Rolls Royce Amateur Radio Club

[Stanley]

[PanBiker]

Time for the next episode and a bit of coverage of our portable operations. This from the first half of the 1980's so nearly 40 years ago.

The shack down on the Sports Complex was by now well established and we had the tower populated with Yagi antennas for HF and VHF as well as a vertical VHF antenna for FM use. We also had wire antennas deployed between the tower and various remote supports around the site.

One aspect of amateur radio operating are the various contests that take place. Many can be entered and operated from a fixed station location but many others are for portable stations particularly on the VHF bands. Where we live has a lot of potential for operating from an elevated height which on the VHF bands has distinct advantages. Most contests have different operating categories for fixed and portable stations. It's easy to operate from an established fixed station, rock up, switch on and away you go. All you have to organise are the operators and a decent logging system.

Operating portable is a completely different kettle of fish as you have to transport kit, assemble remote antennas and arrange a decent power supply. Other considerations depending on weather you may need shelter of some kind and suitable sustenance for the duration of the contest also comes into play.

Generally speaking the more metal you can get into the air the better your chances will be. Particularly if the contest is limited to low power operating. To this end and for VHF operating we decided to concentrate on the 2M (144Mhz) portion of the spectrum as there were plenty of contests in this section of the band. This involved establishing a portable antenna system that we could deploy as and when required. We decided that any HF contests or operating would be done from the shack as we already had the antennas and height is not an issue in the HF portion of the band.

Portable plan in place we started to build what we had decided on. We settled on a three section mast with an overall height of 60 feet. The mast was easily constructed using three 20ft scaffold poles and two joining clamps. It also gave the opportunity to assemble at 40ft if the surrounding terrain was suitable. We decided to deploy two 14 element Cushcraft Junior Boomers as a stacked array. This means the antennas would be mounted one above the other (with suitable spacing) and connected together using a phasing harness. With Yagi antennas the stacking distance has to take into account the distance of the first antenna from the ground and the length and overall gain of each antenna. You will see the optimum calculated distance from the photographs later that we settled on. This calculation produces maximum forward gain from our particular array.

As the array is a directional Yagi we needed some method of easy rotation and the facility to securely lock the the antennas into position. Rotation is not really a problem and with a portable and temporary deployment does not really require the expense and added complication of an electrical rotator. We decided the Armstrong method would be used, simple and effective! From our northern locations most of our contacts would come from from an arc east to west through south. Lots of even higher hills to the north of us and lots more potential down south, Wales, Ireland or into continental Europe. Many contests are scored on the distance of contacts made.

OK, 60ft mast with two antennas, that are each 12 foot long. We need a stable base, a substantial guying system and a method of mounting, cabling up and erecting the structure. Easy rotation and locking would be provided at the base of the mast once deployed. We had a brainstorming session to decide on the design of the base. It had to be substantial enough and easily secured to the ground. We settled on an arrangement constructed from angle iron welded together for the base, we needed a method of securing the bottom of the mast into the base horizontally and the facility to then pivot the mast to the vertical.

The base was about 18" square. It had two extra struts of angle either side of the centre about 4" apart with vertical plates welded to the angle. This was drilled to accept a section of 3" inside diameter steel pipe to be inserted between the plates. It was fixed in place by a locking bolt through a hole drilled through the walls about 2" from the bottom. The pipe was drilled and tapped near the top at 120 degree spacing and fitted with large locking studs that had levers welded to the ends for locking the mast into place. The base of the pipe had a plate welded over the end and had a thrust bearing in the bottom. The pivot pipe had a back stop strut welded in place which rotated to the horizontal once the mast was vertical. The locking studs were tightened to allow the mast to be raised securely and also provided an easy method of locking or releasing the array for rotation. The corners of the angle iron base had quadrant plates welded in place and drilled to accept four large screw pegs to be used for securing the structure to the ground. John produced an engineering drawing with all the details and passed it to the apprentices in the factory. The structure was produced and delivered up to us at the shack, they had finished it off in the anodising tank, a proper job as usual.

