A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our readers

“What Secret Code did the Vikings use?” – “Norse Code”

THIS MONTH'S HIGHLIGHTS

• The Christmas Dinner was enjoyed by all.

• We have a life story by Tim G3PJD in this month's newsletter.

DECEMBER CLUB MEETING 2013

There is no December meeting. The only meeting was the Christmas Dinner.

JANUARY MEETING

There is NO JUNK sale in January. In January on the 22nd we have A Question Night. There will be more details about this next month. The Junk Sale is re-scheduled for June. So there is even more time to collect your Junk.

PRE IOTA PLANNING MEETING

A pre-IOTA planning meeting took place at the November meeting. The 2014 location will be the same on the Isle of Wight as 2013. This time the call will be G5XV.

Antennas and antenna switching between the stations and grounding of unused antennas were discussed with the aim of reducing inter-station interference and simplifying the setup, but decisions were deferred for further IOTA planning meetings.

NEWSLETTERNEWSLETTERNEWSLETTER Edited by Richard Jolliffe, G3ZGC

December 2013 © Copyright NADARS and original authors

COMMITTEE President: Gus Gale, G3LLK, g3llkgus@aol.com

Chairman: Jeremy Willis, G4DOQ, g4doq@yahoo.co.uk

Vice Chairman / Newsletter Editor: Richard Jolliffe, G3ZGC, g3zgc@aol.com

Treasurer: Michael Sansom, G0POT, g0pot@metalkettle.co.uk

Secretary: Phill Morris, G6EES, phill.morris@ascom.com

Programme Secretary: Bill Woodroffe, M0TDW, billwoodroffe@btinternet.com

Committee Member / Webmaster: Rob Thomson, G4LMW, g4lmw@btconnect.com

Committee Members: Bernie Maggs, M0NKS

Ian Trusson, G3RVM

John Connor, G1OQV (co-opted)

Courses & Library (non-committee): Steve Elliott, M0SEL, s_elliott293@btinternet.com

NETS Sunday, 08:30 to 09:00 local time: 3.632 MHz SSB

Sunday, 12:00 local time: 28.305 MHz SSB

Tuesday, 20:00 local time: GB3NE 145.7625 MHz FM

Thursday, 20:00 local time: 28.305 MHz SSB

MEETINGS Club meetings are normally held on the 4th Wednesday of each month at The Traveller’s Friend, Crookham Common, Thatcham, Berkshire, RG18 8EA, starting at 7:30pm Details of these meetings and other club events are shown in the diary on the last page. Prospective new members and visitors are always very welcome.

www.nadars.org.uk Club Callsigns: G5XV, G7N

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A LETTER FROM THE MAYOR

NADARS has received a letter from Thatcham's Mayor, Councilor Mike Cole. The letter is a follow up to the Thatcham Arts and Leisure Show and is a thank you to the club for helping in this event. Two charities, West Berkshire FoodBank and HeartStart Thatcham, benefited by £900 during the successful fortnight of events.

NOVEMBER - DXPEDITIONS PLUS!

The past month has seen some very good conditions on the HF bands and not too bad on 40 and 30m as far as I have been concerned. This has coincided with a good number of important Dxpeditions. The following list I produced in order to keep some control over the QSLing and I have added some future Dxpeditions pending for next year and 2015. I hope that members may find it useful if they would like to get any QSOs confirmed. I have managed to get most of them in the log in various bands and modes. As I am working towards DXCC Challenge status this means working each entity on three modes (ssb, cw and data) on each of the bands between 160 and 6m. These are known as “band/mode slots”.

Something surprising is the number of Dxpeditions that, in the past couple of years, are now using OQRS (On-line QSL Request Service) and/or LoTW. Many are also uploading their logs regularly to ClubLog which provides a OQRS function and payment via PayPal. ClubLog is a FREE service and is highly recommended. There are many different facilities available and anyone even only vaguely interested in DXing should have a look at it. The website is www.clublog.org .

October 19 – November 7 D44TXT Cape Verde Is QSL direct or buro via Babs DL7AFS & LoTW 3 rtty slots / 30/12/10m

October 30 - November 6 TX5RV Austral Is. QSL via Tim M0URX. LoTW confirmed when DXped ended 2 slots: 15m cw /12m cw.

November 3 – 11 5J0R San Andres Is. QSL – OQRS via EA5RM as qrz.com 8 slots / 40,15,12,10m cw /rtty/ssb

November 3 – 15 K9W (KH9) Wake Is. QSL via OQRS on ClubLog preferred. LoTW uploaded Nov 29. 6 slots / 20,17,12,10m. Website: http://wake2013.org

November 5 – 18 T33A Banaba Is. OQRS on ClubLog, LoTW in 6 months 2 slots /30m cw /20m ssb

November 8 – 20 XR0ZR Juan Fernandez Is QSL via IV3DSH; OQRS on ClubLog and LoTW on a weekly basis Website: http://www.juanfernandez2013.com 12 slots (7new )/ cw ,ssb,rtty

November 12 – 27 W8A/N8A American Samoa OQRS on ClubLog. No mention of LoTW, Website: http://www.n8a.eu/ 3 cw slots / 20,17,15m

November 15 – 26 XZ1J Myanmar (Burma) QSL via OQRS on ClubLog. Website: http://www.xz1j.org/

November 15 – December 2 J88HL St Vincent & Grenadines OQRS on ClubLog and LoTW 6 slots / 40,17,15,12,10m/ 3 modes

November 16 – 26 3DA0ET Swaziland QSL via LoTW daily (confirmations received), Also QSL via Buro and Direct Log loaded onto ClubLog as website www.swazidx.org . 5 slots / 20,15,12,10m

November 17 – 26 S21ZBC/B Bangladesh OQRS via their website: www.mdxc.org/bangladesh2013/ 7 slots / ssb,rtty,cw / 30/20/17/12/10m

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November 22 – xx Z81X Rep. South Sudan OQRS via ClubLog. Also qrv last Apr. 1 new 30m slot this time.

