Mills 2024

Introduction

Saltford Brass Mill is situated on the banks of the River Avon in the village of Saltford, 5 miles west of the City of Bath in the South West of England. Its postal address is Saltford Brassmill, The Shallows, Saltford, BS31 3EY. However, there are some specific details that will be of interest to radio hams:

• Lat/Long (WGS84 Geoid): 51.401318°N, 2.451439°W
• OSGR: ST 68692 67018 (6 figure ST686670)
• IARU: IO81sj
• WAB: ST66 – England
• IOTA: EU005 (UK Mainland)
• What 3 Words: ///unravel.transmits.rely (Operating Post Entrance)
• What 3 Words: ///haggis.bibs.explored (Parking)

Location

Solar Storm Forecast

Just one day before the Mills on the Air weekend Dr Tamitha Skov (The Space Weather Woman) gave another of her regular and informative solar weather forecasts.

This forecast indicated that conditions on the HF bands were likely to be poor with little or no propagation to speak of and little sign of any improvement over the weekend.

Operation

Equipment Used

• Nissei DPS300GL power supply,
• Yaesu FT991 HF/6m/2m/70cm multi-mode transceiver,
• MFJ 993 auto atu,
• 80m flexweave doublet fed with 450Ω ladder line supported at the feedpoint by a MFJ-1908H 13m telescopic mast,
• Acer Aspire 8942 laptop running PyQSO under Debian Bullseye with the MATE Desktop,
• Behringer XENYX 302USB audio mixer, and
• Logitech external powered speakers.

Saturday 11 May 2024

Conscious of the propagation issues that we’d been victim of in 2023 the dire solar storm forecasts meant that it was with some trepidation that we once again headed out to Saltford Brass Mill in Saltford, near Keynsham between Bristol and Bath, to participate in Mills on the Air. We really had no idea what to expect, neither of the main operators have significant experience of HF operation at the solar peak and the impacts of severe solar storms of the type forecast just 1 day earlier. However, how bad could it be? After all, we’d survived 2023!

A combination of the dire propagation forecast and other commitments meant it was a reduced SBARC team that arrived on site on Saturday morning. Mark M0SKV and Andy G7KNA constructed the station together. Once everything was checked over on went the radio and then… well actually very little.

In keeping with the propagation forecasts there was quite literally nothing on any of the HF bands. We expect Costa to be sending us a cheque for the obvious product placement, but we are interested to understand why we felt the need to have Allen Keys to hand. It is difficult to think of any of our equipment that would need to be approached with Allen Keys, even if it were in need of adjustment but they were definitely there so we must have felt the need for them!

So, the question then became; “what do we do now?” Obviously, retiring to the pub was an option but it was still early and although the sun is always over the yardarm somewhere we decided that, in the pursuit of propriety, we would not do that immediately. Instead we decided to switch to a weak signal mode that had more likelihood of making some contacts. It is at times like these that digital modes, although definitely impersonal and rigid, come into their own as part of the communications toolkit available to the radio ham.

Although we have had the FT991 and the Acer laptop for some considerable time, the rig and the computer in its current configuration hadn’t been used for FT8 or any other digital mode for that matter. It took a bit of menu adjustment in the radio and a bit of digging through the WSJTX configuration to get this working.

You will know, if you read from the top of the page, that we run a Debian Linux Operating System and here’s a tip to the developers.

Make the options less cryptic!

Pulling down the various sound options was less than intuitive making the selection of the correct device more a question of trial and error elimination than a scientific selection. There’s not going to be take-up of Linux as an operating system if everything requires you to understand internal designations.

The problem with FT8, and other derivatives of the same techniques, is that whilst they remain unparalleled when it comes to working in poor propagation and low signal to noise conditions they are essentially a “voyeurs mode” and quickly become repetitious and tedious. After 15 contacts occurring between roughly 15:00 – 16:00 we decided to call it a day.

We also took the decision to give it best for the weekend and uncharacteristically not return for the Sunday.

GB0SBM Mills on the Air Log

Date (UTC)	Time (UTC)	Station Worked	Band or Freq (MHz)	Mode	Sent		Received		Operator’s Name	QTH	IARU Locator	Dist (km)	Notes
					RST	No.	RST	No.
11/05/24	13:57	AO175YD	14.074894	FT8									FT8 Sent: -18 Rcvd: -24
11/05/24	14:03	DH2NJS	14.074894	FT8									FT8 Sent: -10 Rcvd: -03
11/05/24	14:07	SM7VGY	14.074472	FT8							JO65		FT8 Sent: -17 Rcvd: -08
11/05/24	14:18	EA3HYJ	14.074706	FT8							JN11		FT8 Sent: -20 Rcvd: -08
11/05/24	14:22	EB3JT	14.074706	FT8							JN01		FT8 Sent: -19 Rcvd: -19
11/05/24	14:25	9A4ZM	14.074706	FT8							JN64		FT8 Sent: -15 Rcvd: -12
11/05/24	14:28	DL4GHS	14.074706	FT8							JO62		FT8 Sent: -12 Rcvd: -08
11/05/24	14:33	M0KEE	14.074706	FT8							IO81		FT8 Sent: -15 Rcvd: -06
11/05/24	14:35	LA6RJA	14.074706	FT8									FT8 Sent: -18 Rcvd: -06
11/05/24	14:39	OZ5AGJ	14.074713	FT8							JO47		FT8 Sent: -07 Rcvd: +06
11/05/24	14:42	LZ2INP	14.074713	FT8							KN34		FT8 Sent: -08 Rcvd: -13
11/05/24	14:48	DL1DTS	14.074713	FT8									FT8 Sent: -15 Rcvd: -09
11/05/24	14:50	SP2EWQ	14.074713	FT8							JO93		FT8 Sent: -14 Rcvd: -14
11/05/24	14:52	IU5HIU	14.074713	FT8							JN53		FT8 Sent: -19 Rcvd: -07
11/05/24	14:55	DL6UCK	14.074713	FT8							JO71		FT8 Sent: -11 Rcvd: +04

