West Kent ARS Meetings

Our Club meetings are normally held at Bidborough Village Hall
(map on About page) on the second Monday of each month at 8pm.

This Month’s Meetings & Events

Future Contests, Meetings & Events
January 12th Annual planning meeting for this year’s activities & details of HF / VHF contests.
February 9th (Potentially) CHIRP! The easy way to set up your handheld. Intro to this essential handheld setup tool – e.g. for Baofengs et al, and Quanshengs with custom firmware.
March 9th (To be confirmed) Pre-loved equipment (Sorry “Junk sale”) at Bidborough village hall run by Dave G4OTV. All the bits and pieces that you no longer use and would like some money for. 10% to club funds, please tell Dave G4OTV of any expensive items, so that he can inform club members of items before the day. Any donations to the club would be welcome.
April 13th AGM – Note: membership fees are due on the 1^st May. Individual: £31; Family: £41 and
Student under 23 in full-time education: £10.
May 9th / 10th (To be confirmed) National Mills Weekend – Mills on the Air at Nutley Windmill

VHF Monthly Affiliated Club Contests

Recent Meetings & Events

2025

December 8th Christmas Bash! Dave G4OTV’s Quiz night. Plus G4OTV Famous Sausage rolls made by his own fair hand, and Mince pies, and any other food provided by club members. Maybe even some hot mulled wine.
November 10th EGM to consider making our contest coordinators voting members of the committee. Followed by Show and Tell! Members bring hardware, software and other projects they’ve been working on and discuss/demonstrate. Come & chat about what have you been up to! A report on this meeting can be found here.
October 13th Microphones and Loudspeakers with Chris G6HTH.
September 8th Raynet’s use of various new technologies to support the emergency services, with Colin Bowman M0NLP – find out more about this impressive talk on our page Raynet-UK and Technology.
August 11th Practical Antenna Modelling with Phil G3MGQ; suggest antennas you’d like to model, and we’ll work through them – bring a laptop with EZNEC and/or MMANA-GAL loaded! (A spare will be provided).
July 5 VHF National Field Day from Matfield – event cancelled
July 14 Extraordinary General Meeting to elect a new chairperson followed by Getting Started with DMR – presentation & demo by Matt M0CUV. Matt’s slides on DMR are available in PDF format: https://wkars.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/wkars-dmr-talk.pdf.
June 21 50MHz Contest from Matfield (cancelled due to extreme weather)
June 9 Near Vertical Incidence Skywave – presentation by Mike M0RYK. Mike’s slides on NVIS are available in PowerPoint format: https://wkars.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/m0ryk-nvis-wkars-presentation.pptx and the book he cited as the definitive study on NVIS (Near Vertical Incidence Skywave Communication by Fiedler and Farmer) is available for $20 from DX Engineering with second-hand copies available at ABEbooks.
May 12 Antenna Modelling with Phil G3MGQ
May 9 (setup)/10 (operating)/11 (open to the public) WKARS special event station GB2NW supporting Mills on the Air weekend at Nutley Windmill.
April 14 AGM
March 24 Calling notice for AGM
March 10 Pre-loved equipment (Sorry “Junk sale”) at Bidborough village hall run by Dave G4OTV. All the bits and pieces that you no longer use and would like some money for. 10% to club funds, please tell Dave G4OTV of any expensive items, so that he can inform club members of items before the day. Any donations to the club would be welcome.
February 10 Using the SDRPlay RSP-1a as a receiver and spectrum analyser.
January 13 Annual planning meeting for this year’s activities & details of HF / VHF contests.