November 27 – December 2 5W8A W. Samoa As W8A/N8A above

November 25 – December 10 VU7AG Laccadive Is. QSL see website: http://vu7ag.info ; OQRS via ClubLog. 9 slots ssb/rtty/cw 30/15/12/10m

A resident not a dxped FW5JJ Wallis Is. QSL via F5RXL OQRS on ClubLog, direct or buro or LoTW 1 slot so far 15m ssb

January 24 – February 10, 2014, : FT5ZM Amsterdam Is. One for next year. Website; http://www.amsterdamdx.org/

2014 no date given, one to wait for – real rare! FT/T Tromelin Is.

January 2015 VK0/H Heard Is.

Andy, G3SVD

NOVEMBER MEETING

The November meeting was extremely well attended. Ray G4FON gave us a talk about how code breaking was done in World War 2. I must admit I understood what Ray was saying and how it all worked for about the first 5 minutes then the encoding got very complex and we were all amazed at what had been invented.

Ray has kindly made a link to his talk which will stay on his web site for a while. Below I have summarised the main points without pictures. I recommend looking at the web link to get the full story at <https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/13982177/WW2%20Codebreaking.pdf>

Codes and ciphers have been around for thousands of years. Julius Caesar used them to communicate with his Generals through the Roman Empire. Mary Queen of Scots lost her head after her personal cipher was broken leading to the discovery of a plot to murder Elizabeth I and put Mary on the throne.

Julius Caesar's cipher was a simple letter substitution cipher which lead to the birth of a cryptographical device called “Caesar's Wheel' With a simple substitution cipher, such as Caesar's Wheel, it is possible to use the frequency of each letter in the enciphered text to find the offset of the two wheels. Simple letter substitution ciphers (called monoalphabetic ciphers), such as Caesar's Wheel, are easily attacked using letter frequency analysis and offer very little real protection to anybody with even the slightest knowledge of cryptography.

Blaise de Vigenère cipher: Various people are credited with this cipher, but its name goes to Vigenère. It consists of a square of each letter of the alphabet shifted by one character. The advantage of this cipher is that it is polyalphabetic, making attacks by letter frequency much more difficult. To use the cipher a key was first agreed between the sender and the recipient. During WW2 it was used extensively by agents living behind enemy lines. They would agree a key phrase which they would use for every message they sent. The disadvantage of using the key for more than one message is that it makes cryptographical attack easier. For higher security 'one time pads' where used, but they risked being captured!

Arthur Scherbius: After WW1 a number of people started thinking about mechanical letter substitution cipher machines. The driving force was the need to protect the commercially sensitive contents of telegrams which where in common use in that era. Arthur Scherbius was a German engineer who filed a patent in 1923 for such a machine which he called Enigma. Scherbius repeatedly tried to interest the German military in his invention and finally, in 1928, they started to evaluate it. Eventually it would be adopted, in various forms, by the entire German war machine and its allies.

Breaking Enigma: It was the Poles who first started work on breaking the Enigma cipher, beginning in the late 1920's. They realised that unlike the linguistic approach that had been used for most ciphers up until that time, this one needed a mathematical attack, so they brought together three young mathematicians to work on it. In those days the Enigma was a much simpler design than those of the machines that would become commonplace during WW2. It had three rotators, a lamp board, a keyboard and finally a plugboard (steckerbrett) which allowed letter substitutions. When war broke out in 1939, Alan Turing joined the Government Codes and Ciphers School at Bletchley Park and started to investigate ways to attack the Enigma machines. By this time the Poles had already shared their insights into the machine with both the French and British cryptographers. The task was a daunting one because of the sheer number of ways that the machine could be configured (the

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message key). With initially five and later eight rotors plus the option to cross-plug all the letters on the keyboard - although only ten were used, there were about 158 million, million, million possible configurations and they changed every 24 hours. Alan worked out that the best way to attack Enigma was by aligning plain language 'cribs' with the enciphered text. These 'crib's were all to easy to come by because of the German mind set and their unshakable belief that Enigma could not be broken. As a result they made cryptographical error after cryptograhical error providing much needed help to Bletchley Park (BP). The quest for the keys was helped by a flaw in the design of the Enigma machine which meant that it could not self-encipher. That it so say that enciphering, for example, a J would never result in a J, nor a P a P etc. This allowed cryptographers at BP to align words as follows:

Take the contents of an enciphered message: EGOHJYDPOMONICOSGAHLEIHYSOPISMIU and the plain language was suspected to contain: KEINEBESONDEREEREIGNISSE The text could easily be aligned by looking for places where identical letters did not line up vertically. At this point Turing looked for what he called loops, which had a mathematical relationship relating to the rotors in use to encipher the message. These loops were drawn as what became known as a Menu. The Turing Bombe Turing came up with a theoretical machine that could take these loops and exploit them discover the 'Steckering' of letter pairs making up the message key. Again this relied heavily on the flaw in the Enigma machine, its inability to self encipher. Using feedback loops within the Bombe, it was possible to test all letters of the alphabet simultaneously. Once the 'Menu' had been crafted by the cryptographers, it was used to configure a Bombe machine. The Bombe was a totally electromechanical machine consisting essentially of 36 Enigmas harnessed together. When running, if the Bombe created an electrical circuit that matched the menu it would 'stop'. This provided an indication of the steckering and also the rotor settings for the message. The Bombes were made at the British Tabulating Machine company in Letchworth in Hertfordshire. The first machine was delivered in May of 1940. Gordon Welchman suggested a further feedback loop called 'The Diagonal Board' which significantly improved the performance of the Bombe. Over 200 of these new Bombes were in use at the end of WW2, scattered around the country for diversity. All together the Turing and Welchman Bombes found 9054 keys during WW2 which in turn decrypted around 12 million words of text which were then analysed for their intelligence information.

