From the Editor

Hello and welcome to September’s newsletter, I would imagine that like many of our members I am still eagerly awaiting the arrival of summer. It has been a bit grim here in Louth, as in other areas of the country we were somewhat flooded. Luckily I, live on the high ground so missed the water coming into my house, friends of mind were not so lucky. Still I suppose it meant I did not have to keep my earth spike watered as the constant rain sorted that out nicely. The second time it flooded I was in the Netherlands where they seem to have got a grip with water management. Centuries ago a lot of Lincolnshire was reclaimed from the sea with the help of the Dutch, in fact we have an area of Lincolnshire called New Holland, and I am thinking it is time we asked their advice again.

Radio wise I am quite active on PSK but don’t get a chance to get on the BYLARA nets due the inconvenience of having to work in the day time. I have recently started a new job. I am no longer working as a nurse; instead I do Diabetic Retinopathy Screening which involves driving a big yellow van around Lincolnshire and taking photographs of peoples retinas. The job is much less stressful and I still get to meet people without the pressure I experienced whilst working in a hospital. You could say I have moved up in the world, despite earning less money I have moved up from rectums to retinas (previously I worked in endoscopy).

This weekend I am going to Belgium to watch a historic car rally in Flanders, my partner is a Steward on the rally. If I don’t partake in too much of the hospitality I will do a write up of the event for the next newsletter.

Just a quick note on submitting material for publication (should you feel the urgeJ) I can accept most file formats. I would prefer written articles in MS word format (any version) or in RTF. If you have created your document in electronic form then an email attachment is preferable to a hard copy through the post as it saves me having to OCR it. Hand written is okay but bestest handwriting please. If you enclose photographs I can scan them okay although an electronic format often yields better results. You can send photos in any format i.e. JPG TIFF but JPG is preferable. Please send the photos at the highest resolution you can whilst keeping the file size to around 1.5 MB. I can extract text from a PDF document but photographs are usually not of sufficient quality for publishing in the newsletter but may be okay for the website.

From the Chairman

Hi all ladies and OM's of BYLARA, I hope you have all had a great quarter of this year so far. We became grandparents again this weekend, a baby boy named Gerrard. So we have 8 children between us, 8 grand children and 1 great grand child. I must say that it makes one feel very old but things are so different these days with people having children far earlier in life. It is the norm to have grand children now in or around your 50's/60's.

We have just come back from a big event held in the Beaulieu Motor Museum grounds. It was organised by the WWII Veteran Vehicle Association. There where over 300 various bikes plus vehicles of every range you could think off within the car, tank and tracked army vehicle. We took along radio, telephone, WWII Telephone Exchange internal telephones, breast mikes and other equipment that was used during the period portrayed.

It was a massive event, the only draw back was it rained constantly from the Saturday night until the time of leaving on the Monday afternoon. We arrived on the Friday night and set up the show tent for the start on the Saturday. The Saturday weather was okay, bit cold and breezy but there was plenty of people looking round so it looked as if it would be great for the Sunday & Monday. How can one be so wrong about something?

I now have to use a wheelchair outside of the house for any distance. We where parked up on the Saturday morning two fields away from the main event, so on the Sunday, after it had been raining all night, I could not get from our Camper van to the show stand in the chair. So I spent the rest of the event in the van, all day Sunday without stepping out and Monday until leaving. The best bit is to come!

As my OM went to start up the van around lunch time, it refused to start, so we had to get a tow over to the where our equipment was so that the rest of the group could help load the van. We then spent until 17.00 hours recharging the battery. The only thing was we could not turn the engine off till we got home and parked up safe.

The trouble with that was we needed to get petrol, (the van uses 1ltr per 15 miles) so my OM had to pull into petrol stations and fill up two petrol cans each time we needed petrol. To say we where glad to get home is the understatement of the year.

By the time we had unloaded the van and could say we had finished, it was 23.00 hours. My OM really did not want to go to work today. Who could blame him, but he did.

My day today has been spent washing everything that got muddy, due to two small dogs that we own! Say no more.

Right, have any of you got a nightmare to tell, if you have, please write in and let it go to press because they happen and it gives others something to smile about.

I would like everyone to think about the idea of dividing the BYLARA up in to Regional areas (like RSGB) so that a lot of the members can get to know each other better and can communicate within their own group area as well as over the air on the whole.

We cannot all hear each other because of weather conditions and where certain people live. It seems a shame that, maybe, within that area they have other BYLARA operators who have no idea they are out there. I would please like a vote on this subject and the reasons, if no, why!

I have spoken to a lot of ladies around that think it would be a good idea, at least to give a year's trial to see if it does improve things of more contacts between each other in their regions. Please cast your vote and give your reasons.

It will be at no extra cost to anyone or BYLARA, just me for the trial run period, after that it could be discussed further as to whether it continues or not.

Well, I think that is enough from me, your Chairman

73 & 88 de Carol 2E1RBH

Chairman

Midwintercontest rules

The Dutch YL Committee organizes this HF-contest every year in the second full weekend of January, which is January 12 and 13 in 2008. The contest time is as following:

Saturday 12 January - CW - 14.00-18.00 utc and Sunday 13 January - SSB – 10.00-14.00 utc.

Bands: 80, 40, 20, 15, and 10-meterband (no crossband). To make your calls in SSB pse use the following frequency segments: 3.600-3.650, 7.080-7.090, 14.270-14.300, 21.270-21.300, 28.470-28.500 MHz. This is useful so you will sooner meet other contest stations instead of scanning the entire contest-segment for YL's.

Only single stations and single operators can participate in this contest. There are 5 categories in which you can participate: YL SSB, YL CW, OM SSB, OM CW, SWL.

Procedure:

In SSB YL's call 'CQ midwintercontest', and OM's call 'CQ YL's'. In CW pse use 'CQ OMS' or 'CQ YLS', to avoid any mix-ups with OM and YL countries.

Exchange:

Call, RS(T) and sequence number. OM's start with 001 and YL's start with 2001. Both SSB and CW part should start with 001/2001.

Points:

Every QSO with a YL=5 points

Every QSO with an OM=3 points

Qso's from OM to Om do not count for points or multipliers!

Qso with PI4YLC counts for 15 points, the club station will be active on both days on several bands.

A station can be worked once on every  band. Qso from OM to OM = 0 points!

For example: PA3YLC may be worked on Saturday in CW on 80, 40 and 20 meter band and on Sunday in SSB on 80, 20, 15 and 10 meter band. For the CW part this will count for 3x5=15 qso points and for the SSB part 4x5=20 qso points.

Multiplier:

Every worked DXCC-country counts as multiplier (that is the total number of countries on all bands for CW or SSB, not per band).

For example: If you work I, DL and F on 20 meter band and DL, OH and G on 15 meter band, that would make 5 multipliers (not six)

Total score: points of all bands together times multipliers.

SWL's:

Every heard YL counts for 5 points, PI4YLC counts for 15 points, multipliers as above. The log should also contain the qso partner.

Log:

For CW and SSB separate logs and separate points!

The log should also contain: time, band, date and yl or om.

Logs that are not filled in right, unclear or unreadable can be ignored by the manager and if so do not compete as contest log.

In every category, places 1,2 and 3 will be rewarded with a certificate. If there are less then 10 participants in the category only number 1 will receive a certificate!

Logs should be sent before 15 February 2008 (date postmark) to the following address:

Good luck, 73 de Chantal-PA3GQG                 PA3GQG - Contestmanager Midwintercontest

                                                                                  Keulenheide 1

                                                                                  6373 AP Landgraaf – The Netherlands

                                                                                  jckoekkoek@home.nl