This is something of a new idea that I am hoping to develop over the coming months where I give a quick review of the Clubs events and activities so that those who were not present can see what a good time they missed and also highlight some of the individual activities and achievements that our members undertook in the same period.
Therefore, going forward if you did something as an individual or outside of the Club please let me know so that I can include it in the monthly review. It doesn’t have to be anything special or outstanding simple things such as: working a new country, completing a project or installation, working a special event or DXpedition station, getting a new rig or other piece of kit or simply visiting somewhere radio or technology related. A quick e-mail to me before the end of the month is all that is required to get your activities into the monthly review so please let me hear from you, the more of you submitting things the more interesting this will be.
In addition to the e-mail circulation to all and sundry I will also be posting the review as a NEWS item on the Club website which will announce it through our Social Media channels on TWITTER, FACEBOOK, LINKEDIN and GOOGLE+
So in February 2018 the Club held 4 evening meetings at the Novers Park Community Association in Bristol.
On 01-02-2018 Andy G7KNA took the members through an updated tour of Open Source Software describing the ethos and philosophy of Open Source Software as well as demonstrating not only his own laptop installation and software set but also 3 other live distributions. The live demonstration was particularly amusing since Andy had not had the chance to test out the multi-boot live distributions with his laptop and the wall mounted TV but in the main hey worked “out of the box” and were simple to configure to the dual monitor setup.
On 08-02-2018 Eddie M0LJT brought his vintage horse racing game to the Club making a welcome return for this item following the Christmas Social. The all mechanical toy is a fine example of its era and comparatively valuable given its condition. Everyone got involved in selecting their “favourite” and as long as this wasn’t horse number 4 which failed to come in first in any race the outcome was suitably random to make it fun. Photos of this event are attached.
On 15-02-2018 Andy G7KNA was back as quiz master in another or our general knowledge quizzes. 6 rounds covering topics: General Knowledge, Film and TV, History, Science and Technology, Geography and Music taxed the assembled membership. There were some pointed comments from younger members that the questions in the history section were unfair since some of the older members were alive and lived through the Queens coronation and the Suez canal crisis, nevertheless there was much hilarity and banter. The winning team comprised: Eddie M0LJT, Gary 2E0HCC and John M0JFO.
On 22-08-2018 we held our usual “Open House and On Air Night”. The Clubs FT991 was brought out and used on HF and demonstrated FUSION to a visiting ham.
Outside of the Clubs activities Andy G7KNA made a short weekend trip to Lundy Island in the Bristol channel over the weekend of 16 – 19 February 2018 with his youngest son who is currently undergoing Foundation Training. Although the helicopter that is used to convey visitors to the island during this part of the year imposed strict weight restrictions they managed to take a FT817, power supply, netbook and SotaBeams 80-40-30-20 linked dipole and travel pole. In fairness radio wasn’t the primary objective of the weekend but contacts were made on 80m SSB and 40m SSB as well as PSK31. This weekend was rather exciting as the Monday return flights were cancelled due to fog over the island delaying departure to Tuesday. Having your helicopter grounded was a new excuse for not being in work.