Lorenz SZ42: Breaking into the Enigma enciphered traffic gave the Allies access to the tactics being used by the Axis Powers to wage their war, but there were other enciphered signals that caught Bletchley Park's attention. These signals were transmitted using dual tone RTTY signaling, rather than Morse code. A lucky break, in August 1941, gave access to this traffic too and it turned out to be carrying Hitler’s strategy to his Commanders in the field. The machine in question used the Vernam cipher to encipher the message. This is what today is known as an Exclusive OR operation (XOR) or more simply, bit inversion. A pseudo random sequence of bits was XORed with the plain language message to encipher it. At the receiving end the same pseudo random sequence was added to the enciphered text to recover the plain language. The break came when an operator was asked to re-transmit a message and did so using the same encryption key whilst at the same time using abbreviations where possible. The result was two nearly identical messages on the same encryption key. XORing together the two messages cancels out the encryption key leaving just the sum of the two plain text characters. The job of extracting the plain language text from these two messages fell to John Tiltman, a cryptographer with a Classics background. It took him about ten days to complete. Once the two messages were in the clear, Bill Tutte performed one of the most amazing mental feats of WW2 - deducing the logical design of the machine. Bill Tutte deduced that the machine had twelve wheels of different periods driven by the incoming message. Almost all the wheel periods are prime numbers!

Work on the Lorenz cipher, which was known as the 'Fish' cipher at BP, was carried in a part of BP called the Testery, run by Ralph Tester. From July 1942 to July 1943 the messages were broken by hand - a laborious process. During that time the Newanry was formed, run by Max Newman, to automate the process. In June 1943 the first Robinson became available - a rather unreliable mechanical counting machine aptly named after the Victorian cartoonist Heath Robinson.

In February 1944 Colossus, now acknowledged to be the first computer in the world, came and broke the codes until the end of WW2. Neither machine decrypted the message, that was done by another machine called Tunny. Robinson and later Colossus performed statistical analysis on the encrypted messages to find the settings of the various wheels within the machine. It turned out that the encrypted message has a slightly skewed letter frequency distribution when a character was repeated, such as in the word Strasse.

Ray, G4FON (Edited by Richard, G3ZGC)

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DECEMBER CHRISTMAS SOCIAL

We again held the Christmas social and dinner at the Rampant Cat, Woolton Hill. Yet again it was marvelous tasty food and a great atmosphere. One person had to cancel at the last minute due to work problems. Sorry Steve better luck next year! We had two visitors from the Isle of Wight in the form of Simon G1VGM and his son. A newcomer to the dinner was Roger Wilkins G8NHG. Thank you to Jeremy G4DOQ for organising it all.

CQWW CW 2013

G3ZGC CQ WW Report

What an excellent contest this year. With short skip and very long distance stuff on 10m it was really good. I spent most time on 80 40 and 10m but even 15m was good for me. The half size G5RV is really poor on that band but even that performed ok.

I had never managed more than 962 contacts before so I was really pleased to get 1201 in the log. That made 300 country multipliers. My biggest ever contest log from home. 10M produced contacts with 27 zones, far more than any other band.

10m started as soon as it was light with the first half hour just Russians coming in. Then the Far East and Australia was audible. Later the South came in with lots of African stations around. The USA and Canada started about midday and peaked about 1400 with many signals well over S9. As darkness approached the band changed and Ws were audible from all areas and then, as it got dark just the Central Caribbean and South America was audible and no Ws. A disappointment was not hearing any VKs or ZLs on 80m or 40m.

The logs had to be in within 5 days this time. I was listed as 7th in the UK in my category. I regard that as good news as all the others were big set ups such as G3SJJ and G4BUO. 77th in Europe and 226th in the World. Who says the half size G5RV doesn't work! Interesting stations worked:

160m: Just run of the mill Europeans 80m: 4U0WFP World Food Programme Rome 4U1ITU ITU 5C5T Morocco HK1NA Colombia PJ4A PJ4Q Bonaire TF3SG Iceland 40m: 4U0WFP World Food Programme Rome 4U1ITU ITU 6Y7W Jamaica VP9I Bermuda PJ4A PJ4Q Bonaire 9Y4/VE3EY Trinidad A65BP United Arab Emirates HI3A Dominican Republic CO8DM Cuba HK3O Colombia J73A Dominica J87GU St Vincent HK1NA Colombia HD2T Ecuador KP2M US Virgin Isles PJ7W St Marteen PT2CM PV8DX PY2NY Brazil CN2YM Morocco 20m: 4X4M Israel 9Y4W Trinidad PY2IQ ZX2F Brazil JA5FDJ JE1ZWT Japan VE7UF Canada 15m: BY411G China PX2C Brazil PJ4Q Bonaire CM2AA Cuba CN2R Morocco 10m: 3DA0ET Swaziland 4Z5ML Israel 5R8IC Madagascar 7Z1HL Saudi Arabia 9J3A Zambia 9M6NA 9M8YY Malaysia 9Y4/VE3EY Trinidad A45XR Oman A65BP United Arab Emirates A71EM Quatar BY5CD China FY5KE French Guiana PP1CZ PP5BZ PR5B PX2W Brazil VP5CW Turks & Caicos ZS1EL ZS6TQ South Africa KP2EJ HS0ZGQ Thailand JT5DX Mongolia HK1NA Colombia HD2T Ecuador PJ4A PJ4Q Bonaire PJ7W St Maarten PT2CM PY2NY PY2OZ Brazil TF3W Iceland VE7UF West Canada VK6LW Australia CN2YM Morocco 80-10m:PJ2T Curacao D4C Cape Verde Island

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Ken G0ORH CQ WW report

Ken entered the CQWW CW 10m single band with 1,200 QSOs, 140 DXCC, 480K points.

