This months club meeting went very well and a social and informative evening was had by all.
Our monthly calendar and schedule for the year is rapidly filling up and more details on this will appear on our website over the next few days.
I have left the list of Clansman equipment demonstrated at this months club meeting below for all those interested.
The British Army CLANSMAN Portable Radios (Radio’s will be on show)
This will be a brief introduction to the following sets
PRC349 PRC350 PRC351 PRC320 and PRC344
There will be notes on the general specification, facilities offered and practical use, to include examples of typical antennas used in the field.
The Ground Spike Antenna (GSA), The elevated GSA, The Elevated VHF (EVHF) known as the Pineapple and the Ground Mounted Monopole (Washing line antenna!)
Also the Clansman HF Dipole and the 5.4 metre mast kit.
Out in the field….
The weather for this time of year has been very mild and we have taken advantage of this using our clubs radio shack on the south downs that we call camp x.
Here you can see the military radios operated by Barry G8DXU using long wires for 60m and 80m.
Conditions have been very good with some very interesting contacts due to the recent solar activity.
Here is another picture from Saturday’s trip up to the Camp X radio site of an EVHF antenna used by the Clansman VHF equipment. More details beneath picture.
The EVHF Antenna
The EVHF is a broadband vertical antenna suitable for use with all the Clansman VHF sets except RT349. It is an elevated antenna intended for use on an 8m mast although I have managed to put one up on the lower half of a 5.4m fiberglass mast. No additional tuner is needed and it has a C-connector suitable for the Clansman heavy duty Coax.
The antenna consists of a base unit (the “Pineapple”) and three elements which screw together. The complete kit is made up of two bags – one containing the elements and one containing:
- The Pineapple base unit
- One length of low loss coax with C-Connectors
- One length of lightweight coax with BNC connectors
- One C to BNC adapter
The C to BNC adapter can be fitted directly to the base unit if operation with the lightweight coax only is desired. See article below.…