So we have a mast and a base we now need guys and a method of mounting them to allow rotation within the guying system. At 60ft we calculated that we needed two sets of guys. These would both be set below the lowest antenna as we cannot guy above as that would impede the rotation of the array. We calculated the the lowest antenna would be set at just above 50ft from the ground so the top set of guys would be just below, halving this distance we set the lower guys at around 25ft from the ground. The vertical stacking distance for the antennas was calculated at about 12 feet based on the gain and length of each antenna. This allowed us to produce the coaxial cable phasing harness for stacking the two antennas together. Guying lengths were worked out with a bit of basic Pythagoras for 90 degree triangles and guys were produced using polyurethane rope. The guy tensioners were cut and drilled from Acetal sheet. The fixings at the mast were formed from large diameter Acetal bar which was machined by Les in his shed and drilled out to just over the outside diameter of the 2" mast. I think it was 4" or 100mm bar. This gave a skirt of about 1" which was drilled to accept the guys to be attached. each set 120 degrees apart around the circumference. A simple aluminium ring collar was clamped beneath each of the guying points to fix their vertical position on the mast.

Once we had the base and the guys we did a trial run of assembling and erecting the array to prove that our method was viable. No point carting all this kit to the top of a hill and then finding that you cant put it up! We found that we needed a couple of chairs to rest the mast on for attaching the antennas. These were set up horizontally and parallel to the ground. A double extension ladder was used to brace the mast and take the weight while being rotated to the vertical. The team needed a minimum of four people to deploy the array safely. We used the top three guys, two for hauling and the third at the back controlling the pull. The fourth member of the crew would be the ladder man who would brace the mast using the ladder until it was past 45 degrees to the vertical. Once at that point the final pull to the vertical could be done solely using the guys. The backstop on the base and team member on the back rope completed the manoeuvre. Simple matter then to set the top guys first and then deploy the bottom guys in between the fixing positions of the top set. With two guying points the array was guyed at six points 60 degrees apart. For easy rotation, a horizontal lever was clamped to the mast at about waist height.

The system needed a minimum of roof bars but better still a trailer if available to transport the kit to selected sites. You will see in the photos that a windfall came our way which came in very useful. Les was offered a caravan for club use. I think it came from someone who had given up touring and it had been stood doing nothing. It was an older model but ideal for portable operations. Les, who was keen caravanner himself collected it and parked it up on the sports field car park behind the shack. It was watertight, all the electrics worked and the tyres were good. We spent a couple of weeks converting it for club use. We took out the seating at one end and replaced it with suitable benching for radio use. We had to take portable chairs with us for the antenna deployment so it was no real loss. It provided both shelter and operating facilities in reasonable comfort. We put a battery stack under the bench and wired them up to a terminal board at the back of the bench. We had a Honda generator that we could use to keep them topped up, it had a built in inverter so could also provide 240v for the van. Gas cooker worked, handy for brews and easy enough to knock a bacon or egg butty up when required.

If Wendy sees this she will recognise this deployment at the top of Dogson's Lane by the shooting hut and just down from the Cold War repeater station (Big Ears) which relayed data from Menwith Hill at the time.




Assembled vehicles at the top of the lane along with the club caravan.



The lad himself deploying guys.



First assessment of the deployment.



Tweaking the guys, Ronnie says, "about there"!



Finalised array, 2 stacked 14 element Cushcraft Junior Boomers at 50 - 60ft agl.



Assembled contest team. Left to right, myself (G4LWG), John York (G3KJY), Eric Cockerill (G4GOZ), Steve Atkinson I think, (G1BZH then and now G0IQM), Ronnie Cowgill (G4YMO), Les Logan (G4ILG). Sobering to think that all of these friends apart from Steve have passed away.

[Stanley]

" We decided to deploy two 14 element Cushcraft Junior Boomers as a stacked array."
Lovely......

[PanBiker]

After posting this I was just thinking how generous Rolls were with their welfare section grants and access to production facilities in the factories. Even back then those antennas were in the region of about £175 each. I reckon you can add about the same for the other hardware, coax and guying. Club funds via our grants bought the generator as well. The welfare sections were covered by Rolls insurance against loss. How things change in 40 years.

