Club News
Fox Hunt 2024
First Hounds
The first team to find the fox was Tracy & Shaun (2E0BKU & M0BKU)
Second Hounds
The second team was Adrian & Gerry (G0HAS & G4SPE)
Only four teams ventured out in the fox hunt this year, with only two team finding the fox (Frank G4YXS).
Constructors Cup 2023
G2BQY Scratch Build Trophy Winner
G0VFS entry - A CW Contest Unokeyer
G4UNU Kit Build Trophy Winner
G0TOE entry - 1 Meter Tug Boat and Electronics
Runner Up for G2BQY
G0BBL - Microwave CW QRP
Runner up for G4UNU
G0VFS - Wifi Remote Capacitor
Scratch build entry
G4SPE - CW OpAmp Filter
Scratch build entry
M0GHZ - Retro GPS Shack Clock
Kit build entry
G4SPE - Pixie Kit
Scratch build entry
G0BKU - 2 Meter Linear amp
This years Constructors cup competition was once more a well supported and interesting evening, with a wide range of of both scratch build and Kit built projects. These built by our industrious and innovative members with the following results:
The G2BQY Trophy First place Roy - G0VFS (38)points
2nd Jan G4BBL (34) , 3rd Shaun G0BKU (18), 4th Gerry G4SPE (16), 5th David G6POW (11), 6th David M0GHZ (8)
The G4UNU First place Arthur - G0TOE (47) points
2nd Roy G0VFS (46), 3rd G4SPE (30).
Scratch build entry
G6POW - 2, 70cm portable antenna
Return to Activity / On Air-Natter / Night
Wednesday night 20 September saw a return of the clubs activity/on air/natter night with a good turnout of 15 club members. It is hoped that support for this evening will continue to grow so that this evening can once more be one of the clubs monthly events. Please come along to the next one on the 18th October and give it your support.
TDARC 40th Anniversary
On the 16th August at The Farm House Inn Southwick, members of the Trowbridge and District Amateur Radio Club gathered together to celebrate the clubs 40 years of association since its founding back in 1983 .
Members were able to enjoy a three course meal and drinks while in lively discussion with members both old and new. Amongst many topics of conversation of the clubs activities over the years was that of its resent success winning the mix & match section of the NFD this year.
The above picture showing surviving founding members of TDARC - Ian G0GRI, Gerry G4SPE, Dave G0GKH, David G6POW and inset right Dennis 2E0JWJ who was unable to attend on the night.
TDARC wins Mix n Match section in VHF NFD!!! 2023
In Summary:
50 MHz Open- 1st Place
70 MHz Open- 5th place
144 MHz Restricted- 6th place
432 MHz Low Power- 1st place
1.2 GHz Restricted-1st place
As always WELL DONE to EVERYONE involved.
As I always say.....this is all down to the team effort made by everyone which makes our score count!
Fox Hunt 2023
The Fox this year was David - M0GHZ
The fox was located at NGR 861647 on the road from the cross roads to Stonar School and Broughton Gifford, located under some power lines.
Registered teams before setting of were:-
G4SPE & M0PHI
G0BKU, M0RLK & G0HAS
M0RFX
First team to find the fox was Frank - G4YXS and Jerry G4JQN @ 20:43
Second team to find the fox was Mike M0ALW, Kyle 2E0EPV and Dave M0SXZ @ 20:48
Club Trophy Awards
Christmas 2022
2022 G2BQY Cup Winner
Gerry G4SPE collecting the cup for the scratch built constructors competition
2022 G4UNU Cup Winner
Yan G5BBL collecting the kit built constructors competition trophy
Fox Hunt Trophy Winner 2022
David M0GHZ collecting the fox hunt Trophy
VHF NFD 2022
The Club team arrived at Maesbury on the outskirts of Shepton Mallet (IO81RF) over the weekend of 2nd & 3rd July.
As in previous years VHF NFD was well supported, everyone joined in to build the station and get aerials up in the air whilst enjoying the scenery and great company of other members.
Here's how we did it:
50 MHz- 3rd place in open section
70 MHz- 4th place in open section
144 MHz- 4th place in restricted section
432 MHz- 2nd place in low power section
1296 MHz-2nd place in restricted section
Fox Hunt 2022
This year there were 5 teams with a total of 8 participants: Ben, Frank (G4YXS) and Jerry (G4JQN) , Gerry (G4SPE), Ray (M0RFX)& Terry (XLY) and David (M0GHZ)& Carol (XYL).
First to find the Fox was David and Carol arriving at 8:26pm. They win the right to be the FOX next year!
Constructors Cup 2021 Results
Finally, on Wednesday 3rd of November after what seems a very long time, club members were once more able to take part in the constructors competition. The event was well supported with nine entrants, and a total of thirteen members including one visitor. All felt great pleasure in the opportunity to once more be able to discus in person with fellow amateurs the various projects and activities undertaken over the past year and examine the submitted projects for judging. The pictures below are of the winning entrants followed by the other exceptional projects.
