Pete GM4BYF examines some of the hot items available at the surplus sale.

The LRS Spring Surplus Equipment Sale was held on 9th April 2014 at St Fillans Church, Buckstone Drive. There was a good assortment of radio and computer gear, oscilloscopes and function generators, plus a raffle for "bottles" of various types (mostly with somewhat low vacuum, until emptied)!.

 

Brian GM8BJF expresses glee on selling one of his items!

(While Peter GM4DTH closely guards the raffle bottles).

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At the meeting of the LRS held on 26th March 2014 LRS Secretary Alan Masson GM3PSP presented "A Dip into the RSGB Archives" consisting of two Powerpoint presentations prepared by Elaine Richards G4LFM of RSGB HQ. These were "A Membership in Service to Their Country" a record of RSGB members' contributions to WWI & WWII, and "Transatlantic Tests 1921-1925". 


 Full Report.

At the meeting of the LRS on 26th February 2014 we had the rare opportunity to hear an actual operator with the Special Operations Executive (SOE) describe his experiences 70 years ago during WWII. André Saunders GM3VLB introduced Bob McFarlane, who outlined the background, training and radios used by the SOE and then described his experiences in Yugoslavia, Ceylon, Malaya and Japan, with many pictures.

Full report.

Image courtesy NRAO/AUI

At the meeting of the LRS on 12th March 2014 LRS Past-President John Cooke GM8OTI gave a very comprehensive talk about Astronomical Radio Sources. John was an astronomer in his working life (though not a radio astronomer!) and described how the Universe is seen using radio waves. This included an outline of the techniques used, before going on to describe the different radio sources observed, from those inside the Solar System, those in our galaxy and beyond, and out to the furthest detectable sources. 

(Truly DX !) - ed.  Full report.

(Logo courtesy Microsoft Corp.)

In light of the imminent loss of support by Microsoft for the Windows XP operating system from May of this year, LRS President Andy Sinclair MM0FMF (who knows a thing or two about computers) gave a timely talk "Whither Windows XP" at the LRS meeting on 12th February. 

Andy wrote: "I will give a talk about what people should be doing when WinXP stops being supported in May. A lot of people will have a lot of investment in XP software that is rapidly going to become obsolete. So suggesting how they can maintain that value whilst moving on may be well-received".  Full report.