Cushcraft were well regarded at the time for producing high quality antennas. All our bought antennas were produced by them. US made, the firm has now been taken over by MFJ. They still produce antennas under the Cushcraft brand. I have just checked and the nearest equivalent available today is a 13 element variant (13B2) priced at £350 here in the UK.

Now we have antennas and a mobile shack at the top of a hill I will cover contest operating next. Oh and a little project that me and my mate Bill (G4PWC) got up to for our own use.

[PanBiker]

Before I go into radio contesting we need a bit of background on the different radio location systems. By this I mean the methods and systems used to locate the position of any given radio station.

OK, you can always give a full description for a general fixed station contact. Barnoldswick 9 miles south of Skipton in North Yorkshire is fine or 40 miles North of Manchester if you prefer. Barnoldswick is a mouthful in itself when relayed phonetically, Bravo, Alpha, Radio, November, Oscar, Lima, Delta, Sierra, Whiskey, India, Charlie, Kilo. That's a bit long winded for contest use where an average contact to exchange details may only last 30 seconds or so!

What is needed is a quick way of referencing your general location ideally using a single reference code. To this end various systems have been developed over the years to divide the surface of the globe up. There are lots of different systems but I will cover just a few that I have used. A common one which covered the whole of Europe was known as the QRA or QTH locator. This used a five digit alpha numeric code that described a unique rectangular area on the map of Europe. It was based on a German development from the 1950's. My location at the time when I lived on York Street was YN10G. The YN describes a large rectangular area, the 10 is a portion of that and the G a smaller section of that. Here is the Wiki which gives a bit more detail.

QRA (QTH) Locator System


Disadvantages of this system was that by only using five digits it could only cover Europe. No good for the rest of the world as it would require repeats of the same codes to cover the entire globe which would lead to ambiguity and confusion. Extensively used in Europe though especially on the VHF bands as it did cover most of the areas that you can contact from the UK on those frequencies.

A more extensive system known as Maidenhead Locator System was developed that could cover the entire globe. It was developed by the UK VHF Working Group in the late 1970's who met at Maidenhead. Basically this follows the same format, based on latitude and longitude but uses a few more digits that gives you the scope to cover all of the globe. This system uses an eight digit code, 2 alpah, 2 numeric, 2 alpa, 2 numeric. Still based on Latitude and Longitude but cleverly referenced from different starting points for the calculations. This system is still in use as it does the job well. My location under this system here on the Croft is IO83vw. You will see that I only need six from the eight digits available to get my location down to a unique square. Barlick is actually near the junction of four different squares two of which cover Barlick. Stanley is in the same square as me but Wendy is in IO83wv

Here is the Wiki and a useful site that you can use to find your Maidenhead reference anywhere on the globe. Zoom in and look at the reference at the cursor. or you can type a known location code in and it will display the square on the map.

Maidenhead Locator System

Maidenhead Grid Square Locator

Sport radio covers many different practices. DF hunting as previously described falls into the category as does operating from or making contact with operators who activate the tops of hills and mountains. This aspect is known as SOTA, (Summits On The Air). Activators can claim points by making a minimum number of contacts from the hill that they have chosen. Each summit has a unique reference and has to meet certain criteria to be classed as a summit under SOTA rules. Chasers are other operators that work from home or mobile or indeed from the tops of other hills. They get points for collecting contacts with summit activators. There is a lot of scope in this activity as it can be done using any of the amateur bands available to the licensee. Summits have been referenced all over the globe so scope for the HF bands.

Summits on the Air

Worked all Britain is another certificated activity which is location based and uses the OS mapping of the UK to reference the squares. You don't need micro granularity to take part in this. Plenty of squares to collect and some extremely rare as they don't have resident radio amateurs in them so rely on portable operators or clubs to activate the rarer WAB squares.