G2BQY Cup Winner
David - M0GHZ
With his 70cm solid state linear amplifier
G4UNU Runner Up
Jan - G5BBL
HF QRP Transceiver
Other Entries
VHF NFD 2021
The Trowbridge & District Amateur Radio Club once more enjoyed a wonderful weekend of sunshine and radio in the amazing location of Maesbury Castle. See the full report here.
Fox Hunt 2021 result
Mike Adams M0AWL & Kyle Brown 2E0EVP Take first place with only one other team unsuccessful locating the fox. See full report
The RSGB GOTA4C charity auction raises a terrific £1025.99!
The RSGB ‘Get on the air for Christmas’ charity auction ended with an amazingly generous final bid of £1,025.99. The RSGB Board pledged to match the winning bid, making the overall donation a significant amount for NHS Charities Together (registered charity no. 1186569).
Roy Bailey - G0VFS, a member of this club, won the Lockdown Category in the RSGB’s annual Construction Competition with his Virusperplexed Bug key.
Roy wishing to raise money for the NHS, decided to donate his key to be put up for auction on eBay. Not knowing how to go about this, Roy contacted the RSGB who took up the task of publicising and arranging the auction.
Roy says, “It seemed only logical and fitting that the story of this key should end with it being donated for auction to give financial support to the NHS. Thank you to all at the RSGB who have been ‘key’ to organising the online auction and everyone who took part in the bidding. My warmest congratulations to the successful bidder.”
2020 TDARC Constructors Competition Via Zoom
Due to the ongoing situation with the covid virus and not being able to meet at Southwick village hall for our meeting, the constructors competition was held via the Zoom platform this year. Because of the difficulties in setting up a voting scheme for the two individual trophies, it was decided that there would be just one vote per attendee to allocate First & Second place. The first would win the B2BQY trophy and the second would win the G4UNU trophy.
Four entrants submitted projects for the competition which were:
Remote Antenna Switch by Roy - G0VFS
40m QCX CW Transceiver by Gerry - G4SPE
GDO with coils by Gerry - G4SPE
GPS Frequency Locking of Microwave Transverters
After each project had been showcased by the constructor, a vote was taken; Gerry - G4SPE with his GDO came first with 42% of the vote and David - M0GHZ took second place with 33%
Thirteen members attended the Zoom meeting, with one joining from the USA. If you were unable to attend this, the first Zoom hosted TDARC Construction competition, you can watch it again on the club Zoom catch up page: Zoom Constructors Competition 2020
Gerry - G4SPE with his GDO wins the G2BQY Memorial Cup
David - M0GHZ with his GPS Frequency Locking of Microwave Transverters wins the G4UNU
TDARC Member Wins the Lockdown category of the RSGB Constructor Competition 2020
On Saturday 10th and Sunday 11 October, the RSGB Convention took place on-line with the judging of the 2020 constructor cup on Saturday. This year the competition was divided into 5 categories. These categories were the following: Beginners, Construction excellence, Innovation, Software and Lockdown
Roy - G0VFS was successful in wining the lockdown section with his copy of the vibroplex key. As this morse key was made entirely during the COVID period of self-isolation, Roy thought it would be apt to call his copy of a Vibroplex bug, the "VirusPerplexed bug", a tongue in cheek play on the name VIBROPLEX. More about the construction of this key can be found here: https://sites.google.com/site/hamradiog0vfs/projects/virusperplexed-key
To read about the other excellent construction projects and the winners of the various categories as well as the overal winner taking the Pat Hawker G3VA Trophy, please visit here: https://rsgb.org/main/about-us/rsgb-convention/annual-rsgb-construction-competition-2020/
Lockdown VHF NFD Report
The traditional VHF NFD was cancelled this year as a result of the Coronavirus lock down, so we were unable to make our annual entry from Maesbury Castle. As an alternative, the RSGB VHF Contest Committee devised a Lock Down VHF NFD over the weekend of 4 th /5 th July which could be entered by individuals of a club from their home QTH, rather like the AFS Contests. For each band, 50MHz, 70MHz, 144MHz, 432MHz and 1296MHz, the four highest scoring members from a club were placed into a team, and where more than four members participate, multiple teams were formed. The normalised scores from the 3 highest scoring bands being used to determine the winner. The event was well supported with 74 participating groups made up of 286 individual callsigns.
Seven TDARC members entered: G3TKF, 2E0OUT, M0GHZ, G0GRI, M0IMS, G4JQN & G0HEL. The Club achieved 9 th position out of 74 group entries with James 2E0OUT being the Restricted Section Leading Intermediate Station on 50MHz and 432MHZ - well done James! The event was won by the Harwell club.
