Author: m0xhs

We’ll meet online but this week we’ll use Jitsi which has proved to be fine for both Gozo Amateur Radio Society and London Hackspace Radio Club. As usual a link will be posted nearer the time.

If you have any ideas for topics that either you’d be prepared to talk about for as little as ten minutes or you think someone else has done and you’d like to hear them speak about.

The current arrangement of one online and one physical meeting each month on the second Friday and second following Wednesday seems to be working well but we should re-affirm that we’re happy with that for the foreseeable future. The November meeting will be the AGM where decisions like this can be ratified.

We had a record turnout and commandeered the middle section of the pub which was perfect. Topics of conversation ranged from electric vehicles to 1970s wallpaper, with a passing mention of radio along the way.

The subject of antennas inevitably comes up and Dave (new) mentioned the danger of the wind when leaving things out on high terraces and JJ confirmed this from his own experiences in Gozo.

Godfrey has been invited to an interesting Zoom talk at another club and is going to enquire whether the invitation could be extended to all club members.

JJ announced that he’s going to sell his FT-817, FT-857D and FT-1000mkV field to fund the purchase of an FT-DX10 and will post full details in the Google Group https://groups.google.com/g/hars-friends

So far we’ve found it quiet on a Wednesday both inside and out but if six or more people let us know they’re coming we’ll book a table to make sure we have space.

We welcomed a newcomer David who like Julian recently did his exams back-to-back through to the full licence.

It was announced that at a committee meeting last week we decided that for the forseable future there will be an online meeting normally on the second Friday of the month followed by a pub meeting 12 days later. Once we have a good number attending meetings we’ll start to organise visiting speakers again at a venue yet to be decided, and we’d like members to offer to present something or lead a discussion for 15-30 minutes of the online meetings. We’re also hoping to organise a field day before the weather turns so if you have any suggestions for somewhere outdoors, ideally with some height but at least a reasonable takeoff and where we wouldn’t attract undue attention from police, park patrols or nutters please put them forward.

We had a brief demonstration of Google Groups so please don’t be afraid to start a ‘conversation’ there. This website was unveiled and was generally well received with comments about needing more visual appeal. Julian explained about ‘inbound marketing’ and that the website is a ‘brochure’ for one way communication while the Google Group is a forum for two-way communication.

David explained his problems getting out with his homebuilt CW transceiver and ideas were discussed.

Don’t forget the next pub meeting at The Pear Tree on Wednesday week 22nd September, and the next month of events is on the calendar at Upcoming Events – m0xhs

We’ll meet online but this week we’ll use Jitsi which has proved to be fine for both Gozo Amateur Radio Society and London Hackspace Radio Club. As usual a link will be posted nearer the time … and here it is: https://meet.jit.si/moderated/17299bb461db869adcca554142f0434601e03e9ed5ee379910cd7daf8f4d64ef

Please put your thinking caps on and suggest topics that either you’d be prepared to talk about for as little as ten minutes or you think someone else has done and you’d like to hear them speak about. Even a ten minute talk with a couple of slides or pictures or screenshots will give us half an hour of material once there’s some Q+A and people adding their own experience. We’d like to have material lined up so we can be confident when inviting new people to the meetings that there’ll be something of interest.

The evening was enjoyable despite a low turnout and there was general agreement that alternate physical and online meetings is the way forward for the foreseeable future.

The main topic of conversation was rechargeable batteries, but less in the context of amateur radio but that of Godfrey’s new ‘wheels’. Aerials for flats and small gardens were also discussed.

Despite the beer prices we’re going to meet again this Wednesday at the Pear Tree pub at 14 Margravine Road, W6 8HJ from about 19:00 and also have a Zoom meeting running so anyone who can’t get there in person but is otherwise free can join us.

If you have any new shiny toys by all means bring them, and if you have any suggestions for other venues we’ll be happy to discuss them.

The pattern of meetings was discussed and it was felt that the pub meeting had been very enjoyable but that we didn’t need two online meetings as well, so it was proposed to meet online on the second Friday of the month and at a pub (or other suitable venue) the second Wednesday after that.

It was agreed to cancel the Zoom subscription if it’s only going to be used in anger for one or possibly two meetings a month when free alternatives like Teams and Jitsi are available.

We’re also going to try to have more organised topics of conversation, possibly with a member giving a short presentation, but not at this stage visiting speakers until we’re confident we’d have enough people present to justify it.

It’s back to the virtual world this Friday but we can pick a date for the next Pear Tree evening and perhaps discuss how Zoom meetings would fit around those in the absence of a club venue.

If you’ve got 10m FM capability, fire it up from about 19:30 on 29.600MHz and we’ll see who can reach whom.

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Zoom details:

Topic:  HARS online club meeting Fri 13th August 2021

Time: Aug 13, 2021 20:00 London

Join Zoom Meeting

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/82703108183?pwd=ZzhIWmNpdjEwRkRrQmM0eEVPNzRnUT09

Meeting ID: 827 0310 8183

Passcode: 570160