Operating as M3I he was 3rd in his category in the UK, if I read the preliminary results correct - G3ZGC

Ian G3RVM CQWW report

I managed exactly 100 QSOs all S&P using RBN. The only good thing about it was working JAs on both 80m and 40m which is in the direction of Cold Ash hill and very unusual for me. They must have had good antennas to hear me.

Danny G3XVR CQ WW report

I had planned to be a bit more active in the contest this weekend, but my intermittent fault with the hex beam returned during the contest. After getting it down twice and replacing the coax, it finally turned out to be the short coax stub between the centre pole and the feed-point. The centre pin had not been soldered properly (not me!), so when the mast was rotated it sometimes went open circuit. Despite losing some prime time on 10m I managed to work:

10M 15M 20M 80M QSO 131 103 62 33 DXCC 100 74 45 27 Zones 33 16 14 9

I concentrated on 10M to try to get 100 countries before the band closed. In total I worked 121 countries and 35 zones barefoot with a TS950SDX with the hex at 25 feet, manually rotated. I was most impressed with the performance and there was not much that I could hear that I couldn't work. Total operating time was just over 17 hours.

Danny, G3XVR

Colin M0DDT CQ WW report

I too had a go from time to time on 15m only (assisted) using my 80m OCFD but QRP (5W). this is a bit of an uphill struggle with all S&P. Pleased to get 106 QSOs with 20 Zones and 52 DXCC. RBN mostly excellent with Contest!

Amazing DX to AP China and JA plus many in Caribbean. Log sent in as there are few in this category.

Colin, M0DDT

Colin looks like the 15m only single band QRP assisted winner in the UK. That makes him 6th in Europe and 14th in the World.

Dave G3KLH CQ WW report

I also had a bit of fun mainly on 15m with my full-wave dipole, 35ft high. Like Danny, I could work everything I could hear with some DX stations right in the noise. Around 17:00 Sunday, I had a long run into North America at almost two a minute which for me is the highlight of any world-wide contest

Used N1MM for the first time which has some advantages over Wintest especially regarding a sub-receiver but found it difficult to get used to with so many windows needed - perhaps I need a larger screen!

Spent some time Saturday evening on 40m and noticed that RBN was not that accurate at that time of day so it is well to listen to the callsign first before calling! I also noticed that some station was on my 15m CQ frequency for a time with the call G3KLS !

Ken G0ORH Report on the EPC PSK63 contest

Start Saturday 20.00 - 19:59 Sunday. All band 10 - 80m - 100W output. Saturday evening and Sunday morning (8pm - 1:30) were spent on LF though conditions and lack of stations to work meant an unexpected early siesta (01:30 - 04:30) At 4am, I was woken by a NASA text message telling me that a CME (sunspot had a burp) had erupted on the sun and resulting poor radio transmissions! No wonder conditions were dire.

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There was hardly any propagation from or to NA with just 1 station logged during the whole weekend. SA was a little better and a few multipliers showed up on HF. The EAST was different, plentiful contacts with EU / Russian Asia, but no JA. The effect of the CME on DX was evident. With these variable propagation conditions, decode of the PSK63 signals were a real problem with rapid fading causing garbled decode. Anyway, stuck with it until 17:00. Finished up with 530 QSOs, 500K pts. 114 DXCC on PSK mode. 100W (rules were use QRP or Low 100W) Operating time 17hrs. EPC - European PSK Club, membership is Free. My membership nr is 22002. I used N1MM, but CONTEST will run perfectly ok but you won't get a multiplier fill-in, or correct score - but it's not a real problem as the log will be scored on log checking. I like to see a visible score etc. Ken, G0ORH

NICE QSL CARD RECEIVED

I received this nice aviation themed QSL card this month.

Richard, G3ZGC

VINTAGE 1936 QSL CARD

When Simon G1VGM came up from the Isle of Wight for the Christmas Social he brought with him an old album of information compiled in 1936 by G6UL. This was a classic book with many items including QSL cards for World locations whose callsign had long since changed. One card concerned a Short Wave Listener report from a Zeppelin! Now that is rare.

RSGB CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP ANALYSIS

I have now had a look at the 2013 80CC results for NADARS members in order to find improvements in the participating member’s scores over the season of 6 sessions. Only results with four or more sessions were included as statistics would have been very unreliable with three or less. (One result gives no information whatsoever about improvements!) Regressions (trend lines) were calculated using Excel. Any that had negative slopes were obviously not improved (and may well have got worse!). Those with low correlation coefficients were also discarded leaving 5 SSB, 6 CW and 3 Data results worthy of analysis. The statistical test used showed whether the slope of the fitted line was significantly different from horizontal (i.e. no improvement). The usual significance level is taken to be p =<5%. This means that random variation in the data would only give the result 5% of the time thus the betting odds that the “improvement” was down to chance alone would be 20 to 1. Lower %’s make the result even more certain.

