Sometime yesterday evening Riviera ARC were celebrating their newest member. Paul Colyer M0PCZ and his lovely wife Emma are celebrating the birth of their first child, Zac Thomas Colyer.
I’m sure I can’t be the first person in the club to want to wish the new parents the very best and heartiest congratulations for the arrival of their first son. 73 and 88 to you both, now the hard work starts !!
Rarc will be once again running an Airfields on the Air station
this April.
The event is scheduled for the 5th & 6th of April, that’s a Saturday/Sunday weekend.
An NOV has been issued by Ofcom and will be in the form GBxAOA for Airfields on the Air.
We will be registering with RAFARS so that any contacts made with us can score points towards a AOTA certificate, obtainable from RAFARS.
RARC has a strong affiliation with the RAF and RAFARS as John Wightman ZL1AH and
Bob Lever (the original G2DXU) were members of the Civilian Wireless Reserve. Secondly, G4XKH
one of our club members was a serving member of the RAF, during peacetime and in conflict.
We will be running from a site very close to Haldon Moor which was the site of a WW2 airfield. Plans are to operate HF 40 – 10m and 2 metres FM.
Riviera ARC now have a new venue at the Acorn Youth & Community Centre in Barton, Torquay.
We meet from 1930-21:30 on the first and third Thursdays of each month. The centre has kindly agreed to allow us to put up permanent antennas which should allow us to run HF & VHF on club nights.
The Acorn centre has a kitchen area for hot drinks, vending machines and free access to their wifi.
Hopefully as the year progresses we will be able to host talks on radio related matters and demonstrations of some of the newer data transmission modes.
Last year’s demo’s included how the AIS traffic system allows us to plot and follow airplanes in Real Time moving around Europe. A similar system works for sea going traffic.
We also had a video on how the German “Knickerbein” or “Crooked Leg” system allowed german bombers to approach their targets in total darkness.
We hope this year to host videos on the German Enigma system and demos on the JT-65 low power data mode and the new digital Slow Scan TV system known as EasyPal as well as many of the other obscure data modes too.
An intro to the Automatic Position Reporting System known as APRS and how hasm can use this in both ham operations and its potential for disaster relief operations.
Foundation training starts in earnest in February and hopefully we will be adding some new friends to the club. G4XKH has offered to run practice sessions in slow Morse Code for those old or new who might be interested
All in all, I foresee that 2014 could turn out to be a very bright and interesting year for the club.