Month: July 2024

A most enjoyable and productive meeting with a couple of new faces and an old one.  Jan is an old friend of some of us from London Hackspace Radio Club now living in Poland but here for a holiday.  Rakesh recently discovered us by sheer Google-fu (so we must be doing something right) and has been licensed since just before Covid.  Alastair popped up on Facebook a few weeks ago seeking someone to help with his station – an Icom 706 and mag-mount vertical combination which he’s been trying, unsuccessfully, to set up on his narrowboat in East London.  We suggested that if he didn’t find anyone closer then come to one of our meetings and we’d try work through it.

In the event, and it was a perfect team effort, we got all four of Alastair’s elements tuned to their respective bands and heard signals coming through strong so now he’s confident it all functions correctly, and having recorded the measurements he’ll have a known good starting point when he sets it up at ‘home’.

Next online meeting is Friday 9th August and in person will be on Wednesday 21st August either at The Curtains Up pub in Barons Court or possibly operating portable in a park or open space (suggestions?) if weather permits.

Next month (August) won’t be quite as planned because the school has advised us that they won’t be able to offer us the usual facility due to summer holidays. The obvious fallback plan was to meet in the pub again, but then we thought that as we’re having significant success with essentially portable aerials, we could do a POTA type picnic in a park. So this month we’ll have a dress rehearsal with the aerials, radios and possibly battery power.

The evening will run from 7:00pm until 10:00pm, but the room will be available from 6:30 onward if anyone wants to arrive slightly earlier (e.g. to set up any kit).

People coming by car are encouraged to use the gated carpark (to avoid neighbours complaining about parking). The roads in the area tend to be very busy until at least 6:30pm, so don’t arrive too early.

To access the room (and car park) you will need to be let in through the security gates. Once you’re right outside the gate Just summon someone using your handheld on 145.500MHz. If you can’t use a radio for entry then contact us in advance and we’ll provide a mobile number you can call instead.  (One of this month’s tasks is to figure out how to mount a wireless doorbell near the gate so it’s subtly accessible but won’t be abused or stolen.)

Wifi is available in the annex, which also features hot drink making facilities (you’ll need to bring your own cups and ingredients), toilet, and you can bring your own beverages, alcoholic or otherwise.

As usual check the Discord server for up to the minute info and email if you don’t have a Discord link.

Usual meeting on Friday with chat about the Wednesday meetings and thoughts about how to promote the club now it seems we have a home again.

If you’ve got any particular topics for conversation pleases let me know and we’ll dedicate time for it.

Link to be sent on the day as usual.

Incidentally, the Events calendar on our website https://www.m0xhs.uk/events/ has some links at the bottom that allow you to synchronise it with Outlook or Google or iCalendar so meetings will automatically appear in your normal calendar.  The online meeting is easy to do manually but the meeting at the school is harder as it’s the second Wednesday (12 days) after the online meeting.  Setting up synchronisation will make it much easier.

Note that the August meeting scheduled to be at the school will have to take place somewhere else due to closure for the school holidays – probably The Curtains Up pub unless we come up with another plan like a POTA activation.