Very sadly our Life Member Dr David Holburn G3XZP became a Silent Key towards the end of term and a number of members attended his funeral at Caius College Chapel in December. His obituary is at https://www.cai.cam.ac.uk/news/david-holburn-1953-2025 It was also reported to us that Dr Guy Morgan G3ZHL (Jesus) passed away in April. Guy was a student between 1971 and 1978 and a keen member of CUWS. Guy and David both attended the delayed CUWS 100^th anniversary dinners at Caius in 2021/22.

The annual BBQ was held at the shack on June 15^th 2025. G3ZAY M0VFC M0BLF M7OLL M7YOM M7TWJ M0KUQ M0WUT G3XZP M7KFH G0DDX G0TPX M0LCM M7NOJ and M1GEO were present.

CUWS was present at the Freshers’ Fair as usual and added another 60 or so names to the sympa email system for soc-cuws-interested. At least half a dozen have visited the shack and borrowed an exam book. One of them has already passed the Foundation exam. In total there are 13 Foundation exam books out on loan so we hope for a few more licensed members soon. We signed up several locally-resident alumni and two undergraduates over the course of the year. People are only asked to join if/when they have a licence.

The club station was used in CQWW SSB at the end of October with our special contest callsign M4A. We again won the Multi-Single High Power section for the UK with the help of a phased array for 7MHz and a quarter wave vertical for 3.7MHz. Those antennas were left up for members to use until mid-March when the field had to be returned to the University Farm.

Thanks are due to Dr Colin Smithers G4CWH of Plextek for an excellent technical talk at Caius College on the Blighter low power radar system.

Led by John Jessop M9YOM a group of students have taken on the task of building some homebrew radio equipment. Their goal is to design and construct a superhet HF (80m) receiver.

December was YOTA month and the special callsign GB25YOTA was used by three of our members Nikolas M0IPY, Henry M0KUQ and Adam M0RZO who made about 850 QSOs between them. Later in the month the callsign was used from the shack by three local schoolchildren with Foundation licences (under supervision). The shack was also used by a student member and a couple of local schoolchildren for the first YOTA contest of 2026 in March.

CUWS alumni dinners in central London continued every three months or so and were attended by 6-8 members. Two Lent term social meetings were held at the Maypole but were not well supported by student members so will probably not be repeated for a while.

Several CUWS members who have moved to London are involved in trying to re-start the Imperial College club which used to hold the call G5YC. Sadly it seems unlikely at this stage that they will be able to resurrect the HF beam on a central London rooftop.

The CUWS club station was used for entries in all the RSGB AFS Superleague events from 1.8 to 432MHz and helped the Camb Hams to 1^st place overall.

CUWS members provided audio-visual support at the RSGB Convention in October and will also be supporting the World Radiosport Team Championships in St Neots in July.

More work is still needed on the remote station in the shack though basic functionality is there. A major issue is audio quality over the 4G/5G data connection.

A record 21 members and guests attended the 2026 BBQ at the shack.

CUWS won the Multi Single category in CQ WW SSB for the entire UK.

CUWS was present at the Freshers’ Fair as usual and added another 60 or so names to the sympa email system for soc-cuws-interested. Half a dozen have visited the shack and borrowed an exam book. One of them has already passed the Foundation exam.

Martin G3ZAY and Thomas M6TZL at Freshers’ Fair

Brychan M7OLL at Freshers’ FAir

The club station was used in CQWW SSB at the end of October with our special contest callsign M4A. Based on claimed scores we won the Multi-Single High Power section for the UK with 3.64M points but M6N was close behind us so adjudication could put us into 2^nd place.

Nikolas M0IPY and Oliver M0JEI preparing to operate in CQWW SSB.

Thanks are due to Dr Colin Smithers G4CWH for an excellent technical talk at Caius College on the Blighter low power radar system.

Led by John Jessop M9YOM a group of students have taken on the task of building some homebrew radio equipment. Their current goal is to design and construct a superhet HF (80m) receiver. The group are still in the design stage but hoping to send off for some components and PCBs in the Lent term.