Sadly there was no improvement in the three Data candidates but, for SSB, Andy G8MIA was the clear

improvement champion with p=2.1% with Steve M0SEL worthy of mention with p=5.0%.

CW results were interesting in that Ian G3RVM showed the most significant improvement at p=2.9% and

also Richard G3ZGC was second with p=4.8%. Jeremy G4DOQ is worth a mention with 5.7%.

Congratulations to Andy G8MIA and to Ian G3RVM for their efforts and support for NADARS. Well done!

PS: For SSB there were 9 members who entered 4-6 and another 9 entered 1-3 SSB sessions. For CW, 6 members did 4-6 and 7 did 1-3 sessions. For the Data part 10 members did 4-6 and 2 did 1-3 sessions. Apparently we have 58 members and, I know life gets in the way of club-related activities, but surely we should get a bit more support than we do. We would just walk it. If anyone has difficulties with antennas for 80m I have said I will gladly think about how members can get on the air. Similarly the difficulties with data can be overcome with a little help from your club friends. CW too is so worth learning – you will work a lot more DX and there are plenty of aids these days to help you. Where are all the foundation members and intermediates so successfully taught by our club and who should enjoy helping out? How about it!!

73 Colin M0DDT

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RARE CHANCE TO OWN OLD BOOKS

We have been donated a large box full of absolutely immaculate copies of Professionally bound vintage Wireless World books of their magazines. These are in proper book format not magazines. Many years 1946 1968 the 70s etc. Also Radio and TV Servicing same sort of vintage. Also professionally bound and in book format. All look as though they had been bought today in Waterstones! Unbelievable quality.

They are available to buy for any member who would like them for a small token donation. I am putting a time limit on these as I do not want them left in the cabin over winter. Therefore if you would like them, or some of them, email me as soon as possible but before midnight on next Wednesday 11th December when the committee will put them on ebay.

NEW SATELLITE SYSTEM TO IMPROVE NAVIGATION

Scientists from Germany are working on a satellite based system for greatly improving ship navigation in ice-affected areas. Many scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) based in Bremerhaven have sailed to Antarctica on the research ship Polarstern to test the technique. This is important financially as the slow decline of the Arctic Sea during the summer months means commercial vessels can save time in the area and thus save fuel. However there are high risks at present. The new system uses high resolution images from the TerraSAR-X and TanDEM-x satellites. These are received by the German Aerospace Centre at Neustrelitz where they are processed in real time. It classifies icebergs and shows ships detected and marks them all as potential hazards.

ADVANCED EXAM

We booked the Hall to do an Advanced Exam on Friday 6th December 2013 at 19:00. This time is set in stone by the RSGB. We had 4 candidates 3 of whom were from NADARS. Young David 2E0GBG, Paul 2E0PMV and Richard 2E0RMZ were the Newbury club ones. The other candidate was from Bristol.

Meanwhile we had a bit of a shock as we were inspected by the RSGB with G8NRP from Abingdon attending through the whole exam. (He does the book stand at the Harwell Rally normally for the RSGB). The exam nowadays is 62 questions and 2 hours are allowed. I attach a picture taken just as they prepared for the exam. Thanks to Stuart M0RXX for being the main invigilator.

G3ZGC

FOUNDATION COURSE

We held a Foundation Course over the weekend of 30th November/1st December. It was a very successful course. The only issue was that the candidates were all so good we finished the whole lot by 14:00 Sunday and had an hour and a half sitting there twiddling thumbs until the allocated exam time! We nearly got round to “I spy” but we managed to waffle the last minutes ok. Even having the 2m QSOs first then having the HF ones (normally run together from different rooms) meant we will still so far ahead of time. We could almost have done the course in a day.

It was far better having just 8 on the course. That was our lowest number to date but much more comfortable and we could get more things in the hall such as a waveform display on an oscilloscope. I also kept the 2m and HF rigs in situ all the time.

The new exam system is great for the RSGB

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but very laborious for the invigilators. The RSGB use a computer to mark an extra piece of paper now attached to the exam papers. The candidates have to mark out the correct box A B C or D. The candidates now get an extra 10 minutes because of this. And 26 questions now. The invigilators can see if they think someone has passed but the final decision is the RSGBs.

So the candidates have to fill in 26 numbered lines as below. I feel it could be very easy to slip up with this which would ruin the paper!

1 A [ ] B [ ] C [ ] D [ ]

Thanks to Steve M0SEL for all the paperwork. Thanks to Ray G4FON, Andy G3SVD, Roger G4RUW (and myself) for the lectures. Thanks to Bernie M0NKS and Tim G3PJD for the off-air QSOs. And thanks to Stuart for being the main invigilator. Thanks to Tim for helping out generally and watching to see how we do the course. Tim went mobile just along from Andy's QTH at Adbury Halt to work the hall. Tim hid under the G4GTT call he holds that used to belong to another club, Gus being not available for a change.

We are no longer allowed to tell the candidates they have passed but can tell them that it looks like they will get a pass from the RSGB (or words to that effect). We had 8 candidates all of whom we believe did well. 6 have joined the club already. One we often see around is young Will from Basingstoke.

I had a great time operating just before and during the course mainly on 80 and 40m and worked 44 stations. I worked OA1F (Chile) N5XZ and K0RKH on 40m, V25A J88HL WX3B FJ/DK7DX on 80m as well as G6FOP and M0SEL on the club net. It was great to have a better antenna up for 80m. The North-South Inverted V G5RV was held up by my caravanette. The signals to the West beat anything I get from home by about 3 “S” points.

