School club goes from strength to strength

The Heritage School Electronics and Radio Club, G7HSC, run by myself, Jon Bonsor-Matthews, M0NOJ, and supported by Colin Tuckley, G8TMV, has gone from strength to strength over the autumn term.

The club is hugely grateful to the Radio Communications Foundation which awarded a very generous grant enabling us to purchase a Xiegu G90 and XPA-125B based HF setup, and an Anytone AT-777UV rig for local contacts. In addition, we are hoping to install antennas on the school, so that we can transmit inside too. We would also like to thank M0VCO Antennas, Sotabeams and Moonraker for their support in making our grant spread that little bit further.

During the autumn term the Cambridgeshire Repeater Group kindly lent us their van, Flossie, which we took on an overnight school camp enabling 18 students to make their first QSO.

We’ve been transmitting from a nearby field whilst the light allowed and, more recently, we worked inside with a 2m Slim Jim hung from an upstairs window and connected remotely to a Flexradio. This is, in part, to be able to host GB25YOTA for Youngsters on the Air Month in December.

We’ve been building a simple six transistor MW receiver, which picks up Radio 5 Live very nicely, but alas nothing else. The students have enjoyed practising their Morse and, following the latest craze, sending quite a lot of -…. –… around the classroom! We managed a DMR contact with the RSGB Youth Chair, Chris, MM0WIC in Scotland and are hoping to extend this to a lunchtime connection between schools next term.

Jon Bonsor-Matthews, M0NOJ

Category: School Zone stories