Bracknell Methodist Church
Shepherds Lane, Bracknell, RG42 2DD
Bracknell Amateur Radio Club (BARC) meets at Bracknell Methodist Church, Shepherds Lane, Bracknell at 8pm on the second Wednesday of each month. Click here for a map.
The Club aims to meet the needs of all interested in amateur radio, and has a varied programme of guest speakers, surplus sales, members' interests evenings, and social evenings.
For details of other amateur radio clubs in the area please visit the RSGB Region 9 website.
This site is managed by club member Dave Sergeant G3YMC. Comments, news items and general items relevant to the club should be sent to the .
Bracknell Methodist Church
Our Club meets in the Wesley Room, Bracknell Methodist Church.
To find Bracknell Methodist Church take the Binfield Road B3018 from Bracknell town centre. Shortly past the Total garage turn right into Shepherds Lane at the crossroads. The church is located several hundred yards down on the left, just past the Prince of Wales public house. The car park is at the rear off Agar Crescent.
Wednesday February 8th - Annual Bring and Show
Wednesday March 14th - The UK Shipping Forecast - Julian M0XPJ
Club Net: 145.375MHz FM Wednesdays 8pm (except club nights)
Notes on the Propagation talk which Dave G3YMC gave at our March 2007 meeting can be found here.
G3YMC's presentation '40 years at G3YMC' which he gave at the April 2009 meeting can be found here.
G3YMC's presentation QSLing which he gave at the March 2010 meeting can be found here.
Paul's presentation on WSPR can be seen here, and a Youtube demonstration of WSPR by VK3YE can be viewed here.In January we held our Annual General Meeting. After presention of formal reports the committee for the coming year was elected, followed by general discussion. We also presented out Dave Sugden trophy jointly to Graham G4DDN and Uri G0BBB for their support of the RSGB UKAC contests.
One of the NFD stations
More photos in our photo
album
Over the weekend of July 2nd/3rd 2011 the club participated as it does each year in the VHF NFD contest from a site near Cerne Abbas in Dorset. Once again we joined up with the Flight Refuelling ARS, with ourselves running the 6m and 70cm stations and them running the 4m and 2m ones. The weather was good and an excellent weekend was had by all. More photos of the weekend can be found in our photo album. In the published results the club came 5th in the Open section.
For our June meeting we had a most interesting talk by Paul G4DCV entitled 'Backyard
EME'. Paul has been working moonbounce with very modest antennas in a typical UK back
garden with surprising results. You can find more about his activities and EME on
his website and from the following
links:
N0UK's EME chat group. Somewhere to
check activity, know where to listen and to make skeds if you want.
WSJT home page where the
software can be downloaded.
WSJT EME primer.
At our November 2010 evening Daniel 2E0DRX, Simrun M6SBX and Alex gave us a fascinating talk about the ALIEN-1 High Altitude Balloon flight which took place earlier in the year. More information can be found at http://ukhas.org.uk/ and http://alienproject.wordpress.com/. Download a PDF of the presentation from the files area of the G4BRA reflector.
G3YMC has been busy chasing SOTA summits. Dave activated his station from Cleeve Hill, G/CE-001, in September 2010 and you can read about his exploits on his website.
Bracknell Methodist Church, where we meet, held a Flower Festival over the weekend of September 25th/26th 2010. Along with the other organisations that meet at the church we were invited to put on a display of our activities together with a flower arrangement or fruit/vegetable items which would be auctioned at the end of the weekend. All proceeds of the weekend went to the church building fund. For more information and pictures from the weekend and the latest on the redevelopment please visit the church News page.
The club sponsored the FSDXA DXpedition to Kiribati (Christmas Island) which was active as T32C between October 1st and October 24th 2011. Conditions were better than expected, and although signals were quite week several of our members managed to have QSOs with them. More details can be found on their website.
HF Beam at 2nd Bracknell Scouts
In October 2008 BARC supported 2nd Bracknell Scouts in putting on a station in Jamboree on the Air. Several of the scouts had obtained their amateur licences on courses run at out club so it was good to see them enjoying themselves on the air. This new HF beam and Tennamast has just been erected at the Scout Hut, and several of our members assisted in putting it up. Operating with the special call GB4SBS the best DX was 3DA0SS in Swaziland who were worked on 15m.
JOTA is a world wide event and is an excellent opportunity to show amateur radio to the wider community. As well as cubs, beavers and guides several parents also visited during the weekend and learnt something about the hobby. It is also an opportunity for the scouts to have over the air contacts under supervision.
Daniel M3UTQ busy on 2m
Here Daniel M3UTQ is seen operating on the 2m station which put out a good signal in the area and several other JOTA stations were worked.
The club has continued to support 2nd Bracknell Scouts with JOTA being again run in 2009 and 2010.
You can find more about the 2nd Bracknell Scouts and their previous JOTA operations by visting their website.
