Following on from Mike G4DDL‘s August 2022 presentation on DX-ing and Contesting from a small garden Mike and his wife Linda offered our members a more detailed presentation on taking part in HF Contesting.

Mike explained that entering HF Contests offers much more than the excitement of the contest itself. Contesting is a great way to learn more about Radio Communications in all of it’s modes. A lot can be learnt about propagation, how well your radio and antenna is performing and is a great opportunity to make new contacts across the world.

While guiding us through the wide variety of HF Contests taking place across the year, Mike highlighted operating techniques to help us maximise our chance of being heard and offered guidance on how to log contacts easily and reliably with minimal errors.

Hopefully Mike’s presentation has encouraged a number of us to take part in an HF Contest this year.

A big thank you to Mike G4DDL and his Wife Linda for an interesting and fun presentation. A copy of Mike’s presentation slides can be viewed and downloaded by clicking HERE

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Building the T41 SDR Transceiver Kit – Michael M0GVY

Club Committee Member Michael Hall M0GVY brought along his partially built T41 SDR 20w CW/SSB Transceiver Kit purchased from Four State QRP Group. Michael described the structure of the modular design and the assembly work he has completed to date. The T41 is a serious kit, comprising many surface mount components across many modular boards.

Michael has completed a large part of the assembly and solder work, all to a high standard and looks very well built and tidy. Although there is still a lot to complete, the radio is beginning to look very smart. Being an SDR Transceiver that can operate without the need for a PC, there is firmware to load into the Radio once complete and this will also allow operators to tailor the software in the future.

Thanks to Michael for bringing his radio in and running us through its design. It will be great to see it again when it is up and running.