Full details of the results are available at https://www.rsgbcc.org/cgi-
bin/vhfresults.pl?ContestSeries=vhfnfdafs&year=2020
Hopefully we will return to Maesbury in 2021 when we can give Harwell a serious challenge again!
Fox Hunt 2020 result
The Trowbridge & District Amateur Radio Club Christmas Social
The Christmas social that took place on Wednesday the 4th of December once more proved to be a most enjoyable and well supported occasion. The evening started off with every one tucking in to the sumptuous spread of Christmas fare brought by those attending.
Once everyone had taken refreshment, the four club trophies were awarded. The G2BQY Memorial Constructors Cup awarded for best scratch built project , was awarded to David - M0GHZ, (See the following news article) A family effort from the clubs newly weds of the summer; Shaun - G0BKU and Tracey - 2E0BKU both received trophies. Shaun the G3GKC Memorial Trophy for his tirelessly and with such dedication, taking-up the role of secretary earlier this year and Tracey who was awarded the G4UNU Trophy for her kit built project. (See the following news article).
This year is the first time that the newly made trophy for the fox hunt was awarded. The wining team first to locate the concealed fox. was Roy - G0VFS and Peter - M0JVY, unfortunately Peter was not at the social therefore Roy collected the trophy on both their behalves.
Following the awards there followed two rounds of general knowledge quiz which all enjoyed, some having quite a competitive spirit. Finally, to round off what was a very pleasant evening, a game of killer skittles was played. As individuals were eliminated from the game, they made their way home, the time now being quite late and the fog moving in.
The G2BQY & G4UNU Constructors Cups Competition 6th November 2019
On Wednesday evening , the judging of the constructors cups took place. There was a good turn out of club members, many of who brought along projects to enter. The usual two trophies were up for grabs. The G2BQY Memorial Cup, awarded for the best project built from scratch and the G4UNU trophy, awarded for kit built projects.
G2BQY Trophy
For the G2BQY Memorial Cup, there were six entries. These entries were the following:
G0VFS-Roy with a Dummy load built from a PC processor heat sink and a thick film resistor
M0GHZ-David with his 28MHz to 144MHz Transverter
G0BKU-Shaun with a 3 element DF beam using plumbing parts and a tape measure
M0PUH-Matt with a 4 element DF beam using plumbing parts and a tape measure
2E0HBV-Jim with a combined QRP power meter and dummy load
G4SPE-Gerry with his scratch built Southern receiver
G4UNU Trophy
For the G4UNU trophy, the following were entered:
G4JQN-Jerry with his Station Manager Kit from the FUNKAMATEUR Mag
2E0BKU-Tracey with her Chinese Forty-9er Kit , built into a repurposed case
M0GHZ-David with a 23cm QRO Harmonic Filter and Directional Coupler kit from G3XDY
M0PUH-Matt with a Wobbulator using a Raspberry Pi, DDS Signal module and a Surface mount kit
2E0HBV-Jim with a Chinese Pixie transceiver kit
The Successful winners for the G2BQY and G4UNU Trophies for 2019 were:
M0GHZ -David wins the G2BQY Memorial Trophy with his 28MHz to 144MHz transverter
Using the G4DDK Anglian Transverter kit configured to work with an Icom IC-7300 transceiver fitted with a DB6NT transverter interface. A PA giving 20W output has been included. David is using the 2m transverter for driving his microwave transverters (13, 9, 6 & 3cm bands) in order to benefit from the SDR features of the IC-7300
2E0BKU-Tracey wins the G4UNU Trophy with her Chinese Forty-9er
This is the Chinese version of the popular NorCal 40m CW transceiver using a NE602 and LM386 IC. The operating frequency is crystal controlled at 7.023Mhz with 1 watt output .
The RSGB 50MHz AFS Contest on the 20 October 2019
G8NEY/P operated by David M0GHZ and Pete 2E0NEY from IO81UN, near Horton 5km NE Chipping Sodbury. 183m ASL, Rig IC-7300, homebrew GS35B linear, 400W out, antenna Club 7 ele YU7EF at 9m above ground
ODX I6WJB in JN72CK 1605km
Total number of stations worked 115
Contributed by David M0GHZ
Station Setup: IC7300 with a 300w amp, the antenna shown is a four element 50/70Mhz beam at 22ft.
Contributed by Robin G3TKF
Photo of M1BQY/P taking part in the above contest at the White Horse - I081WG.
ASL 220m, Rig Icom 7300, Antenna 4ele LFA at 6m, Amp None, Best DX GI4SNA
Contributed by Ian G0GRI
50MHz AFS Contest results are now in as follows:
TDARC A team took second place with 2,845 points with Cambridge Hams taking first place with 3845 points, a reversal from 2018.
