"Surface Mount Construction Techniques" was the subject of the Presidential Address of new LRS President Pete Bates GM4BYF on Wednesday 14th September 2011 at the Braid Hills Hotel. This was very much a practical talk on the difficulties of soldering those pesky little SMC components onto circuit boards. Pete's Powerpoint slides (see below) contained numerous hints on handling the little devils and the use of a CCTV camera with a close-up lens allowed the audience to follow the microscopic procedures which he demonstrated.

At the end of this report are photographs supplied to Pete by Chris GM4YLN of an improved hold-down device for SMCs.

 

 

 Photo by Peter GM4DTH

There was a special meeting of the Lothians Radio Society at the Museum of Communication in Burntisland on 28th September 2011. Prof. Tom Stevenson, Chairman of the MOC, assisted by Dorothy Brankin, Marion McLean and Dr. Raymond Parks, presented  "WWW - Words, Wires, Waves and the World Wide Web". They described how science has transformed the way we communicate over the last 400 years - Words from printing and the speaking-tube to shorthand and typing - Wires from the electric telegraph to telephone exchanges - Waves from the crystal set and television to the Blackberry and Bluetooth - and the World Wide Web from Amstrad and the Spectrum to the iPod and webcam. This was a joint meeting of the LRS and the Glenrothes & District Amateur Radio Club with an attendance of 20. Peter Dick GM4DTH proposed a vote of thanks on behalf of all the attendees. After the presentation we visited the current MOC exhibition with this theme.

 

Well-known Scottish DXpeditioner Tom Wylie GM4FDM talked about "Radio Expeditioning to Senegal and Jersey" on Wednesday 5th October, 2011. Senegal 2010 was an expedition to West Africa by Tom GM4FDM & Ronald PA3EWP. Their objective was to make as many QSOs as possible especially on the LF bands over a 10 day period. Tom's presentation described how they went about preparing and executing their plan and the problems and highlights of operating ham radio from Africa. Tom also talked about a trip made to Jersey for operation on 6 metres plus some HF. Most of the photos below are derived from Tom's slides.

 

Tom Wylie GM4FDM speaking at the LRS meeting.

 

The Lothians autumn Surplus Equipment Sale was held on Wednesday 19th October at St Fillans Church Hall.

 

 Visitors from several other local clubs were welcomed at this well-attended meeting.

 

LRS Secretary Andy Sinclair MM0FMF gave a comprehensive talk about GPS - Global Positioning System - and its applications in Amateur Radio including SOTA - Summits On The Air at the LRS meeting on Wednesday 9th November 2011. Andy described the origins of GPS, and how it manages to to provide users with both their location and a highly accurate time reference. He also described the sources of errors and how these can be mitigated. He concluded with descriptions of the updates coming to GPS starting soon. Several GPS receivers and associated units were shown (photographs below).



Andy Sinclair MM0FMF presenting his GPS talk to the LRS.

 

 

David Stockton GM4ZNX (above) talked about Communication Receiver Design at the LRS meeting on 23rd November 2011. He described the evolution of our current receiver designs from the beginning, showing what considerations pushed each change along the way. In addition to showing pictures of many classic receivers, David brought examples of the very desirable Eddystone EA-12 receiver and the ICOM R-9000. Colin GM4HWO brought RACAL RA-1218 and RA-1792 receivers (70lb)!     Photos by Colin GM4HWO- tnx.

 

Marconi CR-100 & ?

 

 ? & R-1155.

 

 ? & SX-28

 

? & ?  

 

 ? & Eddystone ?

 

 National HRO.

 

RCA AR-88D 

 

 The very desirable Eddystone EA-12

 

Racal RA-1218.

 

Racal RA-1792

 

Underside of Racal RA-1792

 

 ?

..................................................................................................................................................................

Many thanks to David and Colin for this amazing display of receivers.

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The annual Lothians Radio Society Christmas Curry was held on Wednesday, 14th December 2011 at the Himalaya Tandoori Restaurant,  Bruntsfield Place after pre-dinner drinks at nearby Montpelier's bar. 14 members and their partners attended and a merry time was had by all, as you can see in the following photographs. 

 

Paul GM4UPN & Brian GM8BJF, winners of the annual "Largest Naan" competition in 2011.

Also in photo: John GM8OTI and Dawn XYL-GM4UPN.

 

The first meeting of the LRS in 2012 was the Video Evening on 11th January. Peter Dick GM4DTH presented The Spies Who Lost the Battle of Britain, the story of British Radar and how the Germans nearly discovered it, a documentary about the Chain-Home (CH) radar system. This was followed by  RDF to Radar - A Record of the work of TRE,  a related government film which is now declassified. Peter has provided a number of still frames to give some of the flavour of this very interesting historical material.

 

Peter GM4DTH getting his act together for the video evening.