Worked all Britain

Just a few of the different systems that can reference your position for amateur radio sport use. Radio contest have been established using all of the different modes that are available for transmission. Some are CW (Morse) only, some are telephony, many on SSB and others on FM ,others are limited to low power, (QRP). There are contests using the various data modes available now and for bouncing signals off the moon if that floats your boat! Short contests, sometimes just a couple of hours or long ones over a couple of days. The chasing and collecting squares types are as long as it takes to complete the books or challenges. I won't go into POTA (Parks On The Air) or IOTA (Islands On the Air) but I will probably mention JOTA (Jamboree On The Air) and LOTA (Lions ON The Air). They too come under the banner of this section of the hobby.

[PanBiker]

As to the operating procedures and as described previously, there are many different types of radio contests. For the purpose of this post I will describe a typical contest based on location squares and the number of contacts made.

Regardless of the type of contest or the rules for the day, preparation goes a long way to being reasonably successful. Minimum requirement for a portable station starts of course with the masting and antennas. Sufficient time must be allowed to erect adjust and test the antennas before the start. Next you need a suitable transceiver and power supply for the band(s) that the contest covers. Scoring is achieved by surrendering a log of the contacts you make and any other information that the rules dictate. So, you must have a suitable log book and ideally a second operator to log the contacts and information required by the rules. It goes without saying that if you are operating from a portable location you also need the QRA or QTH location code of the site. All operators of the station of course must avail themselves of the rules and the correct contest exchange. Easily done if they take up a turn on the logging before operating.

A typical 2M (144MHz) band contest may last 8 hours for the actual contest 10am - 6pm, you need a couple of hours before that to sort the antennas and check the station before the start of the contest and maybe about an hour to disassemble the station after the finish. This makes it a 10 or 11 hour stint so you obviously need food and drink to keep you going through the day. This of course is where a caravan comes into its own. The more comfortable you are the easier the operating will be. I have operated contest stations both from the relative comfort of the club caravan and from the more typical set up of portable antennas and a car for operating from and powering the equipment.

We will assume that we have transported all the equipment up to Settle Highside which is easy to get to and gives a height advantage of 350m (1148 feet) asl. It has a fairly clear take off West through South and round to the East. You have to write off the Northern headings here as there is still higher ground rising behind you but still lots of scope for multiple contacts. All of Wales, IOM, Ireland, most of England and into Continental Europe if signal propagation conditions are good.

Arrive on site around 8am and deploy the antennas, set up the equipment in the car. Ideal if you can operate from the front seats, top of the dash comes in handy here. Arrange power either directly from the car or any other source you have available. Fully test that the antennas are optimised for the portions of the band that you will be operating from. Make sure you are fed and watered before the start time. Operator in driver position, logger in passenger side. Have a crib for the location square as it is very easy to get it wrong and give your home location instead which would invalidate the contact. We will assume that we are using a Yagi beam antenna so set that to your first heading of choice. During testing you should have been listening for any better contacts that were also testing. Callsigns are country specific so it's easy to spot the IOM (GD), Wales (GW), Ireland (EI) and Northern Ireland (GI). Set the beam for where the most activity is heard.

A typical contest exchange will require your callsign a valid signal report of sent and received signals, serial numbers of the contacts and the location square of the site. From Settle Highside the location square is IO84vb. Serial numbers of contacts start at 001 and increase by one for each new contact. You can get an idea how other stations are doing by the serial number in their reports.

You can choose to call or chase. The most efficient way of maximising contacts is to call and let others come to you. You stay on the same frequency and operate, no tuning up and down the band and no checking the log to see if you have already made a contact with the same station, repeats are not counted in scoring. We use International Q codes within the information to shorten the exchanges.

International Q Codes


10am so the contest starts, our outgoing call if using my station callsign would be as follows:

CQ, CQ, CQ contest, G4LWG portable, Golf Four Lima Whiskey Golf portable, you would probably generalise the location and add North Yorkshire while establishing the first few calls, a general direction for receiving stations to point their antennas and then add QRZ at the end of the call.

CQ is general call to all stations, the portable or /P is appended to the callsign as we are operating as a portable station, the QRZ at the end of the call means "who is calling me" and acts as a signal to reply. A calling station will probably return with the full required contest exchange. We will assume our first contact is a fixed station in North Wales around Colwyn Bay.