Richard, G3ZGC

INTERMEDIATE COURSE 2014

Meanwhile we have booked Saturday 22nd February and Sunday 23rd February for an Intermediate lecture weekend and Sunday 23rd March for an Intermediate Course Practical and Exam. So if you want to go on that contact Steve M0SEL as soon as possible. Please inform anyone who might be interested.

Richard, G3ZGC

MANY YEARS AGO THIS MONTH ---- NADARS NEWSLETTER

This month we go back to December 1980 33 years ago.

http://www.nadars.org.uk/files/Newspdf/1980_12.pdf

The club's 2m natter night (different day to the present one) was very well attended after the Leicester Rally where many members bought new 2m kit. As there were so many newcomers on 2m in the Newbury area a list of local repeaters was printed. In those days it was very sparse Wells, South London , North London, Abingdon and Alton being the only ones listed.

The club meeting was planned to be a 16mm movie from the RSGB entitled “The Electronics Tale”.

Alex G8RCN wanted to produce an RAE course as there were none in the area. (I think he still lives in the area but that callsign is no listed.)

There was an appeal for members with Datong Morse tutors to lend them to club members.

There was talk of changing the club's 10m net to 2m. This never happened!

The newsletter was written by the late Norman Vincent G3NVO.

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THIS MONTH ON THE AIR

A survey ship heading from Europe South has been on the air a lot this month. I managed RW1AI/MM on 40m.

Perhaps my biggest gripe this month relates to cards received via the bureau! The last batch I had contained about 10% of cards that were clearly marked for someone else! So why on earth were they sent to me. Each one was for a different call with no similarity to mine – except that it started with “G”!. However these were not from my usual QSL manager who does a splendid job and even telephones me when my envelopes are low.

Special event stations worked. GB0CIN Children in Need GB8BAF RAF Brayton

I missed the KH2 on 80m CW but heard him. Pressing family matters meant I could not get on the two times he appeared!

I managed 20 East Coast USA stations in the ARRL 160m contest over the weekend of 7/8th December. VY2ZM was well over S9 when I worked him. All the others were much weaker.

3.5 MHz: HK1/CO2JD 6Y7W J87GU P4W J88HL J6/N9AW PJ2/K8ND HC2AO

7 MHz: J88HL J87GU PJ6/N7QT PJ2/KB7Q HK1/CO8ZZ VP5/W5CW PJ4/KU8E VP2V/SP3IPB

PJ2/VE7ACN 6Y5/UN7LZ PJ7/N7QT XT26DJ YV8AD 9L1A J6/N9AW ZD8UW KP2/K3TEJ

10 MHz: J88HL J34J EM110RAEM/MM (off 3V Tunisia) PJ7/G3TXF

14 MHz: J88GU P40L XT26DJ

18 MHz: XT26DJ KP2/K3TEJ

21 MHz: Nothing

24 MHz : XT26DJ PJ7/G3TXF

28 MHz: H70ORO V44KAI NP3CW PJ7/N7QT A61Q/M HK1/CO8ZZ VP5/W5CW V4/K5WA J88HL CX4SS FR/DK9PY MM0XAU OA4/N7CW D44AC 3DA0E NP3CW Z88UW

MEMBERS HISTORIES

We need more such stories. Please write up your history and send to G3ZGC@AOL.COM. This month we have the story of Tim from Basingstoke who has been a NADARS club member for a few years.

THE WAY IT WAS BACK THEN - TIM DONCASTER G3PJD

It was the time of hits by Russ Conway (Side Saddle, 1959), the Shadows (Apache, 1960) and Shirley Abicair (Fair Dinkum, 1955, Little Boy Fishing, 1956). The 11 Plus exam to test primary school children for allocation of places in secondary schools ruled the world as far as I was concerned. I had been placed at the local grammar school, Grimsby Wintringham Boys Grammar School, and as a young teenager I was experiencing peer pressure for the first time.

The transistorised radio had just appeared on the domestic market, and all the boys at school had one; or so it seemed to me. I had been brought up listening to the family Bush PB65, with its lovely, mellow sound (i.e. not a drop of treble) and its soothing hum (from the Rola mains

energised loudspeaker, the magnetic field of which was generated by a large inductor used as the power supply smoothing choke!). It brought us 'Dick Barton, Special Agent', 'The Goon Show', 'ITMA' and 'Gunsmoke'. I mustn't forget the finest space opera ever, 'Journey into Space', and, of course, 'Mrs Dale's Diary' and 'The Archers'. My introduction to many classics was through 'Children’s' Hour', which serialised 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' years before anybody thought of making films of them.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw my first 'transistor' radio, or 'tranny' as they became known. The whole idea of a portable domestic radio was completely alien. It didn't matter that the sound was appallingly tinny through its 3 inch 'speaker. Never mind the quality, feel the weight! I had to have one.

I won't say that my parents were either poor or mean, but they had brought abstemiousness to a fine art. We never had a car, a 'fridge or a washing machine, and we only got a TV and a telephone after Father had his strokes and couldn’t really function too well any more.

Nevertheless, pester power must have worked, because come Christmas 1959 there was my tranny. Well, I say tranny, in fact it was a wrist watch crystal set with 1 red spot audio transistor from Henry's Radio. As Grimsby was almost at sea level, and because we knew nothing about needing a decent length of wire to receive anything, this little gem was virtually useless. Father arranged for me to visit one of his pals from the Gentlemen's Smoke Room at the Wheatsheaf, and so, one Friday evening, I knocked on Arthur's front door. His wife directed me upstairs to his radio room, and there was a wondrous array of totally baffling equipment all laid out along the wall of a cosy room he had built over his garage. My early memories were of Arthur and his

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tales of his time in Chile mining saltpetre told in his gentle Grimsby Midlands accent, the smell of his pipe and the open coal fire on winter evenings.

