Weston Rally
Six members of IoAARC travelled to Weston-Super-mare for the radio rally there. Communications between the two vehicles were interrupted by one of us opening the minibus door snapping the coax connector from the base of the mobile magmount antenna, but we all got there. A good time was had by all, I picked up some coax, some compression connectors, a Diamond X30 and some RG213. Things like aerials and coax are long and or heavy, so getting them at a rally can score by not having postage costs. G6UVO acquired a crystal oven, some 18GHz RF relays, joined the G-QRP club and got several ceramic antenna egg insulators for Martin G5FM, which are getting rare to find nowadays as people make them out of plastic, which doesn’t weather as well. Matt 2E0FNT and Callum acquired some handheld accessories.
The rally was held in Weston-Super-Mare Campus Community Leisure centre, which was about the right size for the event
Turns out the Snelgrove SO-17-4 crystal oven comes was destined for Decca in London, where they were used in the Decca Navigator system, which was a hyperbolic navigation system used from the 1950s up to about twenty years ago, when it was decommissioned because of the ubiquitous use of GPS navigation.