Meeting:2016/06/09

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Meeting (to be) held from 18:00-20:00 on 2016/06/09 in Zepler CLS Lecture Room

 

Amateur Radio

Year Book Submission

Southampton University Wireless Society (G3KMI) has become a thriving student-led amateur radio club with membership having increased year-on-year since our revival in 2011, after roughly a decade of dormancy. The society runs a busy exam centre, this year having has X people passing amateur radio exams, at a pass rate of 95%. On the 7th December 2015, we held our biggest ever single exam session with Y candidates.

The society regularly runs workshop evenings to give members the opportunity to work on their own projects whilst gaining advice from others. Over the last few years we have developed a set of straightforward project ideas for our new members' practical exam work. This has included VFO kits, 2m Slim Jims, 10m antennas and most recently Morse sounders.

We have had many successful society outings and operating sessions this past year. One of the highlights has been tracking the VHF signal from the International Space Station (ISS), in particular during an Amateur Radio on the ISS (ARISS) session where we picked up Tim Peake talking to students at a UK school. We also ran an operating station at the University's open days back in September 2015 as well as its public-engagement Science and Engineering day on the 12th March 2016. This July will be our fourth consecutive year entering a team for the RSGB VHF Field Day.

The society has had an ongoing project to install a rotating antenna array to our Students' Union building to replace the mast we historically had erected on campus. This includes a system of transceivers and control equipment which is planned for installation within a room in the Students' Union to provide a permanent shack for more regular operating sessions. Unfortunately, this project has suffered a number of recent setbacks but we hope to get this back on track over the coming year.

The society, in collaboration with external radio amateurs, has supported the continued development and maintenance the Farnham WebSDR. This antenna array is mounted to an previous MoD communications mast located north of Farnham in Surrey (IO91OF). It can be accessed by anyone with a web browser and covers multiple VHF and UHF amateur radio bands. In particular it is useful for tracking high-altitude balloons as well ISS and satellite passes.

• Previous version submitted but need to ask RSGB if it is possible to submit this version! Various revisions

Finance things

SUSU purchases

• QSL Cards
  • Darren may have ordered this.
• funding round 1
  • Deadline last week of June.

Budget review

• Membership
  • Are we happy with the current membership fee? What do we want to offer next year?
• targets for next year

Future Planning

• Goals for next year
• Kit wishlist
• Club Stock

Power pole distribution kits

• Any Comments or outstanding payments/ kits that need to be administered?

Stock of people who need to pay for club kit used

• Should be a book with the money tin to see what is outstanding
  • Otherwise refer to Stock of people who need to pay for club kit (legacy list)
• Stock items with purchaser unknown (according to last meeting minutes):
  • 1.6ish m of ladder line (pay Tyler)
  • 1 BNC connector (pay Tyler)
  • 1 BNC connector (pay Club)
  • 3m ish of RG58 (pay Tyler)
• Remove section after exams, but some people have not turned up for a while.

Mast

• Workshop progress
• Update from SUSU / Estates and Facilities
  • Large setback, E&F have suddenly said no.
  • Tyler is talking to Kerry.
    • No response so far

Basingstoke ARC Activities

• Phil has received an email from Mark 2E0ECN, their chairman, asking if we're interested in the following:

• • 14 May - Radio Fun Day at 2015 VHF NFD Site
    • Chance to play with whatever, away from RF noise, other hams will be onsite.
  • 1 - 3 July - VHF Field Day, after the end of term.
    • 24h Contest on several bands - great fun! Can do joint entry as before if we commit early.
  • 13 August - Radio Fun Day
    • Chance to play with whatever, away from RF noise, other hams will be onsite.
  • 2 - 4 Sept - HF Field Day
    • Similar to VHF NFD, but on HF. Not one that the Uni club has entered before.
• Move to the next meeting.
• Phil has forwarded the email to the committee.

SUWS WordPress site

• Can people upload any club photos taken within the past two years to the WordPress site
  • Ask David Newman if you need an account.
• Can we make another blog post? One post per-term idea?
  • Murray will start writing

Callsign list update

• Anyone not added new callsign after May exams?

Amateur Radio AOB

• IC7000, two PL259 RF connectors on back. Modify the VHF connector to an N-type connection.
  • Attempted to print out labels but they fall off. Performance upgrade benefit, and will tell difference between VHF and HF connection. Take a club vote. Is it worth the risk?

Joint Agenda

Next month's events

VHF field day

This month's events

• Projects evening on the 12th for power pole distribution box.
  • Other club projects and web-master handover.
• FT-101 Rig
  • Finding the power connection for the valve HF rig and testing. Phil knows where this is.
  • Rig moved to the Zepler Cupboard from the Cage
  • https://www.suws.org.uk/wiki/FT-101_Restoration

Storage shenanigans

• Correct locations of kit on wiki.
• Discuss storage location of new items.
  • End-fed Zepp in cupboard
  • Tripod mast in cage
  • Lock for the cage (split up to £17 three ways)
• Still no padlock on cage with key.

Updating Email Aliases

• committee (at) sown.org.uk, should be updated.
• webmaster (at) suws.org.uk and (at) sown.org.uk, just David and Cori
• exams (at) suws.org.uk, just Phil.
• contact (at) suws.org.uk
  • Can we get people's email addresses who are on the committee.
• Exam secretary and a few others to be added to the exams address, which is an account but will be turned into an alias.
• Murray, Russell, Colin to be removed from the committee
• People who need to be added: Cori, Tom, Freddie.

Joint Agenda

• AOB
• Any talks for after exams?
  • Will there be enough people here for this to be worth while?

SOWN

See SOWN Agenda