GB2RS Broadcasts
in the Bristol Area on
Sundays

9:00am on 3.650MHz LSB (80 metre band)

I am managing an 80m GB2RS reader group
with Sean, G7NJX in Sandford, and Jon G6UWK in Manningtree,
and read roughly every third week.
Bristol coverage is not good, but I can be heard further away,
in most of Wales, the Midlands and East Anglia.

9:30am on 70cm over
 
GB3ZB, 430.825MHz
and
GB3FI, 430.925MHz.
 
Disable tone squelch (77Hz).

During the GB2RS broadcasts the repeater function is disabled.

(I alternate with Sean G7NJX)
The GB3ZB repeater covers Bristol and South Wales well, with reception
also possible up the Vale of Severn and East into Wiltshire.
Antenna changes made to reduce interference to reception have altered the
transmitted signal. The receive is now good
but the repeater is weaker in some areas
and there are some black spots in the coverage.
GB3FI has good coverage south of the Mendip Hills
and additional coverage to some parts of South Wales.

10:30am on 145.525MHz, 2m.
from central Bristol.
(50w omnidirectional)

For a full schedule visit...
The RSGB Website
and follow the link from 'GB2RS News'.

Rota1              Rota2
 

---

The recordings must not be re-broadcast.

1st June 2024

I have edited this text and cleared out broadcasts made before 2025.

January 2025 Update. Matt has expanded the Allstar internet linking well beyound the original two 70cm. repeaters by setting up the South West Allstar Network HUB. (SWAN HUB) This links repeaters on 6m, 2m and 70cms and enables communication between Southampton and Cornwall in the South with the rest of the West of England and much of South Wales. Besides being open to users with the usual radio transceivers, the hub can be accessed using an internet connection by radio amateurs anywhere in the world. Because of the worldwide capability the GB2RS news broadcasts over GB3FI and GB3ZB can only take place when the linking is disabled. This is a licence requirement. The broadcasts are timed and the change back to 'repeater' mode is almost seamless.

Now that GB3ZB and GB3FI are linked (via the internet) the GB2RS broadcast will be well received south of the Mendip Hills. This year (2024) the land line connections, that were never very reliable, have been replaced by 4G (mobile data) connections. Matt G4RKY has put a lot of work and new routers into the system, which is working well.

The broadcasts are themselves recordings. They make life much easier when I have to manage three sessions. In my shack they are played back, from an old netbook that is used for little else, via an isolating transformer and level control, into the microphone socket of my transceiver. (VOX takes care of the PTT.) On 2m the broadcast is usually started automatically.

On 80m I usually monitor myself via a web SDR. There is a second or so of latency in the system. It gives me a very good idea of how my signal is getting out and sometimes it enables me to copy stations calling me who are below my high local noise level.

The linking system for the GB3ZB and GB3FI repeaters proved problematic for the GB2RS news broadcasts. Following various experimental configurations and both hardware and software updates, reliability has been achieved by uploading the same file to each repeater. The repeaters now transmit the audio in virtually perfect synchronisation unless one is delayed by a user's transmission that runs on past 9:30am. Sometimes (rarely) I find time to edit the file for my 2m broadcast by removing local news items relating to clubs south of the Mendip Hills.

I am still (2024) not fully over shingles. There is still continuous mild pain, but my sight, which I was afraid would be permanently damaged, has recovered.

---

28th. July 2019. With the hot weather my regular non-noise interference just LF of the news frequency of 3.650MHz drifts HF and becomes a real nuisance. My phasing qrm reducer works a treat on this sort of signal and I made a recording this morning that demonstrates just how good it is.

My contact is with G8CKK running about 100W and about 5 miles away. The heterodyne interference appears when I switch my phaser off (20sec.in). It attenuates all signals by 20dB and you can hear the noise rise (25 sec. in) as the slow AGC brings up the receiver gain when I switch it off. Click the link below to have a listen.

Amateur radio has become increasing frustrating at low frequencies, the level of interference, 'noise', has increased enormously. To get some idea of the problem in central Bristol listen to the short recording made by G0JPS who is about two miles away from me. I always use 100w to broadcast the news. G0JPS uses 5W. On this occasion 27 May 2018, I could not hear him. You can hear how well he received me (!) on 80m. (3.650MHz) by clicking the link below. The file format is .wav. Compression does funny things to noise. I am having to do more broadcasts at 9:00am on 80m. Its a good thing that, as a broadcaster, I don't have to receive.

This page is now encoded in HTML5. Up to date browsers should play the audio files automatically. Clicking the link downloads the file. If it does not play at once you should open it in a media player.