to iron out any problems. The exam costs £27.50 (costs are charged by the examining body in UK not by the IOMARS – we do it for free) any prospective candidate needs to print and fill in the form named ‘CATCE application’ ( http://www.rsgb.org/tutors/pdf/forms/request-for-exam-papers.pdf) and forward it to a society committee member ASAP and in anycase before 19th september 2012.
In the meantime you will need a copy of the course book ‘Foundation now’ at a cost of £4.99 (see RSGB web site http://www.rsgbshop.org/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Training_19.html ) It is worth getting the book from the RSGB as they have just revised it and the ones for sale elsewhere are often old stock.
The below links will help too, read them all please. The ham tests one is an interactive set of mock exam questions to let people know what they are getting themselves into, do the Ham test tests until you are sick of them and get 100%. Remember the point of this exam course is to get you to pass the exam and get a foundation licence. The hard stuff you’ll learn as you progress in the hobby.
http://www.rsgb.org/arls/foundation_licence.php
http://www.commsfoundation.org/rce/pdf/foundationsyllabus.pdf
http://www.rsgb.org/tutors/foundation/pdf/sample.pdf
http://www.rsgb.org/tutors/foundation/pdf/foundation-sample-paper-2.pdf
http://www.rsgb.org/tutors/pdf/good_operating_practices.pdf
Finally, If you know anyone who wants to do the exam now is the last time for them to get in touch.
speak soon
Andy Morgan
GD1MIP, IOMARS
Tel 412711.
QSL Cards
Martyn Parnell, RSGB qsl manager for the Isle of Man, will be attending the IOMARS meeting on 14.08.2012 to distribute QSL cards.
GT4WAB – Worked all Britain ‘Follow the torch’ 02/06/2012
The dust has settled, we had 272 contacts as GT4WAB, lots of British ones plus Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Holland, Belgium, Slovenia, Italy , Latvia, Hungary, France, Finland, Sweden, and Russia.
The WAB group pass on their thanks to the IOMARS members for their efforts.
The team were (in no particular order) Mike Rodgers – MD0BJM, Steve Kelly – GD7DUZ, Dave Cain – 2D0YLX, Jeanie Hill 2D0JEA, Alan Crowther – GD0MWL, Mike Webb – GD6ICR, Stuart Hill – GD0OUD, Peter Morgan – MD6IOM, Andy Morgan GD1MIP and the IOM Coastguard.
UnUN ‘s by G3TXQ
If you keep hearing of people using UnUn’s as a way of attaching a non resonant antenna and wanted to know more have a look at this link.
http://www.karinya.net/g3txq/unun/
Amateur radio training & exams / Foundation / Intermediate
For information. The society plans to run training and exams in the comming months. If you or any person you know wants to do any of the exams tell them to get in touch ASAP.
In the meantime a Foundation candidate will need a copy of the course book ‘Foundation now’ at a cost of £4.99 (see RSGB web site http://www.rsgbshop.org/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Training_19.html ) It is worth getting the book from the RSGB as they have just revised it and the ones for sale elsewhere are often old stock.
The below links will help too. The ham tests one is a set of mock exam questions and will help candidates know what they are getting themselves into.
http://www.hamtests.co.uk/ http://www.rsgb.org/clubsandtraining/ http://www.rsgb.org/arls/foundation_licence.php
Email any questions etc to GD1MIP(at)manx.net
Hope that covers it for now
Andy, GD1MIP
Interested in 4m? try this Dutch based web SDR
From Rob PE1ITR
The maxwell foundation has set up a 4m websdr receiver on University of Technology Eindhoven (JO21RK). Frequency range is about 70.150 to 70.250. The antenna is an 4 element yagi @ 65m agl direction south. The LX0FOUR beacon on 70.161 can be heard. This is a great tool to monitor Es propagation.
This is the link: http://lindsey.esrac.ele.tue.nl/
Select the 4m band in the window left just below the waterfall screen.
The freq readout has at the moment a +4,5 kHz offset but that will be corrected later.
73