10 Year RSL Tracker (2015 – 2024)

The Regional Secondary Locators (RSLs) are optional (except in the case of Intermediate Licences commencing with a 2 when they are mandatory) letters altered or added to an individual or club amateur radio callsign to denote which part of the United Kingdom the station is operating from, the map and table below indicate the principles:

Location	Foundation Callsigns	Intermediate Callsigns	Full Callsigns	Club Callsigns	Special Event Callsigns
England	M#☐☐☐	2E#☐☐☐	G#☐☐☐ M#☐☐☐	GX#☐☐☐ MX#☐☐☐	GB#☐☐☐ Typically Special Event Callsigns are of the form GB + 1 Number (0-9) and 3 letters. However, Special Special Event Callsigns can have 1, 2, 3 or even 4 letters after 1, 2 or even 3 digits following the “GB” prefix depending on: 1. Ofcoms disposition, 2. Who you ask, 3. Who you know, and 4. How much “clout” you can bring to bear.
Guernsey	MU#☐☐☐	2U#☐☐☐	GU#☐☐☐ MU#☐☐☐	GP#☐☐☐ MP#☐☐☐
Isle of Man	MD#☐☐☐	2D#☐☐☐	GD#☐☐☐ MD#☐☐☐	GT#☐☐☐ MT#☐☐☐
Jersey	MJ#☐☐☐	2J#☐☐☐	GJ#☐☐☐ MJ#☐☐☐	GH#☐☐☐ MH#☐☐☐
Northern Ireland	MI#☐☐☐	2I#☐☐☐	GI#☐☐☐ MI#☐☐☐	GN#☐☐☐ MN#☐☐☐
Scotland	MM#☐☐☐	2M#☐☐☐	GM#☐☐☐ MM#☐☐☐	GS#☐☐☐ MS#☐☐☐
Wales	MW#☐☐☐	2W#☐☐☐	GW#☐☐☐ MW#☐☐☐	GC#☐☐☐ MC#☐☐☐

We have long harboured the ambition to work all RSL’s on a single Special Event or contest but have yet to manage this (although we have come close on a few occasions). We didn’t manage it again this time either, but we live in hope!

		2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024
A o t A	England									☑	☑
	Guernsey									☐	☐
	Isle of Man									☐	☑
	Jersey									☐	☐
	Northern Ireland									☑	☑
	Scotland									☑	☑
	Wales									☑	☑
M o t A	England	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑			☑	☑	☑
	Guernsey	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐			☑	☐	☐
	Isle of Man	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐			☑	☐	☐
	Jersey	☐	☑	☐	☑	☐			☐	☐	☐
	Northern Ireland	☑	☑	☐	☐	☐			☑	☑	☐
	Scotland	☑	☑	☑	☑	☐			☑	☐	☐
	Wales	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑			☑	☑	☐
V H F   F D	England	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑		☑		☑
	Guernsey	☑	☑	☐	☑	☑		☐		☑
	Isle of Man	☐	☐	☐	☑	☐		☐		☑
	Jersey	☑	☐	☐	☐	☐		☑		☐
	Northern Ireland	☐	☐	☐	☑	☐		☐		☐
	Scotland	☑	☑	☐	☑	☑		☑		☑
	Wales	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑		☑		☑
I L L W	England	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑		☑	☑	☑
	Guernsey	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐		☐	☑	☐
	Isle of Man	☑	☑	☐	☐	☐		☑	☑	☑
	Jersey	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐		☐	☐	☐
	Northern Ireland	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑		☑	☑	☑
	Scotland	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑		☑	☑	☑
	Wales	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑		☑	☑	☑
R o t A	England	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑
	Guernsey	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐
	Isle of Man	☐	☐	☐	☐	☑	☐	☐	☐	☐
	Jersey	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐	☐
	Northern Ireland	☑	☑	☐	☐	☐	☐	☑	☑	☑
	Scotland	☑	☑	☐	☑	☑	☐	☑	☑	☑
	Wales	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑
I n   Y e a r	England	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑
	Guernsey	☑	☑	☐	☑	☑	☐	☐	☑	☑	☐
	Isle of Man	☑	☑	☐	☑	☑	☐	☑	☑	☑	☑
	Jersey	☑	☑	☐	☑	☐	☐	☑	☐	☐	☐
	Northern Ireland	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☐	☑	☑	☑	☑
	Scotland	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☐	☑	☑	☑	☑
	Wales	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑	☑