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Welcome to Crawley Amateur Radio Club

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The Crawley Amateur Radio Club (CARC) was formed over 40 years ago and moved into its present premises Hut 18 Tilgate Forest Recreational Centre, in the early 90’s. We are an affiliated club of the RSGB. Membership, currently standing at around 55, ranges from a member in their twenties to several octogenarians. The monthly talks and presentations cater for a diversity of technical backgrounds from absolute beginners to well-qualified professional engineers. Members of note include a past President of the RSGB the late John Graham G3TR, and the late Ron Vaughan G3FRV (now VK6RV), General Manager of the RSGB in the late 60’s. Current members include Stewart Bryant, G3YSX (past President of the RSGB, and currently RSGB Chair), Caspar Pierce (Winner of the RSGB Kenwood trophy), and Eugene Sully G0VIO of Big Brother fame who does much to actively promote interest in radio communications and the Sciences in general. Facilities at the spacious Clubhouse include: A contest-grade radio station...
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Mills on the Air 2026

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On Sunday 10th May members of Crawley Amateur Radio Club headed off to Ifield Water Mill to take part in the annual Mills on the Air event. We used an inverted V dipole for the 40m band. Initially we used a Hermes Lite 2 and 150w amplifier, later on in the day we used a Yaesu FT-710. In previous years we had needed our sun cream, but this year we were not so fortunate, and were very grateful for the gazebo that club member Charlie provided.  Propagation conditions were poor, but we managed over 50 QSOs across England, and most of Western Europe. We were lucky enough to have QSOs with 10 other clubs taking part in the event. GB2NW - Nutley Windmill, East Sussex GB6GEM - Gainsford End Tower Windmill, Essex GB0CWM - Cogglesford Watermill, Lincolnshire GB6CW - Cromer Windmill, Norfolk GB0BW - Bourn Windmill, Cambridgeshire GB1HCM - Heron Corn Mill, Morecambe GB5HW - Heage Windmill, Derbyshire GB5WEM - Wind Energy Museum & Thurne Mill GB6HWM - Herne Windmill, East Kent GB2RRS -...
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Flashing NanoVNA with updated firmware

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  Club member Ted (G7OBF), explains the process of updating the NanoVNA. I have never flashed any thing before so was worried about breaking the VNA. I succeeded, and here are the resources and my approach I used. Apparently the main STM program “STM32Cubeprg” will flash from a .bin file but this requires you to entered the start address and that was beyond me, whilst the .dfl file has all the info needed. I chose the .dfu file method The RSGB NanoVNA book outlines the procedure and I found this Wiki more helpful as it has added details https://groups.io/g/nanovna-users/wiki The best YouTube video I found was https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcXzITPPTyA Use your browser to download “DFuSE Demo” tool. I choose an English language site as some of the info on the developers site is in Chinese! My Windows failed to select the correct driver for this program, its in file called sttube.inf. To install the driver follow this link for instructions https://groups.io/g/nanovna-users/files/Mis...
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The Revival of Packet Radio

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 Over the past year, I began exploring practical amateur radio projects and noticed a growing interest in the resurgence of packet radio. Affordable TNC Pi boards for the Raspberry Pi were becoming widely available, along with low cost sound card–based interfaces sold through platforms such as eBay and Amazon. These devices connect directly to the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO header or via USB, making them ideal for experimentation. A key contributor to this renewed activity is TARPN (Terrestrial Amateur Radio Packet Network), an international group of more than 560 amateur radio operators. TARPN supports the development of packet radio networks and provides extensive documentation for builders. One of their flagship designs is the TARPN NinoTNC, created by Nino, KK4HEJ. This TNC interfaces with a Raspberry Pi or any PC via USB. More information is available through TARPN’s NinoTNC builder resources. The current model, the N9600A, uses through hole components only—no SMD parts—making it acc...
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Easily find unactivated POTA, WWFF, IOTA & SOTA sites with a new tool from the World Radio League

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We all love the feeling of becoming the first person to activate a POTA or SOTA site.  Well, now there is a free tool to help you find those sites local to you which are ripe for activation. Released by the World Radio League, this web application tracks POTA, WWFF, IOTA & SOTA. Simply provide location permissions, and you are presented with a map of local sites.  The ones in red have never been activated. Have you any sites near you which have never been activated?  Let us know. https://app.worldradioleague.com/activities
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Two Fascinating Youtube talks

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The first talk is a conventional amateur radio talk given at the Pennine Ham club on the QMX+ transceiver. This features Hans Summers (QRP Labs) and Martin Butler (ICQ Podcast) talking about the QMX+. In the talk Martin goes through the build process whilst talking to Hans and the Hans talks about the design of the transceiver. I have heard many talks about the QMX+ and even taken part in one, but I still learned new things and the practical element of the video may well give you confidence to build your own. The video is at  https://youtu.be/mJvpNADFmrg?si=Fd07vgxlujARSwkj The second one is the IET AF Harvey lecture on "Dynamic Control of Light Waves with Atomically Thin Optoelectronic Devices - Exploring how quantum scale materials are redefining the way we shape, direct and control light. Please don't be put off by the title. This is a fascinating talk about the future of optics. One particular example is the fabrication of flat plate lenses using nano particles. Skate over...
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With a Morse Key and Rifle

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  With a Morse Key and  Rifle: One Man's Humorous   Attempt  to Survive  the British Army is a paperback by Graham Hill and is the autobiography about the national service  of a (mainly wireless) Telegraphist in the   Royal   Signals  in the late 1850s. It captures the boredom  and a waste of time, which was the resigned mood and experience of many young men  who were called up for national service at that time. At other levels it is it gives an insight in the experiences of relatives, and for others  of course it will be nostalgic. The author was certainly a rebel. Interestingly there are a number of references to ham radio and the ham radio shack they built and used on Cyprus. However I cannot figure out if the author held an amateur radio licence. Overall an interesting read. Stewart/G3YSX
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FT8 Tactics for working DXPeditions

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With Bouvet Island (3Y0K) now QRV with decent antennas and amplifiers, working them should be well within the abilities of most HF stations in the UK with 100W and a wire antenna using any mode. The best opportunity for most however will be to use FT8.  As with most DXPeditions, 3Y0K will be using Fox/Hound mode.  There is plenty written about using this sub-mode of FT8, the best and original can be found here,  https://wsjt.sourceforge.io/FT8_DXpedition_Mode.pdf However there are tricks which can be used to get your signal heard above the cacophony of other stations.  One good way is to wait until the mania dies down after a week or so.  Another is to be listening before 3Y0K begins working on a certain band. Another very effective technique is to transmit where the DX is listening but others are not transmitting.  In regular FT8 stations can only receive up to 2700Hz above the dial frequency.  This is the default for the WSJTX software.  However...
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