Welcome!

Our magazine “AirTime” for January 2022 was published on 31st of December. This contains a Form on which members may nominate committee members for 2022. These forms must be returned to the current secretary by 13th of February 2022.

This is your chance to determine the future direction of the society and shape it to accomodate the views and objectives as perceived by the majority or even minority of its members. It is only by getting involved and helping make these decisions that anything will be changed. Although perhaps many are happy with the existing modus operandi.

Each year the RSGB runs a series of contests over the Christmas period. These are all short events which last for a maximum of two hours between 1400-1600 each day.

The events are on the dates below, with the cumulative scores on each band contributing to an overall position. The results for single band entries also qualify for certificates, with SARS having been placed 2nd in the 50 MHz section and overall Runner-Up in 2016. 26th 50 MHz, 27th 70 MHz, 28th 144 MHz and 29th 432 MHz.

Tim M0THM will be running the 50 Mhz event on Boxing Day from Beachy Head, using the society’s ICOM IC-7300, Five Element Yagi and 400W Linear Amplifier loaned by G8DXU. Tim intends to operate on all of the other bands and contest days as indicated above.

Other members will operate and assist on 70-144 & 432 MHz depending upon their availability, with all being welcome to attend BHRS during these events. Members are warmly invited to make contact with Tim and others oprerating in this series of contests. Contest calls from members and local amateurs to the club station G1KAR/P will be most welcome.

This is just a gentle reminder that the Net on local UHF repeater GB3ZX is still running. Members and indeed all amateurs within range are invited to call in for a signal report and chat if they so desire.

The Net starts at 1400 local time and runs for 30 minutes or so depending upon activity. Our usual control station is Tony G3ZQB with others taking turns accordant to availability.

ZX Input 438.425 MHz Output 430.825 MHz (7.6MHz Split) CTCSS 88.5 Hz

In view of the rising rate of COVID-19 cases and especially the Delta / Omicron variants, the SARS committee have now made the difficult decision to cancel the forthcoming physical meeting scheduled for 6th December. We will be reviewing this situation early in the New Year and hope that normal meetings can be resumed as soon as practical. Members are requested to keep an eye on these postings for any further updates.

With many thanks to our members for their anticipated understanding of the above situation.

Members of SARS continue to play an active role in the AFS series of contests. Our most recent entry was in the 160 metre Club Calls (Phone) contest on Saturday 13th of November. We gained 48 contacts duiring this event using the club callsign GX1KAR/P.

Equipment used for this event was the society’s IC-7300 and a Half wave Dipole from our radio site at Beachy Head.

The next contest in the AFS series is the 144 MHz SSB on Sunday 5th of December from 1000-1400 UTC. We are always pleased to contact any stations either members or fellow amateurs who wish to give us a call.

This event ran over the August Bank Holiday weekend 28-30th inclusive, the FOT is a large annual display of vintage vehicles and static exhibits. Six SARS members and the family of one member camped on site over the entire weekend. We displayed several Land Rovers from 1948-1985 and a Daimler Ferret Armoured Car in NATO white, which attracted a lot of attention from visitors.

Our special event station, using call GB2FOT was active on the HF and VHF bands.

We’re pleased to announce that monthly club meetings at the Eastbourne Sovereign Sailing Club will be resuming, with the first to be held on Monday 2nd August from 19:30 local. This meeting will be a “Natter Night” – come along for a chat and bring any lockdown projects you’d like to “show and tell”, or queries & calculations you have regarding the new ICNIRP regulations. Members are asked to take the necessary precautions, while the outside doors will be kept open in order to allow air circulation and allow members to stand both indoors and outdoors.

With the easing of social restrictions activities at the society’s Beachy Head Radio Site will gradually resume to normal. Members who have had both vaccinations against Covid 19 or can show a recent Negative Lateral Flow Test result will be most welcome.

In order that we can properly plan contest and other events, members who are interested in participating or just visiting the site are, in the first instance, requested to make contact using the members FORUM. Our calendar shows the dates of most forthcoming events.

Next scheduled event is the 144 MHz / 432 MHz Low Power contests at BHRS over the weekend of 31st July 1st August.

Several members got together to make a socially distanced entry in the above contest.

Fortunately there were some considerable Sporadic Es right from the start of the event which lasted until Sunday afternoon. We were treated to some extreemly strong signals from many European countries. Spain, France, Romania, Italy, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Ukraine, Sardinia, Romania, Portugal, Sweden, Hungary, Czech Republic, Morocco & Malta being amongst some of the countries worked.

Having 400W pep available was certainly of assistance but such distant stations could often be worked with just the drive level of around 30W! Those attending BHRS had a real treat, in that there was not a single dull moment without being able to find stations at over 1400km. Our best Dx was 9H1PI in Malta at 1998km. Whilst our number of QSOs was 106 this was well short of the 400 plus reached by the leading contestants. Our final score of 11,978627 points was very satisfying and should give us a respectable place in the results.

This was a very satisfying event for the SARS contest team and hopefully will inspere us all to enter other events in the near future.

The club Committee has recently been in communication with Eastbourne Sovereign Sailing Club, our host for our regular meetings on the first Monday of every month. They are keen to have us return as soon as legally allowed, which means that if the current limits on indoor gatherings are indeed lifted on 19th July (the new date delayed from 21st June, as announced yesterday by the Government), we may well be able to hold a club meeting on Monday 2nd August. We hope that we’ll be able to confirm this in the days following Monday 19th July, at which point all members will receive an email notification of this. Fingers-crossed we can see you all soon!