His flagship receiver was a second world war R.107, and he also had an R.208, but we never heard anything on that. In 1960, he was licensed as G3OOJ. His transmitter was a Heathkit DX40, and I recall him working EAs in fluent, Grimsby accented Spanish, learnt from his years in Chile. He introduced me to the Grimsby Amateur Radio Society which met over a pub. The summer I joined in at HF Field Day and started night school at Elliston Street School to learn electronics for the City & Guilds of London Institute Radio Amateurs' Exam. I recall that the instructor was Harold, G3HTI. I passed the RAE in May, 1961, took the Morse test at Humber Radio, and obtained my Amateur Radio licence on the 21st September, 1961. My call sign was, and still is, G3PJD. I was 15 years and 5 months old. Arthur had been building up to obtaining his licence for years, and it took me about 9 months. Looking back, I feel really guilty at the speed at which I did it, but then, that's how youngsters are when learning things, if they've a mind.

I became so absorbed with radio, and especially operating Top Band, that I did far worse at 'O' Levels than I should have done, made a total mess of 'A' Levels, and after an abortive second go at the Grimsby Technical College I went to London to have another go at the London Examining Board's 'A' Levels, which set exams in the autumn as well as earlier in the year. To cut a long story short, I attended the now defunct Norwood Technical College, where I passed 'A' Level physics, obtained a City & Guilds Telecommunications Technicians' Final certificate, met and married my first wife, Ruth, and left at speed to get a job.

After a brief spell in general printing in the Fleet Street office of the Southern Publishing Company under the tutelage of one David Vaughan Williams I went to the now famous Bletchley Park for an interview with the Board of Trade Civil Aviation Department as a Radio Technician. Curiously enough, the interviewer was happy enough with my academic qualifications, but was most taken with my Amateur Radio licence. He said that this indicated a love for electronics, which was at least as important, if not more so, than lofty academic ability. After 40 years in the job, I know exactly what he meant. I am sure that I couldn't have stuck it if I hadn't loved every minute.

I was offered a post, and took it as it offered about £100 per annum more than Southern Pub! Having said that, I look back at my time with David Vaughan Williams with great affection. He taught me how to be gentlemanly towards clients, how to write pithy letters, and how to accord respect to those who earned it.

I underwent a 9 week New Entrant Technician Course at the Civil Aviation Signals Training Establishment in Bletchley Park, followed by 6 weeks of a Basic Radar course. On the strength of the Basic Radar course I took the City & Guilds Radar C exam, and passed with distinction, which demonstrates the power of a full time course!

My first posting was to the London Air Traffic Control Centre which, at that time, was on the north perimeter of Heathrow Airport. I was posted again after only a few months to the new Centre in West Drayton, which was not yet operational. That's another story.

THE SPRINTS

That's it for 2013. The Sprints are over. Some say thank heavens. But I much prefer these to other contests. I find with running QRP it's best just to call CQ. It stops wasting time as people can find you whereas if you call someone there is a high probability that a 100w station beats you to it.

80M SPRINT RESULTS UPDATE

We are now third with two CW results still outstanding.

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13/11/13 SSB Sprint Result

Position Call Number of QSOs Points awarded

100W 7 M0DDT 49 721 11 G3RVM 46 676 16 G4DOQ 43 632 21 G3KLH 38 559 30 M0TDW 32 471

10W 7 G3ZGC 21 412

24/10/13 SSB Sprint Result

100W 5 G3RVM 54 900 7 G4DOQ 52 867 10 M0DDT 51 850 12 G3VPW 50 833 14 G3KLH 48 800

10W 6 G3ZGC 35 660

AFS CONTESTS

There seems to be a constant stream of Contests each year.

January sees the Affiliated Society Contests

February to July sees the Club Championships.

And August to November sees the Sprints.

The AFS Contests start the year off :

12 Jan 1400-1800 AFS CW

18 Jan 1400-1800 AFS SSB

Time: 80m CW and SSB: 1400 - 1800 UTC.

Frequencies: 80m CW: 3510-3560 kHz. Entrants must reduce speed around 3555 kHz to accommodate slower CW operators. 80m SSB: 3600-3650 kHz and 3700-3800 kHz Note: On SSB, the lowest "carrier" (dial) frequency to stay within the sub-bands must be: 3602 kHz for the sub-band 3600-3650 kHz, 3702 kHz for the sub-band 3700-3800 kHz.

Exchange: RS(T) plus serial number.

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The RSGB's contest software will check each club's score and the top four highest entries will become that club's team “A.” Each batch of 4 entries will be listed as a separate team. So even one solitary person in a team is worth it.

All stations representing a Society must be located within a radius of 80 km of the Society's Virtual Meeting Place, and be within the UK. Stations must state the UK Postcode or 6-digit QTH locator of their location for the contest being entered when submitting their entry to the contest Robot.

