Bolton and District Amateur Radio Society

 



From that picture of the "best Club stand" at the Bellevue Rally, from L to
R: Eric G4FSN, Roy G4GHE, Chris G4HYG, Chris G4AGJ and Alban G8NVW.. In the background you can see a photo of myself.

Last Monday I went onto topband to try to work Ross G6GVI using the old G8WY callsign. Also on the band was Bill G3XUM who still operates from his shed in Farnworth. It is a long time since I worked stations on 160m and my antenna is not really suited for this band. I could talk with Bill, but it was difficult and Ross couldn't hear me at all.
I have decided that it may be a good idea to put up a longwire again, it is the Radio Club Contest on the following Saturday, so it is a good time to try one.

After talking with Bill G3XUM, I then moved to 2m and had a long chat with Ross using G8WY. I was able to talk about the old Bolton and District Amateur Radio Society. Very nostagalic!
I have looked through my old photos to find some from the 70's and 80's some of which I have sent to Ross to put on the Bolton Wireless Club website.

 

 

Bolton and District Amateur Radio Society and Bury Radio Club joint venture on Rooley Moor for VHF NFD around 1971.

 

Chris G4AGJ operating G8WY during one of the contests with my Yaesu FT101E.



G3ZQS

In the photo...standing: G4ADW, Jim G8CVO, George G3ZQS, Chris G8FDL, visitor.  Sitting: Steve (me) G4AQB, G3Y??, Bill G3XUM. Neil G3ZPL, Eli G3LVX, Jim G3SPB. this was from 1971. 

 

This was an exhibition staion organised by George at Moss Bank Park

After my last post about G8WY, it prompted me to think about George, G3ZQS. A search on Google brought some sad news. George died in April 2006, it is only now that I found out. I guess I have been out of touch for a long time. I was pleased to find some photos of George in his later years and also a video on You Tube where he talks about FISTS which is a society that promotes the use of morse on the amateur bands.

I met George before I got my amateur radio licence, the Bolton and District Amateur Radio Society was going through a bad patch around 1970 when the previous committee seemed to have fallen apart and nobody wanted to take the helm. At that time the club was based at The Red Lion pub at Four Lane Ends and needed a new venue. George became secretary of the club and I became assistant secretary (I was only 16 then!) George managed to find another venue in the centre of town at the Clarence Hotel on Bradshawgate. Meetings were held on the first Tuesday in the month and on the 3rd Tuesday was a 'noggin and natter night'. George always had a great sense of humour and put in a huge amount of work to get the club back on it's feet again! During this time lots of special event stations were organised and the club started to buy some equipment. The first of which was a 50 ft aluminium mast and 80m trapped dipole that travelled to all the events.

During this time, I was studying for my radio amateur exam. George was a master of the key! He tought me morse code and had a very easy method of teaching. He grouped the letters into sounds and rhythms. The first letters to learn were A,W,J  then B,D,N and so on... This is put onto tapes and I used the tapes to learn morse. To get my speed up to 20 WPM, George lent me some 78 records with groups of letters and also plain language. I passed my morse test in October 1971 and a week later received my licence. George was at my house when the envelope arrived, when I opened it George shouted "Come on then what is it?"  "G4AQB" I replied. "Ahhh...A Queer Begger ehh!"  said George with his razor sharp wit!

I remember when George bought himself a 'Minimitter' which was huge, he used this for high power CW contacts from his shed when he lived at Bromley Cross. He would sit on it to keep him warm while he worked stations all the world on CW with a broken hacksaw blade as a morse key!
George could send and receive morse like we speak. One weekend we went with the Bury Radio Club to Ashworth Valley for the NFD Contest, which of course is all morse. George was working at the Daily Express in Manchester at the time and didn't finish until midnight. He came straight over.I will never forget when George came into the tent with his slippers on and a crate of brown ales to keep him going through the night! It was truely amazing watching him operate at speeds of  50wpm with his feet up, cigarette in one hand and brown ale at his side.

