Welcome back for the Michaelmas Term. CUWS will be at the Freshers’ Fair on Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

We are likely to be entering the CQWW SSB Contest over the weekend of Oct 26/27.  Email g3zay@btinternet.com if interested.

I have 3 places in my car for a trip to Bletchley Park on Sunday Nov 17th – leaving Cambridge at 0745 and returning by about 1700. Admission is free for RSGB members if they print out a pass from the RSGB website (no soft copies on phones are valid) and RSGB membership is free for students with any level of amateur radio licence. Let me know if interested.

At the end of term we will probably be using the youth callsign GB24YOTA from the shack on the afternoons of Sunday Dec 1st, Friday Dec 6th and Saturday Dec 7th. Operators must be under 26. More info later.

Next term we are planning a couple of talks about software defined radio. Probably an initial one on how to use GNU radio software to develop tailored modules to talk to the most common radio dongles and demodulate different signals. And a second one looking more at the maths and processes “under the hood” of SDR.

The RSGB licence exams are available online with remote invigilation and we have copies of the latest exam manuals at the shack if anyone wants to borrow one.

Martin G3ZAY (Hon President)

CUWS aired the special GB23YOTA callsign on Dec 1st and 2nd and made about 700 QSOs on SSB.

Ops at GB23YOTA

Back in November a small crew from Windfall Films came to the shack for some background footage highlighting amateur radio for a documentary about Flight MH370 and the theory that WSPR signals could shed some light on the track of the plane. Rhys M0WGY, Arnav M7ORS and Anna M7BBR were all interviewed about their interest in the hobby and filmed making QSOs with VP8LP in the Falklands and W4DKS in Virginia,

Sadly none of the material was used in the programme……

CUWS will be present at the Freshers Fair on October 3rd and 4th. We hope to enter the CQ WW SSB Contest at the end of October and we plan to use the special callsign GB23YOTA from 1200-1800 on Dec 1st and 2nd. Trips to Bletchley Park and the National Museum of Computing may be arranged, Information on other future activities will be sent to the email list later in the term.

We entered the CQWW SSB Contest at the end of October and came 1st in England in the Multi-Op Two Transmitter category.

Nikolas M0IPY operating CQWW SSB

Brychan M7OLL operating CQWW

Anna M7BBR operating

Adam M0RZO operating

Rhys M0WGY operating CQWW SSB

Hugo M0HSW operating

* Will Vinnicombe M0VWA arranged a short Jamboree on the Air session at the shack for a local scout group in early October. Greetings messages were exchanged with other Jamboree stations.

* Half a dozen potential new members visited the shack in October and borrowed copies of the licence exam books.

* Dan McGraw M0WUT ran a couple of technical sessions at Caius College covering the remote controlled radio station project and the use of oscilloscopes, signal generators, and vector network analysers for RF measurements.

* Temporary LF antennas have been erected near the shack. We have a 4 element steerable phased array for 7MHz and a single quarter wave vertical antenna for 3.6MHz. These will be removed by the end of March so the University Farm can cut hay for their cattle.

* We entered the CQWW SSB contest using our special callsign M4A at the end of October and made 3743 contacts. The claimed score was 4,689,314 and it looks like we probably won our Multi-op 2-Transmitter category for England.

* Past Chair, William M0WJE, entered the CQWW CW (morse code) contest in November with his own call and claimed just over 400,000 points.

* The special youth callsign GB22YOTA was used from the shack on December 2nd and 3rd and over 800 contacts were made around the world. The call is still available at various times until the end of the month if any member (or guest) under the age of 26 wishes to use it. Detailed availability is shown on qrz.com against the GB22YOTA callsign.

* Various special 1920s callsigns are available for all RSGB+CUWS members to book and use from the shack to commemorate the first 2-way trans-Atlantic contacts on HF. One also marks the first use of radio from a moving train! See https://rsgb.org/main/activity/transatlantic-tests/

* Finally the shack has been used recently for a number of 3-4hr short contests including:

– 70MHz AFS (6th out of 19)

– 50MHz AFS (3rd out of 16)

– 1.8MHz AFS (6th out of 65) Congratulations to club member Rob M0VFC who went out portable and won this event.

– Sadly the shack location is not very competitive on VHF/UHF because of screening by Madingley Hill to the south-west but we can still get out well to Scotland and continental Europe. The 50MHz contest performance was boosted by some sudden Sporadic E propagation to the south-east.

It was a busy weekend at the G6UW shack. Firstly we had a visit from Greg MD0IGD a few years after graduating.

On Saturday afternoon Will Vinnicombe prepared for a visit by Bourn Scouts for Jamboree on the AIr. Greetings messages were exchanged with stations in Ontario, Chicago, and Oporto – including with another scout team.

On Sunday morning Dan M0WUT and Martin G3ZAY operated G6UW in the 50MHz AFS contest. For most of the time there was just a little tropospheric propagation up to about 400kms but 30 minutes from the end there was some Sporadic E which yielded about a dozen contacts into central and southern Italy.

Finally on Sunday afternoon a team of 8 members erected a 40m 4-square phased array and a single 80m quarter wave vertical in the adjacent field.

Welcome back to Cambridge for the new term. The CUWS website calendar page has been updated to show a range of planned events coming up. For most of them please contact Martin via g3zay@btinternet.com for more information. For the technical/construction evenings on Oct 18th and 27th please contact Dan via dan.m0wut@gmail,com. There will be more information via our email lists in due course. To be added to a list you can either apply online through the university system or just email chair@g6uw.org. We have soc-cuws-active for those with a confirmed interest and soc-cuws-interested for those who would simply like more information.

The delayed (by Covid) 100th anniversary Dinner was held at Gonville and Caius College on Friday April 1st and was attended by 29 members and partners. Unfortunately several had to drop out at the last minute due to positive Covid tests. Covid lockdowns and delays meant that this was in effect the 101.5th anniversary of the formation of the Society at Caius College in 1920.

As so many people were unable to make the 2022 event we will be holding another Dinner on Friday March 10th 2023 – also at Gonville and Caius. 

Pictures below by G7VJR (blurring due to very low light levels):

Seven CUWS operators: M0IPY M0RNN M0ZCJ M0TKU M0WUT M0UXP and M7BBR made 800 SSB QSOs using the special callsign GB21YOTA on December 3rd and 4th. One operating position was dedicated to 20m using the SteppIR and the other to 40/80 using verticals.

CUWS Chair Nikolas M0IPY was one of the first ops:

He was joined by Edwin M0RNN:

Day Two saw the arrival of Charlie M0ZCJ Anna M7BBR and DanielM0TKU:

And the final shift was Dan M0WUT and Stephen M0UXP: