This December has been fantastic weather wise and the activity up at our X NATO Beachy Site has been buzzing, with many new members joining in with the fun and operating from a noise free and highly elevated location.
Both Richard M6EYO and Tom M6ONX got their new call signs through.
Our trips down to the Cafe Continental, in the Seaside area of the town are becoming very popular and the cafe owner has been very accommodating in allowing us to join up tables for an ever growing number of local and non local radio hams, enjoying their well cooked food at VERY affordable prices.
Hamjoint is now officially launched and you will see a banner on our side panel that has a URL link to the site. We wish Tom M6ONX who has just recently passed his foundation and Dave G4XXM every success with their new dedicated auction platform for amateur radio equipment that has benefits to the radio community as a whole. If you have not yet done so, pop over to their website using link below or the banner on the side panel of this webpage and read all about the Hamjoint project and sign up for free.
Our radio operations up at the beachy site are very diverse, in that most bands are in use and a wide range of equipment is being brought up and plugged in. Often the age range of equipment on site is from old to new. Being a large site there is room for several antennas, meaning that different modes and frequencies can be used at the same time. See pictures below.
If you are interesting in the ‘doing’ part of the radio hobby or would just like to see amateur radio in action, why not sign up for membership and come along. The social side of our club is very relaxed and the door stop bacon, sausage egg sandwiches, cooked most weeks are an added bonus.
If you are new to radio and what to explore taking the Foundation Exam that is a very accessible exam, even for the non technical. Use our websites Contact Form to make inquiries. We have three registered trainers in our club and all stages of radio the exam are catered for.
Here again are a few pictures showing a little of what is going on up at this very picturesque location, that has stunning views of the local countryside and most importantly, great operating conditions.
Seen below: Dr Jon and Dave G4XXM standing by Jon’s Land Rover, with some x military equipment plugged in and ready to go. Several contacts were made from this external/mobile set up and as you can see the weather on this day was glorious for this time of year.
Seen below: Myself M3EVM, Dave G4XXM and Tom M6ONX Inside our radio shack after one our mega fry ups. Note the OK sauce bottle under the dray power supply!
Having a heater, a regular supply of tea, plus cooking facilities is great, especially at this time of year, when the temperatures outside are often close to the minus point.
Seen below: The sun sets from the beachy site are amazing and below you see Land Rovers in the sun set. That reminds me of a an old song or was that red sails?
Seen below: Barry G8CVV next to Henry’s 2E0IAK UN Land Rover.
Seen below: Barry G8DXU in a cunning disguise, wearing non military clothing and hiding behind a pint of Harveys. These field operations away from the radio set, have to be done. 
Andy M6GND had some great results using one of those fishing poles antennas on the beachy site and a radio set in data mode.
Report: One’s the JT65 contact with RN5AA in Russia and the other is the Pskreporter report showing which monitoring stations received our JT65 signals. You’ll notice that our 5W signal was heard in Washington State almost 5,000 miles away, that equates to almost a thousand miles per Watt!
Here are just a FEW contacts from this years log book….
11-06-2014 2m ssb F2FP France
05-08-2014 2m ssb ON4WY Holland
30-08-2014 20m ssb YO50BA Romania
22-10-2014 2m ssb EI3KD Ireland
06-12-2014 20m ssb YT2ISM Serbia
06-12-2014 20m ssb W1AW1 USA
06-12-2014 20m jy65 RN5AA Russia
155 confirmed and logged QSO’s since April plus there have been numerous local test contacts mainly using clansman equipment and through the local repeaters.