The club moved premises again to the Recreation Club on St Georges Road, we erected an aerial which ran from the building next door to the roof of the recreation club. During this time George had managed to aquire the G8WY callsign and also persuaded Bolton Council to print some QSL cards for us. We waited months for these cards...when they finally a van turned up with boxes and boxes of QSL cards...over 10,000!  I still have some here!

Lots of memories, George was also very talented at graphic design, he designed QSL cards and had them printed. He also designed a wonderful poster that was put up in shops and public places to advertise the club. I still remember the one on the door of M Dzubias shop on Bradshawgate.

The last time I saw George was at the Bolton Rally at Silverwell St. where he had a stand to promote FISTS....a long time ago. George moved to Darwen and concentrated on the FISTS project, he rarely came on the air with AM or SSB.

George was a great guy, a sad loss to amateur radio.

Here is the You Tube video of George G3ZQS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0evhoeZF6ao

G8WY

I received an interesting e mail today from the Bolton Wireless Club...

Gents, we thought that you'd be interested to hear that thanks to the
persistence of Ian G0CTO and others, the old G8WY callsign is now back
on-air. :-)

It was first aired on Monday afternoon, on 160m (CW!), operated by Ian. We
then had a little Club net (on SSB), including Ian using G8WY and me
operating the G0BWC Club call.

We're hoping to have it on-air again for the Club net next Monday evening,
around 1968kHz on LSB - please join us if you can.

And if you have any "scrapbook" items from the B&DARS years, this would be a
good opportunity archive them digitally for posterity?

73 de Ross G6GVI

My reply...

Hi Ross and Bill

That is great news! It has been such a long time since Golf Eight Whisky
Yankee was heard on the bands, the callsign has a lot of history. I used it
a lot during contests and exhibition stations and I think Bill also used it
on HF with the KW2000A. A few weeks ago a photo appeared in the Bolton News
of myself, Bill and Neil G3ZPL in Bill's shack using the call to link with
our twin towns back in 1974.
I thought at the time about what had happened to the call and how it would
be great to have it back in Bolton. I think maybe you know the origin of the
callsign Ross from the old B&DARS days.
I remember when I was an SWL and George G3ZQS was secretary of the club, he
found out about the call from another amateur and set about making the call
active again. It took him a long time and like Ian, had to be very
persistent in getting hold of it.

You must get some QSL cards made Ross, I would love to have one on my wall.
I will listen on Monday evening!

 

 

Here is myself, Chris (G4AGJ) and Jack (G8HIK) back in about 1978 operating G8WY/P from Affetside.

Not any BaoFeng UV-5R Plus

I just bought one of these for my Christmas present... The amazing thing is that it is coming from M&S! Not any BaoFeng UV-5R Plus, but an M&S one! Fantastic!

Product Description

Features

* Dual-Band Display, Dual Freq. Display, Dual-Standby
* Output Power: 4 /1Watts
* 128 Channels 50 CTCSS and 104 DCS
* Built-in VOX Function
* 1750Hz Brust Tone
* FM Radio (65.0MHz-108.0MHz)
* LED Flashlight
* Large LCD Display
* Hight /Low RF Power Switchable
* 25KHz/12.5KHz Switchable
* Emergency Alert
* Low Battery Alert
* Battery Saver
* Time-out Timer
* Keypad Lock
* Monitor Channel
* Channel Step: 2.5/5/6.25/10/12.5/25KHz
* ROGER SET

General Specifications

·Frequency Range: 65-108MHz (FM Receive only); 136-174 MHz and 400-479.995 MHz(TX/RX)
·Channel No.: 128
·Frequency Stability: ±2.5ppm
·Antenna: High gain Dual-Band Antenna
·Antenna Impedance: 50 ohm
·Operating Voltage: DC 7.4V
·Mode of operation: Simple or semi-duplex
·Dimension (W x H x D): 100 x 52 x 32 mm
·Weight: 250g (including battery, antenna)