G4LWG portable this is GW6PNL, Golf Whiskey Six Papa November Lima, you are 56003 in IO83eh, Italy Oscar Eight Three Echo Hotel, QSL

GW6PNL is the returning station operating from Wales 56003. the 56 is the signal report based on the RST reporting system (Received Audio (1 - 5) signal strength (0 - 9). In telephony contacts we don't use the last parameter T which is only used for the clarity of tone if using CW (Morse Code). 003 is the number of contacts this station has made so far in the contest. IO83eh is the location (Colwyn Bay area), QSL appended at the end means "can you acknowledge receipt".

I would glance over at the log which should already have the received information written in and check that we have all the details and don't need anything repeating. If that is the case it's just a case of sending our details then moving on to the next contact as efficiently as possible:

QSL, GW6PNL, G4LWG portable, your report, 55001 in IO83vb, Italy Oscar Eight Three Victor Bravo. 73 and thanks for the contact, good luck in the contest QSL

QSL at the front of the reply means "I confirm your details". I finish with another QSL at the end asking for verification of my details. If he has copied all our details a typical reply would be 73 and good luck in the contest before he vacates the frequency. He called me so the frequency is mine, so:

QRZ, contest G4LWG portable....

With a bit of luck another station (or stations) will be queuing to make contact. Repeat accordingly until the contacts run dry then possibly contemplate a beam heading change.

All this sounds quite involved but if you read through the dialogue, all the information for a successful contact can be passed both ways in about 30 seconds. If it's busy and you are into the rhythm you can complete the exchanges in less than 30 seconds. Of course there are repeats to contend with and folk that call without knowing the information exchange required. The skill is dealing with each contact appropriately and in the most efficient way. No point persevering with a distant signal way down in the noise that you will ultimately fail on. Thank them for trying and then move on, you are working against the clock. Practically, 100 contacts an hour is a good average and pretty good going for a portable station.

[PanBiker]

Contest logging should be mentioned. In order to score the contest an accurate log needs to be taken by all participants that wish to enter of all contacts made between start and end times.

For the contest described above that would mean logging the following:

Date, time of commencement of contact (in GMT), report and serial number sent, report and serial number received, QTH locator square received.

As the logs had to be submitted to the contest organisers, we always favoured a bespoke log on loose leaf sheets. These could easily be copied for entry. Relatively easy to produce these either with a ruler and hand annotated or blank sheets produced by computer and printer. Date and name of the contest, callsign used and locator square operated from could all be pre entered on each sheet. Incremental contact serial numbers, (commencing 001) could also be inserted ranged right in the report sent column. This saved both time and provided a crib for the operators next serial number for successive contacts. We generally produced these on standard A4 sheets and hole punched for a binder which also gave a platform for the logger to operate from. For report sent the log operator only needed to record the outgoing report. The incoming report and serial number of course had to recorded in full. We often had a spare column for any extra information that may be received that may be useful. Contacts were logged until the end cut off time, final contact could be logged if it started before the end time but ran over.

Contest logs were then copied and sent to the contest organisers for scrutiny and scoring. Winners are usually awarded some kind of certification that could be displayed.

[Stanley]

A very specialised activity......

[PanBiker]

To some degree Stanley. If you are in the operating position you need to get into a rhythm for efficient operating. Once you get going it almost becomes automatic. Some folk are better at it than others and to some degree it comes down to confidence in handling different situations. On the logging side you need good concentration, speed a neatness, no point filling in a log if you cant read it! You can operate solo but that is much easier from a fixed station. There are computer based logging systems now which have their uses.

Portable it's a team effort and is both challenging and fun. Most operators would do about an hour and then pass the microphone to another operator. If there is just two of you it would be the same, a role swap every hour or so. With telephony contests it gives your voice time to recover and an opportunity to take on sustenance.

