Radio experiment to celebrate the 40th anniversary of KLARC

The first Kilmarnock and Loudoun Amateur Radio Club (KLARC) constitution was agreed by the club's founding members in September 1980.  In 2020 the club is therefore now 40 years old.  Happy birthday KLARC!

The summer of 1980 was an eventful time in the UK.  Mrs Thatcher was the Prime Minister, the 'tanner' (6 old pence) was taken out of circulation, unemployment was over 2 million and industries such as steel making, shipbuilding and coal mining were being closed down at a colossal rate.  There was some good news as well though because, in addition to KLARC being formed, the Mark 3 Ford Escort front wheel drive was released and neither Rangers nor Celtic won the Football Scottish Premier League - Aberdeen did!

The first club-like Amateur Radio organisation in Ayrshire during the early days of radio was The Ayrshire RSGB Group.  There have been a number of radio clubs in the county over the years since then.   In the summer of 1980 three Kilmarnock based  radio amateurs thought that there may be a demand for a Kilmarnock based club and they sent out a letter to all of the other amateurs they knew in and around Kilmarnock.  This letter was calling an initial meeting to discuss setting up a Kilmarnock club.  Following a few discussion meetings it was decided to set up Kilmarnock and Loudoun Amateur Radio Club.  The name was selected because the Local Authority at that time was Kilmarnock and Loudoun District Council and we thought it might do our cause some good by using the same geographical identity as the council.  The initiator of that original letter being sent was GM3OYH David Baird and he was supported by GM3CTG John Hemphill and GM3NZN Tom Greig.  All three are now SK.  My favourite photo of Dave GM3OYH is the one below which looks a bit more like a World War II Home Guard exercise from the 1940s than a radio Field Day event!  It was taken during the 1980s at a farm on Mauchline hilltop.  Some readers might be able to identify the other OMs in the photo.

So what has this all got to do with a radio experiment?  Well...GM3OYH was keenly interested in all aspects of evolving technology in the hobby and often left some of us wondering how he got to know all this clever stuff.  As we started to introduce and use computers for things such as logging and rig control he gave a lot of thought to where this might all eventually lead to.  He wasn't too interested in using computers and software but he did realise that this technology was going to bring lots of new developments to amateur radio.  One of the things he predicted and spoke about often was that it was going to become possible to hook up a computer to a radio transceiver and have it automatically work and log stations without the operator doing anything. This would result, he said, in being able to set such a station running and then go back and switch it off after DXCC had been achieved (100 countries worked). Remember that this was in the days before we had PCs, data modes (other than RTTY) or the Internet.  I'm not sure that many of us thought that his prediction was viable, but anything Dave said always had to be taken seriously because he was so technically knowledgeable.  So during the summer of 2020 for the 40th anniversary of KLARC, and as a tribute to Dave GM3OYH, I decided to test the prediction about becoming able to automatically, without operator intervention, contact 100 countries that our founding father had made all those years ago.  Read on to find out what happened.

The first thing I had to do was assess the best radio, mode, antenna, computer and software setup to use for the experiment.  It would be too long winded to go through all the options that could have been tried so I will just outline the final setup:

   Rig - Flex 6500 running 35 watts;

   Antenna - 20m dipole at 7m agl;

   Computer - i7 PC;

   Software - FT8 mode TX/RX program and a logging program.

NOTE - I am not elaborating on the software setup since it is possible for it to be used for unattended operation which is not permitted under UK licence conditions.  One aspect of the covid-19 stay at home advice in force during the experiment was that it meant I was in attendance at my station for the entire operating period of the experiment.  I will not respond to any requests for further details about the software setup used.  The final setup, once initiated, was able to complete contacts using the FT8 mode on 20m by decoding CQ calls and responding automatically to any new DXCC country heard.  This process included entering each completed contact into a log automatically before going back to monitor for more new DXCCs calling CQ.  Once any particular DXCC had been worked and logged, the system would not call any other stations from that same DXCC.  If the experiment was going to work it would mean that 100 countries would be contacted by making only 100 QSOs.  I decided to use 20m since this band is the one most likely to yield numbers of DX contacts at this time of year and sunspot cycle.  Low dipoles are omnidirectional so my choice of antenna was advantageous for contacting DX from all beam headings.

The experiment started at 20:16 on 1 July 2020 and lasted for 10 days.  The first contact was with F4CTJ.  I have to admit that it felt rather surreal when I started - watching the station respond to a CQ, complete the QSO, log it and then start listening for other CQs without me doing anything.  The new DXCCs started to rack up very rapidly with most of them being European initially but some better DX was there from early on as well...PY7ZZ was worked 15 minutes after the start..

Unsurprisingly, the first couple of days yielded a lot of new DXCCs as many of the easy to work European countries went into the log.  Some good DX was also worked in those 2 days including PY, LU, CE, A61, HI, CO, 8P6, 5T5 and A45, but the number of contacts from within Europe was significantly higher than the real DX outside Europe.

The number of new DXCCs per day during the following 8 days dropped into single figures and the proportion of DX to European QSOs reversed.  Most contacts being made were then really good DX such as BY, HZ, J73, EX, 5Z4, JA, HP, VR, VK, CP, ZD7 and others.  A chart is attached showing the new DXCC count per day.

QSO number 100 wasn't DX though!  It was HB0WR at 05:09 on day 10.  So there we have it...I started the experiment on 1 July 2020 and my station (NOT  ME!) had automatically worked and logged 100 DXCC countries without me being involved in the process.  All those years ago, Dave GM3OYH, the founding father of KLARC was right after all!  His memory as one of Ayrshire's most remarkable Radio Amateurs lives on.