John M9YOM operating at shack in 80m contest

Very sadly our Life Member Dr David Holburn G3XZP became a Silent Key towards the end of term and a number of members attended his funeral at Caius College Chapel in December. His obituary is at https://www.cai.cam.ac.uk/news/david-holburn-1953-2025

December was YOTA month and the special callsign GB25YOTA was used by three of our members Nikolas M0IPY, Henry M0KUQ and Adam M0RZO who made about 850 QSOs between them. Later in the month the callsign was used from the shack by three local schoolchildren with Foundation licences.

M0IPY operating GB25YOTA

Another alumni meet-up was held in central London on Thursday 19th June. Pic shows M0RLM, M0HSW, M0IPY, M0WJE, G3ZAY, M0TKU, M0TJH.

Chair – Edward Wei M0KTU, Churchill

Secretary – Thomas Griffiths M6TZL, Queens

Junior Treasurer – Brychan Thomas M7OLL, Catz

Hon. President – Martin Atherton G3ZAY, Emma alumnus

The annual BBQ was held at the shack on June 15^th. G3ZAY M0VFC M0BLF M7OLL M7YOM M7TWJ M0KUQ M0WUT G3XZP M7KFH G0DDX G0TPX M0LCM M7NOJ and M1GEO were present.

The Committee for the 2024/25 Academic Year was:

Chair – Stephen De Bank M0UXP

Secretary – Edward Wei M0KTU

Junior Treasurer – Brychan Thomas M7OLL

Hon. President – Martin Atherton G3ZAY

The Summer Barbecue was held at the shack on June 16^th 2024 and attended by about 10 members.

CUWS member Rhys M0WGY represented the RSGB at the 2024 YOTA summer event and has been appointed the Universities Youth Champion. He is now doing a PhD at Oxford.

CUWS was represented at the Freshers’ Fair as usual and about 50 new names/emails were added to the soc-cuws-interested list on the sympa system. 8 people expressed an interest in visits to the shack and these were supplemented by a few late additions who made contact during the year. There were two recruits who already had Foundation licences on arriving in Cambridge. Since then 6 students have taken the Foundation exam and one went on to take the Intermediate and Full in quick succession. 2 or 3 more have indicated their intention to take the Foundation exam over the summer. As always, the shack has a supply of exam manuals for all three levels available for members to borrow. We have 9 new members since 1/10/2024.

In the Michaelmas Term CUWS entered the CQ WW SSB contest as usual in the Multi-op, Two-station category but only placed 2^nd in the UK, losing out to the Wisbech contest group which has much more space for large beam antennas. We are grateful to the University Farm for the winter use of the field adjacent to the south side of the shack which housed a 40m 4-square and an 80m quarter wave until mid-March.

During the CQ WW SSB contest it was noticed that the roof was leaking and the Society is extremely grateful to the team of M1GEO, M0WUT, and M0BLF led by M0VFC who replaced the complete roof over a couple of weekends in November. The costs of repairs were covered directly by alumni including the above team.

We were able to hold two talks on software defined radio in the Lent Term at Caius College. The first by Marek M0JUR looked at the GNU Radio software/GUI for developing SDR code and the second by Dan M0WUT looked at some of the maths behind the GUI SDR modules. Many thanks to Dr Holburn G3XZP for arranging the room booking.

The shack was used for various AFS contest entries including 432MHz, 144MHz, 70MHz, 50MHz, 80/40m CW/SSB/Data, and 160m club calls. Partly thanks to that assistance, the Camb Hams team won the Super League again this year. The shack was also used for GB24YOTA activations at the end of the Michaelmas Term and for the three annual YOTA Contests. Finally, our Hon President G3ZAY used the shack to air the special GB0IARU callsign in April marking the 100^th anniversary of the formation of the International Amateur Radio Union.

Many thanks to Rob M0VFC for new monitors and two replacement Windows 11 computers.