Not to everyone's taste of course and there is quite a bit of backlash about how many contests are on the bands, particularly in the HF portions of the spectrum especially at weekends. On the other side of the coin contests can be used to stimulate activity on bands that have little activity under normal circumstance. The VHF bands are case in point nowadays particularly the use of SSB mode. To this end the RSGB (Radio Society of Great Britain) run monthly short duration contests on VHF an UHF. These only last a couple of hours and serve to stimulate activity and offer an introduction to contest operating. Some are held in the early evening, I often have a listen round from home and just take part to give a few points away. It's along time since I have entered a contest with a view to winning

[Tripps]

I remember an AT who did contests (on HF I think) , who used to pretend he was in Iceland - which seemingly was a rare and highly desirable contest contact - consequently he was very busy. Rumbled eventually and exposed.

'Chacun a son gout' Rodney, but none of contesting is for me. . . .

[PanBiker]

No cheating for us other than the back engineering in this next episode.

I mentioned earlier that me and my mate Bill Roberts (G4PWC) did a project together, here it is.

I have described how the club used a stacked antenna array of two Cushcraft 14 element antennas. The Cushcraft antennas were priced around £175.00 each. Fine for the club but out of our reach.

We had an itch to produce a four antenna array. This would mean arranging the antennas in what is known as a "stacked and bayed" formation. That is two pairs of stacked antennas mounted side by side. This would involve manufacturing the antennas and a suitable mount, masting and guying plus the coaxial phasing harness to hook them all up in perfect electromagnetic balance with one another. This should yield a power gain of about 6dB. We intended to enter the Practical Wireless 2M Low Power contest. The rules set limited output power from the transceiver of 25w maximum. Exactly what my portable multimode 2M Standard C58 with it's matching linear amplifier could produce. A 6dB gain from the array would give a 4 x power factor effectively multiplying the effective radiated power (erp) from the antenna to 100W

The Cushcraft design with its relatively simple gamma match driven element was the inspiration for our plan. We copied the dimensions of the elements and noted the spacings along the boom. At the time Bill ran a soft furnishings business from one of the units in the old mill on Warehouse Lane in Foulridge. It was quite a large area and had long benches and air driven tools for the furniture production.

We sourced all the aluminium stock required from K Steels at Burnley. We settled on using a square box section for the boom and used 20A chock block (terminal block) connectors screwed to the boom to attach the elements and reflector. The driven elements were mounted on a bracket complete with the gamma match and an SO239 socket for connecting the coaxial phasing harness. This was bolted to the boom at the required position and could be removed like all the other elements for transport. We split the booms into three sections for easy transport and used smaller box section inserts pop riveted in place to create the joints which were drilled laterally for bolts with wing nuts to secure the sections back together. The forward elements and reflector were cut from 3mm solid rod, these were a nice fit through the 20A chock block connectors we had chosen for the fixings and were secured by the screws in the blocks. Element positions were fixed by the block connectors. Elements are progressively smaller from back to front so quite easy to sort out the order when assembling. We marked the centre of each element with heat shrink sleeving at one side which butted up to the block connector and indicated the correct lateral position across the boom . The centre section was drilled and fitted with a U bolt and wing nuts for securing to the mast. We knocked up some leatherette type holdalls for stowing each antenna and a bag for the phasing harness and coax downlead.

To stack and bay you need two vertical sections of mast which are then connected laterally with a central boom, effectively a stretched "H" formation. This central boom is then connected to the main vertical mast which is guyed when erected. To cut down on weight we made the "H" frame from 1.5" aluminium masting. We marked al the clamping points for assembly with coloured insulation tape. The main vertical mast was 2" diameter. We borrowed the bottom section of the club mast and guying for this. No point reproducing that.

A phasing harness to connect all four beams together and provided a central connector for the 50 ohm coax downlead was produced. Each antenna has an impedance of 50 ohms, we need to maintain a 50 ohm connection point in the centre of the phasing harness. We used 75 ohm coax and in conjunction with the phasing lengths we had to use to match the arrays both horizontally and vertically and based on the stacking and baying separation you end up with the required 50 ohms in the middle.

