Welcome to the Lothians Radio Society

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Paul at Dante's View, Black Mountains, CA.

We were delighted to welcome Paul Gacek W6PNG and his XYL from Laguna Beach, CA as the speaker at our meeting on 28th March 2018.  Paul is a SOTA friend of Andy MM0FMF to whom our thanks for arranging this talk. Originally from London, and now splitting his time between CA and Berwick-on-Tweed, Paul talked about "Wilderness radio in the Western US with an emphasis more on photos than any kind of tutorial" and showed many photos of the beautiful places he has operated from. Click for Paul's blog.

Click for Full report with photos. 

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(Photo of a similar installation)

John McCormick from Leonardo Airborne & Space Systems gave a talk about the Compact Antenna Test Range (CATR) at Crewe Toll, Edinburgh, at the meeting on 14th March. 

CATR is a dual-reflector test facility enclosed in a 24m x 14m x 8m anechoic chamber. It makes measurements of antenna performance from 500MHz to 40GHz.

Click for full Powerpoint presentation. 

John McCormick

 

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Allister Watson GM7RYR, who is beacon-keeper for GB7EE, talked about Digital Voice Modes at the meeting on 28th Feb 2018 at the Braid Hills Hotel. 

This talk looked at the different digital modes used on the VHF / UHF bands: D-Star, Fusion (C4FM) and DMR, the developments of the Local, National and International Networks and compared this with the state of the networks at the last talk given to the Lothians RS in February 2016. (Click)
 
There was a good turnout of 11 in spite of the blizzard blowing outside - "The Beast from the East"!
 
 Photos by Peter GM4DTH   
 

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Stan Frey GM8ZQY gave a comprehensive talk on "Battery Types and Behaviours" at the meeting on 14th February - a review of the currently available battery types with an emphasis on lithium ion rechargeables. And he was thinking about the behaviours of the users as well as the batteries themselves!  Full Report.

 

Stan brought many examples of batteries to demonstrate and describe their 'behaviours'.

 

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At the meeting on 24th January 2018, Neil Gillies, ex-GM6BZF, talked about and demonstrated 3D Printing, the state-of-the-art way of producing plastic parts. He gave an in-depth talk on how to get started - types of machine available, the software required for various parts of the process, materials, what can and can’t be done with 3D printing. He brought along his current 3D printer and demonstrated it in use, making a small plastic component during the meeting. Full report.

 

"Tiny Boy" 3D printer in action.

 

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The annual Video Night, presented as always by Peter Dick GM4DTH who is the current President of the Edinburgh Cine & Video Society, was held on Wednesday 10th January 2018 in the ECVS screening room. The theme was 'The Role of Radio in Aviation'.

1. Air Ministry Official Film - The Imperial Airway - The work of British Airways. (1924)
2. Crown Film Unit - On the Beam (1951)
3. CAA - Communications in Air Traffic Control. (1970)
4. Central Office of Information CAA - Radar for Air Traffic Control (1973)
5. Volmet (1980) 

"Imperial Airways"

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Click for Full Report with many stills.

Loan DVD copies of the complete video program are available from Peter. 

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The annual LRS Christmas Curry was held on Wednesday 6th December at the Himalaya Tandoori Restaurant at Bruntsfield, with 14 diners, including a very welcome DX visitor - Eric Worley W0RLY, a United Airlines pilot between flights, who had spotted our dinner notice on this website. (On left above with Alan GM3PSP and Pete GM4BYF).  Click for More Photos.

 

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LRS member Brian Howie GM4DIJ gave an introduction to antenna modelling at the LRS meeting on 11 March 2015. This time he talked more specifically about "Optimization of Antenna Height Over Real Terrain in the Low VHF Bands" at the meeting on 22nd November 2017.

 

Brian writes: "It is common intuition that the higher an antenna is above the ground, the better it performs. Whilst this is true in most cases, the performance of an antenna a few wavelengths above ground is a complex interaction of the beam patterns and the local topography. It can be shown that in some cases a lower antenna can outperform one much higher.
I've been looking in particular at the local terrain at our contest site at Gatehouse of Fleet using an ARRL- supplied program HFTA, designed primarily for the HF Bands, to explore terrain effects on antenna performance at low VHF". Click for Powerpoint.

  1. 8 Nov 2017 - 'Pirates - Offshore Radio 1964-1974 - ding-ding' - James Gentles GM4WZP
  2. Sat 4 Nov 2017 - GMRT - Microwave Round Table at Museum of Communication
  3. 25 Oct 2017 - Having fun on a shoestring - Tom Wylie GM4FDM
  4. Wed 18 Oct 2017 - LRS Autumn Surplus Equipment Sale - St Fillans Church