The Railways On The Air (ROTA) weekend special event at East The Water was a great success with 159 stations worked on 40m, of which 16 were with other ROTA stations. Considering operating was only on the Saturday with 5 operators (roughly a contact every 2.5 mins) then everyone who came and helped is to be applauded and greatly thanked: Radio ops- Mike KXQ, Terry CHD Graham GRA, John JKL, Colin NBO, with Mike PGA and Dave IXK assisting.

Come along to our 3rd, 1st to the buzzer quiz! Test your radio knowledge and have some fun.

This month’s Meeting on August 21st is a talk by Martin Lynch (G4HKS) on the history of his World Famous Ham Radio Store. This is thanks to Mike (G3PGA) and definitely a
date for your diary, so look forward to seeing many of you there.

We’ve had a lovely email from Chloe Pedersen, of Wyoming in the USA. Chloe runs a fun ham radio and broadcasting history class for 10-14 year olds, and has been making use of the resources on our club website. One of her group, Dylan, would like to share an article that he and his father recently found together, on Broadcasting and its History. It includes a breakdown on the early 20th century, Reginald Fessenden’s first broadcasting experiments, the Herrold School experimenting with radio transmissions and call signs in 1909, and Post World War II radio broadcasting developments.

You can read the article here: Broadcasting and it’s History

A very productive 2 days with nearly 300 QSO’s in the log. We had to take down the aerial after the first day, so Terry, Mike W, Mike H and John arrived at 9.30 and got the station back up and running by 10.10. Things were off to a slow start with poor propagation, but picked up as the morning went on, and by close of play at 4pm we were back to pileup conditions. All in all, a very successful and enjoyable weekend. eQSL cards have now been sent to all in the log. Thank you to all who took part, and to the Bideford Heritage railway for being so helpful and accommodating. Hopefully we will be back next year.