We set each antenna up down on the sports field on a ten foot pole and adjusted the gamma matches on the driven elements for best resonance in the middle of the SSB portion of the 2M (144MHz) band - 144.500 MHz. It is this section of the band that would be used in the contest. Once each antenna was optimised we connected all four on the "H" frame then onto the 20ft bottom section of the portable mast. The antennas are all mounted with the elements horizontal to the ground. Matching was still well within tolerance so the set up was fit for purpose.

We transported the whole lot up to the site on Settle Highside that is described above. We entered the Practical Wireless Low Power Contest which I think was held around August. I cant remember how many contacts we made now, it is 30 odd years ago. I'm fairly sure there was a multiplier bonus in the rules applied to the number of contacts made, this was based on the number of different locator squares contacted and another multiplier for the number of countries worked. We managed to work England, Wales, Irish Republic and N Ireland an odd contact into the Netherlands and I think one in France. When the results were published we ended up 3rd overall from about 200 entries so quite a successful effort.

[PanBiker]

I have just checked and the PW Low Power contest is still running. They have used different power levels overs the years the last one held in June was limited to 3W maximum into the antenna. Looking at the results the number of entrants has dropped considerably due to the use of the 2M band dropping out of favour with many. Use it or loose it comes into play here which is why we still try to maintain our local 2M nets for local rag chews.

[Stanley]

"rag chews."
Is that a technical term?

[PanBiker]

Yes, aka natter and keeping up with mates who have a common interest. We talk about all sorts though.

[Stanley]

[PanBiker]

A bit more now about station call signs and events that the club used to support.

As discussed before all radio amateurs are issued with a station call sign which represents their technical status. Clubs call signs are slightly different in that they can apply for call signs that are more representative of the club itself, hence the Barlick Rolls Royce Amateur Radio Club holding G3RR and G6RRB for general club activities. Another section of the hobby are what are known as Special Events. These can be activities organised by the clubs themselves or on behalf of other organisations.

There are a number of annual international events that take place on the amateur radio bands and the club did help out with these when requested by the relative organisations who themselves may have no radio amateur members. Over the years the club ran on air events for the Scouts, and Guides, Brownies, and adult organisations such as the Lions Club.

The Scouting movement which of course includes the Cubs, Guides and Brownies hold an annual event at the same time as their annual Scout Jamboree. This is known as JOTA and that stands for Jamboree on the Air. The licensing conditions for special event call signs allowed unlicensed individuals to send greeting messages to other stations taking part in the event. The club would establish the contact and then maintaining supervision could hand the microphone over to the Scout, Brownie, Guide or Cub and allow them to converse with the other party and exchange greetings messages.

The special event call signs used in the UK at the time were identified by a GB prefix. I remember we applied for a special call for West Craven Scouts, I think it was GB2WCS or maybe GB3WCS. We used this for JOTA and had a stream of visitors from the various groups who took part in the online event.

I don't have any photo's of this but I do have one for another event that we ran for the local Brownies. Thinking Day on the Air. This was held on the 8th March 1996. All these girls are now grown up and may well have kids of their own now.



The Lions are a worldwide organisation and they ran an annual Hunting Lions Event. We ran this event on behalf of Pendle Lions Club and got the special even call sign GB2LI for use. I think this was a whole weekend event and the idea was to seek out as many stations run by or on behalf of the different Lions groups around the world. Here is an unused QSL card for the event. Printed up for the club but with the Pendle Lions Club added and then overprinted with Pendle district reference for the group and the GB2LI call sign used. You can see that this was for contacts on 12th January 1985. All the cards completed for the actual contacts would have been sent off to the RSGB QSL Bureau, this is a central clearing arrangement run by the national society. All outgoing cards are sent to a single address and they are then forwarded to the recipients. This is an international service and it works both ways for incoming cards as well.



With call sign prefixes moving on alpha numerically over the years there is considerably more scope nowadays for a greater range of special calls. Once just the premise of Radio Clubs any licensed radio amateur can now apply for a special event call sign. Considerably easier nowadays because all the licensing has moved predominantly to online administration by Ofcom.

[Stanley]