2019 Construction Competition
The annual MBARS competition took place on Tuesday 19th February 2019. The winners were:
- Bob Wilkinson G3VVT for an antenna analyser built from a kit but to tight tolerances.
- Kevin Redmond G6FEK for a variable power supply based around a module approach.
Tuesday 31st July 2018
This evening we had a discussion on Logging Tools & Techniques. Different operating styles and requirements were highlighted by several members of the club.
We had demonstrations of Fast Log Entry from Mark M0NOM and WinLog32 from Mike G0CHV.
Mark uses a paper log book and then uploads the ADI file generated by Fast Log Entry to his QRZ.com logbook, the SOTA database, EQSL and ARRL’s Logbook of the World.
Mike G0CHV brought his impressive logbook using WinLog32 which contains upwards of 16,000+ contacts!
Tuesday 10th July 2018
Thanks to everyone who turned up this evening we have repaired the HF antenna and have made our first HF QSOs for quite a while from the MBARS HQ. Gaute did an excellent job rigging a new support and pulley and sorting out the twin feed connection, John replaced connections on both ends of the coax, Andrew kept us all on track and everything else in a very busy evening including fault analysis was very much a joint activity between all of us.
Ben had several contacts including St Petersburg. We also contacted one of the FIFA special event stations in Sweden.
This news is great not only for the club but for new and progressing students to get an experience of HF.
Tuesday 3rd July 2018
This evening several members of MBARS ducked out of watching the England match for the RSGB competition basics event. As it happens we were fairly ill-prepared but learned a lot during the evening! After an initially poor FMAC event with no stations heard we switched to 2m SSB and could hear stations via the colinear and worked one. John managed to negotiate himself on to the balcony with the 2m yagi with help from Ben to get the transceiver within range and we then had another two QSOs. The working conditions were far from ideal but it did allow us to have a good chat about the antenna situation and work out a plan of action to get the HF antenna operational again and also how we could use yagi antennas moving forward via a temporary balcony setup.
I submitted the log to the RSGB contest committee this morning on behalf of the club as we were using the club callsign G1MBR. There are a couple of screenshots attached below of the process.
Tuesday 1st May 2018
A good discussion was had by attending members about the phenomenon that is the FT-8 digital mode, and we even managed a QSO with an FT-817 with Watson multi-ranger attached directly to the rear SO-239, which was unexpected given the location, power and noise levels.
The slides for the presentation can be downloaded in PDF format using the link below:
Tuesday 24st April 2018
Bob G3VVT has successfully repaired the 2m antenna connection which was then confirmed working on both FM and SSB.
Tuesday 15th April 2018
MBARS club members were treated to a very interesting talk from ex-Marconi Engineer Chris Baker, G4LDS.
Tuesday 21st March 2018
Mark Wickens, M0NOM presented a talk on SOTA. The Powerpoint slides are available for download (which include video and audio) or a PDF version of the slides for easier viewing, or click on the video below (slides are shown at 5 second intervals, so make use of the pause facility – includes audio of QSOs).
Tuesday 20th February 2018
The 2018 Construction Competition was held this evening. Please see the link for details.