Successful candidates at a recent course
The club is now able to offer courses for the amateur radio examinations. The first of these was a Foundation Licence course held on Saturdays September 8th and 15th 2007 at our club meeting place, Bracknell Methodist Church. Several more courses have been held since and a high pass rate has been achieved at all our courses.
If you are interested in future courses please contact .
Further information on Amateur Radio licences and the Foundation course can be found on the RSGB site.
In addition to our monthly meetings, the Club participates in amateur radio contests organised by the RSGB. See our contest pages.
Other activities in our calendar include a barbecue, bring and show evening, and participation in local rallies.
The Dave Sugden Memorial Trophy is awarded annually by the committee to the member considered contributing the most to club or amateur radio activities.
Want to know what the club was like in 1977? Look here for some
real nostalgia...
And a flavour of what contest activity was like in 1978, kindly supplied by former member Chris Byard.
The following have been elected to serve on the G4BRA Committee for the current year:
Chairman:
Secretary:
Treasurer:
Coopted members:
Subscription rates for 2012/13 are £15 for full membership and £7.50 for senior, junior and country members.For more information on the Bracknell Club and how to join please e-mail either the Secretary or the Treasurer
The Club Constitution is available for viewing on this website.
An email reflector has been set up for the use of members. To subscribe to this send a blank email to g4bra-subscribe@yahoogroups.com and confirm by replying to the email you will receive. Alternately visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/g4bra/ and join from there (you will need to set up an account at Yahoogroups).
A club net takes place each Wednesday evening (except club nights) on 145.375MHz FM.
The club supported the DXpedition from the 5 Star Dxers Association which took place in September 2007 on the Indian Ocean island of St. Brandon with the call 3B7C. Although it was tough going in the current HF conditions a few of our members were lucky to have QSOs on several bands. Don G3XTT told us all about this dxpedition at our March 2008 meeting.
Visit the DXpedition website for further details
The Bracknell club was sponsor for this major DXpedition to Rodrigues island in the Indian Ocean. This was a major operation and was active from March 19th to April 12th 2004. There were awards for contacting the station on as many HF bands as possible - quite a few club members were heard in the pileups. 3B9C made over 150,000 QSOs in three weeks operation.
DXpedition member John G3WGV told us all about 3B9C at our July 2004 meeting in a thoroughly interesting presentation.
Visit the website for further details
Richard G8IBP on the HF station
Over the weekend of June 3rd and 4th 2006 Bracknell Methodist Church celebrated the 50th anniversary of its founding in 1956. On the Saturday there was a fete and BARC was invited to put on a display of its activities, along with other organisations which meet at the church. Stations were set up for HF, 2m and slow scan TV and some interesting QSOs were had on 20m and 40m SSB. There was a lot of interest in our station and members took quite a lot of time talking to visitors about what amateur radio is about. No DX was worked, but it was a most enjoyable day and we felt we had achieved out goals in publicising the hobby.
The picture shows Richard G8IBP in QSO on the HF station.
For a detailed report of the weekend see the church website.
During July 2002 the RA and RSGB announced that permission was given for experimental transmissions on spot frequencies in the 5MHz hf band (3kHz channels centred on 5260, 5280, 5290, 5400 and 5405 kHz). Special NOV permits are required for this operation and are available to full (advanced) licence holders. For full details see http://www.rsgb.org/licensing/fivemegs/fivemegs.htm.
Several club members have obtained an NOV's for the band and have been operational. G3YMC has included some pages on his site detailing his experiences on the band, together with the design of the 5W VXO transmitter he has built.
Several of our members are very keen on HF QRP operation. Dave G3YMC is very active with his K2 transceiver, see his QRP pages. Ian G3TLH has operated for some years on QRP with a loop in his loft space with surprising results and is now active from his new QTH in Devon with rather better antennas.
Club member John Linford G3WGV is General Manager of the Summits on the Air programme. This programme encourages amateur radio operation from summits throughout the world, including over 200 in the United Kingdom, and awards are available both to activators (who operate from the summits) and chasers (the rest of us, non athletic, types). Look out for John and others working portable from these summits.
G3YMC's K2 station on a summit
Dave G3YMC has also been working some of the summits stations with his K2 on 40m. In 2003 he activated summit TW-005 in the Lincolnshire Wolds. The picture shows his portable station in action.
In September 2010 he activated the summit G/CE-001 at Cleeve Hill. You can find a report of this activation here.
Further details of this programme can be found at http://www.sota.org.uk.
Some years ago we used to have regular HF schedules with the local amateurs, and several of us have visited their members. See the Leverkusen club DL0IL website (German language)
In 2002 and 2009 Egon DK7EI visited us here in Bracknell. In September 2009 their club is celebrating their 60th anniversary and we hope to exchange greetings with them at the time, together with a possible visit by one of our members.