Transmitter Specifications

·Output power: 4W / 1W (Max 5W)
·Modulation Mode: 16kWbF3E / 11kWbF3E
·Maximum deviation: <5khz arrow="arrow" br="br" ide="ide" khz="khz">·Spurious Radiation: <7 br="br" microw="microw">·Adjacent Ch. power: <=-65dB(Wide) / <=-60dB(Narrow)
·Pre-emphasis characteristics: 6dB
·Current: <=1.6A(5W)
·CTCSS/DCS deviation: 0.5±0.1kHz(Wide) / 0.3±0.1kHz(Narrow)
·Intermediation sensitivity: 8-12mv
·Intermediation distortion: <10 br="br">
Package Including

· 1 x UV-5R (VHF136-174MHz / UHF 400-479.995MHz)
· 1 x 7.4V 1800mAh Li-ion Battery Pack
· 1 x Antenna 136-174/400-479.995Mhz
· 1 x Earphone Mic/Headset
· 1 x Belt Clip
· 1 x Hand Strap
· 1 x ENG / GER / FRA Manual
· 1 x adapter
· 1 x Desktop Charger (100V ~ 240V)

Morse Mars

Who thought Morse Code was dead and buried with all the digital technology?  Not so...NASA has included a message in Morse Code in the track of Curiosity the Mars rover, where as we speak, is leaving the message JPL permantly on the surface of Mars wherever it goes!

What a great idea!

It is fun to listen to Morse QSO's on the bands, this skill is not dead, but is an important way of communicating when all else fails. Last night I listened to the contest on 50Mhz and heard a few times when the QSO was difficult and reverted to sending the contest info in Morse...why not!
I still have my key, and I still know how to use it!
I am now waiting for a good Auroral opening, I have worked lots of stations before during Auroral activity using morse code, it sounds like a 'buzzsaw' during Auroral contacts.

Twin town link up

Couldn't believe it today when my Dad rang me to tell me that there was a photo of of me in newspaper from 1974. A photo of me with long hair!
I remember when this photo was taken, I went with Neil G3ZPL to Bills's house to set up a link between the Mayor of Paderborne in Germany, the Mayor of Le Mans in France and the Mayor of Bolton. The Bolton Evening News also came to take photos. It was a glorious Spring morning nad Neill picked me me up in his Hilman Imp car. We drove down St Peter's Way to Farnworth with all the widows open singing 'MaMa were all crazy now!' When we arrived at Bills house the photographer was there, but no Mayor!
In the end we went on 20 metres with Bills KW2000 and Linear and talked with Paderborne and Le Mans (our twin towns) on the radio. I remember that the link was quite poor and a lot of QRM and QSB.

Bolton was well populated with radio hams in 1974.
They were amateur broadcasters with 100ftpieces of wire strung over the rooftops as an aerial.
The previous Christmas about 20 of them - members of the Bolton and District Amateur Radio Society - had set up their own twin chatting arrangements with the french town of Le Mans.
It was all done from the home of Bill Moran (G3XUM) Each Sunday at about 9am the first call sign G8WY/A went out to make contact with the Le Mans signal - F8GE
Bill Moran, left, is pictured operating his transmitter with fellow members Neil Richardson and secretary Stephen Macdonald.

Olympics at last!

Well, last night was amazing!
I watched the Olympic opening ceremony all the way through and it was incredible! The technology that went into the ceremony was mind blowing with the lights, projections and special effects. There must have been an army of technicians on site as the scene was transformed from an English countryside to the industrial revolution with the chimneys and how on earth did they forge the Olympic rings with the awesome special effects? As well as Mr Bean, we also saw the guy that invented the World Wide Web and this should be celebrated as it has changed the world...trouble is that I can't remember his name!
The music was chosen well and David Bowie played Heros as the Team GB came into the stadium at the end of the team procession...couldn't have chosen it better!

Well done Danny Boyle!  A true down to earth Radcliffe man with a great northern insiration. My wife Kathleen comes from Radcliffe and i'm sure he knows her family! The Olivers were well known in Radcliffe.

This is a once in a lifetime event that should be remembered!