2024

December 9 Christmas Bash with Dave’s G4OTV Quiz and food provided by club members.
November 11 Show and Tell: Chris G6AHK demonstrated realtime control of digital strip LEDs; Andrew M0JQT showed a home-made 1:1 Balun based on that shown in this YouTube video with PDF design here based on this earlier YouTube video ; Andy G4CTY spoke of his entry into amateur radio and his favourite activities and contesting; Matt M0CUV has been investigating the latest inexpensive VHF/UHF handhelds from Baofeng and Quansheng; Dave G4OTV showed a home-made extensible handheld 2m dipole, and Chris 2E0XCL gave an introduction with questions to the members.
October 14 – Getting started with satellites with Keith G4JED (change from previous notices due to illness).
August 12 – Social evening at Bidborough, with Chris G6HTH providing a “Pick & Mix” evening of components and SK equipment
July 6-7 VHF National Field Day at Matfield.
July 8 Practical evening at Bidborough with Chris G6HTH – building small kits and fault-finding.
June 10 Ray Howells’ talk on VarAC This is a free, modern HF P2P real-time chatting application for the amateur radio operator that leverages the glorious VARA protocol. Also: EGM.
18-19 May RSGB 144MHz Contest at Matfield.
13 May “Amateur Radio Astronomy projects” talk by Andrew Thomas, UKRAAS; ionosphere & magnetic measurements, meteor scatter, cosmic rays, VLF radio.
11-12 May Windmills-on-the-Air, GB2NW at Nutley Windmill.
8 Apr AGM: Election of the Officers & members’ representatives to the Committee, and pass resolutions on how your Club should be conducted.
11 Mar Auction of used equipment; it’s your chance to clear the shack of surplus gear for cash or to get a real bargain!
12 Feb “History of Morse; its use and abuse” by G4OTV with display of Morse keys with Malcolm G4FWG
8 Jan 2024 Planning meeting to decide topics & speakers for our monthly meetings, contests we’ll enter & other events like JOTA & Windmills/Railways/Parks-on-the-Air.

2023

11 Dec 2023 Traditional Xmas Social, sampling Members’ culinary delights and featuring Dave’s challenging annual quiz
13 Nov Show and Tell (members’ hardware, software & other projects: click link to see their contributions)
9 Oct Talk on OQ100 satellite working with demo by Kieran Fagan, G8CHB
2 – 3 Sep HF SSB Field Day & 2m Trophy stations at Matfield.
11 Sep Matt Gumbley M0CUV talk on Digital modes from RTTY & packet to FT8, with an overview of history & development of the most popular digital modes.
14 Aug Natter Night: discussing, iter alia the Ofcom proposed Licence Framework, re-running M0RYK’s QRP Award & arrangements for the HF SSB Field Day & 2m Trophy.
1 & 2 Jul: VHF National Field Day Contest at Matfield from 3pm BST, organised by Keith, G4JED, 2 stations – 6m & 2m/70cm
2 Jul 75th Anniversary BBQ hosted by Richard G8CDD at noon for members & their guests at his Matfield QTH during the RSGB VHF Field Day
10 Jul at Bidborough Village Hall features a live demo of Digital Amateur TV by Justin Cockett, G8YTZ, who developed the facilities on the DATV repeater GB3JV at Petts Wood (http://www.gb3jv.co.uk/) for which he is the keeper.

Earlier events, meetings and contests can now be found on the Archive of earlier Club Meetings and Contests page.

WKARS Nets

In addition to the regular weekly Club Nets; Monday evening on 145.375 MHz FM & Sunday morning on 28.730 MHz SSB (see sidebar for details), Members and others might be interested to note some other local nets being run:
+ each morning, Monday to Saturday, starting at 09:00 local time on 145.575 MHz FM
+ on most evenings starting at 20:00 local time, variously on 2m FM, 6m SSB & even sometimes through GB3CK to encourage use of our local repeaters.
All radio amateurs are welcome to join any of these nets.

Concerned that Nets might appear a bit daunting to some newcomers, or even exclusive, RSGB are encouraging more use of the VHF calling frequencies in Region 10 to give regular opportunities for individuals to get a QSO.
Please put a CQ call out on Wednesday evenings between 8 &10pm, and Sunday morning between 10am & noon local time.