Crawley Amateur Radio Club

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The Club House And Antenna Array

We are affiliated to the Radio Society of Great Britain and participate in a number of the RSGB contests each year
The clubhouse is a purpose-built wooden building (one of 34 similar premises) located in the Tilgate Recreation Centre which is on the edge of Tilgate Forest just to the south of the town close to the southern end of the M23 motorway.
The Recreation Centre is located in a large wooded area close to an area of lakes and ornamental gardens.which also contains an excellent public restaurant and bar.

Currently there are antennas on the tower covering 7 bands from 20 metres through to 70cm. Lowest ant is a Cushcraft X7 monster 7 ele tribander which goes like bomb on HF with 4 elements on14 Mhz and 4 elements on 21 Mhz & 28 Mhz. Next is a 4ele VHF beam for 4 metres and 6 metres and above that is a 16element for 2metres.Above that is a 21 element beam for 70cm and finally a dual band 2m / 70cmMhz vertical right at the top. Not seen in the picture is our main wire antenna which is currently configured as an inverted "L" with a 60ft vertical section and a single 290ft top. This can be operated on the 136Khz VLF band when it is fed via a large 3.5millihenry loading coil located just inside the main entrance. On this band the antenna can be driven with 1KW RF power from an ex-Decca Navigator TX. Its main regular use however is on 80m and 160m when it is fed via individual fixed "L" matching units mounted close to the entry of the "hot " antenna wire in the foyer and selected by high voltage relays controlled from the main console in the adjacent shack.

The use of these pre-match networks means that over most of these two bands there is no need for the use of an ATU. Finally there is a 40m dipole antenna up at about 35ft running E-W.

The crank-up tower when fully extended can put the top ant at 70ft above local ground level. The Clubroom is located on edge of forest 100ft above the southern edge of the Town.

In the centre of the 3 masts above can be seen the 23cm ATV transmit and receive antennas mounted one above the other. These are each stacked "figure of eight" square loops with shaped mesh reflectors of home-brew design arranged so as to cover mainly the northern 180 degree sector which includes most of the town of Crawley and beyond so as to minimise the risk of mutual interference from the Pease Pottage radar located about 2km to the SW. The vertical antenna seen to the right on the end of the building is a general purpose 2m omni previously used for a packet node.

Capable of running full duplex. This system was originally constucted as the replacement GB3CT TV repeater, but it's licience was declined. We were never given satisfactory technical grounds for this rejection. We now regularly operate this as a manned station and have never received any complaint of interference. If you would like to work us, then please set up a sched. When we have gathered significant evidence of satisfactory operation we will reapply for the repeater licience.

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