CONTEST CALENDER 2014

12 Jan 1400-1800 AFS CW 18 Jan 1400-1800 AFS SSB 3 Feb 2000-2130 CC SSB 8-9 Feb 2100-0100 1st 1.8MHz 12 Feb 2000-2130 CC Data 20 Feb 2000-2130 CC CW 3 Mar 2000-2130 CC Data 8-9 Mar 1000-1000 Commonwealth 12 Mar 2000-2130 CC CW 20 Mar 2000-2130 CC SSB 6 Apr 1900-2030 RoPoCo SSB 7 Apr 1900-2030 CC CW 16 Apr 1900-2030 CC SSB 24 Apr 1900-2030 CC Data 5 May 1900-2030 CC SSB 14 May 1900-2030 CC Data 22 May 1900-2030 CC CW 2 June 1900-2030 CC Data 7-8 Jun 1500-1500 NFD 11 Jun 1900-2030 CC CW 19 Jun 1900-2030 CC SSB 7 Jul 1900-2030 CC CW 16 Jul 1900-2030 CC SSB 20 Jul 0900-1600 QRP 24 Jul 1900-2030 CC Data 26-27 Jul 1200-1200 IOTA 3 Aug 0700-0830 RoPoCo CW 13 Aug 1900-2000 Sprint CW 28 Aug 1900-2000 Sprint SSB 6-7 Sep 1300-1300 SSB Field Day 10 Sep 1900-2000 Sprint SSB 25 Sep 1900-2000 Sprint CW 5 Oct 0700-1900 21/28 MHz 8 Oct 1900-2000 Sprint CW 23 Oct 1900-2000 Sprint SSB 8 Nov 2000-2300 Club Calls 12 Nov 2000-2100 Sprint SSB 15-16 Nov 2100-0100 2nd 1.8 MHz 27 Nov 2000-2100 Sprint CW

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DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

JANUARY 2014 8 January 19:30 (GMT), NADARS Committee Meeting, QTH of G4LMW 12 January 14:00-18:00 (GMT), Affiliated Societies Team Contest CW 18 January 14:00-18:00 (GMT), AFS Contest PHONE 22 January 19:30 (GMT), Club Meeting - Question Night, Traveller's Friend FEBRUARY 2014 3 February 20:00-21:30 (GMT), 80m Club Championships SSB 8 February to 9 February 21:00-01:00 (GMT), 1st 1.8MHz Contest 12 February 20:00-21:30 (GMT), 80m Club Championships DATA 20 February 20:00-21:30 (GMT), 80m Club Championships CW 26 February 19:30 (GMT), History of the RSGB - A presentation by Larry G4OXY., Traveller's Friend MARCH 2014 3 March 20:00-21:30 (GMT), 80m Club Championships DATA 5 March 19:30 (GMT), NADARS Committee Meeting, The Rampant Cat TBC 8 March 10:00 (GMT), Commonwealth Contest 12 March 20:00-21:30 (GMT), 80m Club Championships CW 20 March 19:00-20:30 (GMT), 80m Club Championships SSB 26 March 19:30 (GMT), Defence HF Coms in the 1960's - Richard M1CFW, The Travellers Friend APRIL 2014 6 April 19:00-20:30 (GMT), RoPoCo SSB 7 April 19:00-20:30 (GMT), 80m Club Championships CW 16 April 19:00-20:30 (GMT), 80m Club Championships SSB 23 April 19:30 (BST), SOTA and backpacking - A presentation by Kevin G7KXZ, Traveller's Friend 24 April 19:00-20:30 (GMT), 80m Club Championships DATA MAY 2014 5 May 19:00-20:30 (GMT), 80m Club Championships SSB 14 May 19:00-20:30 (GMT), 80m Club Championships DATA 22 May 19:00-20:30 (GMT), 80m Club Championships CW 28 May 19:30 (BST), AGM, Traveller's Friend JUNE 2014 2 June 19:00-20:30 (GMT), 80m Club Championships DATA 7 June to 8 June 15:00-15:00 (GMT), NFD Team leaders TBA 11 June 19:00-20:30 (GMT), 80m Club Championships CW 15 June 09:00-16:00 (BST), Newbury Radio Rally, Newbury Showground. Next to jcn 13 of M4 motorway 19 June 19:00-20:30 (GMT), Club Championships SSB 25 June 19:30 (BST), Club Night - Surplus Equipment Sale, Traveller's Friend JULY 2014 7 July 19:00-20:30 (GMT), 80m Club Championships CW 12 July 17:00-21:00 (BST), NADARS Club BBQ, QTH of G3LLK 16 July 19:00-20:30 (GMT), 80m Club Championships SSB 20 July 09:00-16:00 (GMT), Low Power Contest, 24 July 19:00-20:30 (GMT), 80m Club Championships DATA 26 July to 27 July 12:00-12:00 (GMT), IOTA Contest AUGUST 2014 3 August 07:00-08:30 (GMT), RoPoCo CW 13 August 19:00-20:00 (GMT), 80m Club Sprint CW 28 August 19:00-20:00 (GMT), 80m Club Sprint SSB SEPTEMBER 2014 6 September to 7 September 13:00-13:00 (GMT), SSB Field Day 10 September 19:00-20:00 (GMT), Sprint SSB, 25 September 19:00-20:00 (GMT), 80m Club Sprint CW OCTOBER 2014 5 October 07:00-19:00 (GMT), 21/28MHz Contest team leader TBA. 8 October 19:00-20:00 (GMT), 80m Club Sprint CW 22 October 19:00 (GMT), After Enigma, the move to Electronic Cyphers - Richard M1CFW, The Traveller's Friend 23 October 19:00-20:00 (GMT), 80m Club Sprint SSB NOVEMBER 2014 8 November 20:00-23:00 (GMT), Club Calls Contest 12 November 20:00-21:00 (GMT), 80m Club Sprint SSB 15 November to 16 November 21:00-01:00 (GMT), 1.8 MHz 27 November 20:00-21:00 (GMT), Sprint CW