The B Team achieved a credible 12th position with entries from James 2E0OUT and Jerry G4JQN.
Individual club entry results were as follows:
G8NEY/P operated by David M0GHZ and Pete 2E0NEY 1st in Open Section
G2BQY/P operated by Russ M0WYB and Shaun G0BKU 4th In Open Section
Robin G3TKF/P 11th in Open Section
M1BQY/P operated by Mark M0IMS, Ian G0GRI and Adrian G0HAS 15th in Open Section.
James 2E0OUT 17th in the Single Operator Fixed section and was the leading intermediate station – well done James.
Jerry G4JQN 33rd in the Single Operator Fixed section
2019 VHF National Field Day
The Trowbridge & District Amateur Radio Club once more enjoyed a wonderful weekend of sunshine and radio in the amazing location of Maesbury Castle. See the full report here.
2019 Fox hunt results
First - G0VFS Roy, M0JVY Peter
Second - G0BKU & Tracey 2E0BKU (Click for full report)
The TDARC Christmas Social and Presentations Night 2018
On Wednesday 5 December 2018, the Club Christmas social & presentation evening was once again a most festive and enjoyable evening. With killer skittles (last one standing), a general & radio knowledge quiz, raffle and then presentations, there was much to fit into the evening. Plenty of food, good company, and entertainment, for certain, all would agree, the evening was a great success and enjoyed by everyone.
After some refreshments, all pitted their skills against one another in the killer skittles which was a pretty close thing at the end with Frank G4YXS and Peter 2E0NEY neck and neck. However, Frank who had maintained a strong lead through the initial stage of the match was finally victorious.
The quiz was created and presented by Adrian G0HAS, consisting of a Christmas trivia section followed by a radio section. All found the quiz quite challenging. The winners were the Universally Challenged team consisting Dave G0GKH, Roy G0VFS & Pauline.
After the raffle draw with the prizes collected by the lucky participants, it was time for the presentation of the Constructors G2BQY cup & G4UNU trophy followed by the Memorial Trophy.
Awards as follows:
The G2BQY cup for a scratch build - G0VFS for his manual morse key.
The G4UNU trophy for a kit build - G0VFS for his QCX 20 CW XCVR.
The G3GKC Memorial Trophy - G0GRI for his many years of hard work and dedication to TDARC in the role of Secretary as well as being a highly motivated member of the club in forwarding its interests.
Finally, a very special presentation of a KENT morse key was made to Ian G0GRI in recognition of all he has done for TDARC over the years, as one of its earliest members and longtime serving Secretary in the Committee.
The Committee felt that Ian should have something to provide him a constant reminder of theirs and members appreciation.
Trowbridge & DARC (G0HEL/P G2BQY/P G8NEY/P M0WYB/P)
1st in the All Section of the 50MHz AFS Contest 2018
M0WYB/P Score = 2502632 Norm = 1000
G8NEY/P Score = 1105541 Norm = 781
G0HEL/P Score = 772626 Norm = 772
G2BQY/P Score =676916 Norm = 998
Total Score = 3,551
Read the contributed article on the The AFS Super League
certificate1543581342.pdf2018 VHF Nation Field Day
The Trowbridge & District Amateur Radio Club enjoyed another wonderful weekend of sunshine and radio in the glorious location of Maesbury Castle. See the full report here.
16th June 2018 6m Trophy Contest
Club members David M0GHZ, Adrian G0HAS and Ian G0GRI took part in the 6 hour Open section of the 6m Trophy Contest on Saturday 16th June from the Westbury White Horse using the club call G2BQY/P.
The rig was an IC-746 driving David's home-brew GS35B linear amplifier running 400W into the club 7 element yagi at about 10m.
A total of 123 stations were worked in a total of 11 countires and 31 squares, with the best dx being IT9BDM in JM77NE at 2074km.
Conditions were a little disappointing with only short periods of sporadic E however it was a good pre VHF NFD test of the equipment.
Jun 2018 Advance Exam Pass
Congratulations to club Member, Pete 2E0JVY who has passed the advanced radio amateur exam. Peter used the new online facility to take the exam, finding it to be very convenient and was pleased to quickly have his result. Read Article
See: http://rsgb.org/main/clubs-training/for-students/advanced/
and: https://thersgb.org/publications/exams/170202-Online-Advanced-Exam-FAQ-VFinal.pdf
2018 Fox hunt results
First - M0GHZ David, G0HAS Adrian, M0PHI Philip. (Click for full report)
12-13/5/18 - PACOTA
Pubs And Clubs On The Air (Click for full report)
2017 - VHF NFD Mix & Match Trophy
Trowbridge & DARC (IO81) Was the Overall Winner in the Mix & Match section with 3208 points and receive the G5BY Trophy. Click to find out more
