CTARC New Vice-Chairman - 18 Nov '19

With the sad loss of Noel ZS1FW who had held the post of CTARC Vice-Chairman until his passing on 29 October 2019, the position became available.

At the committee meeting of 18 November 2019, Paul Johnston ZS1S was unanimously elected to take up the position of CTARC Vice-Chairman for the period 2019 / 2020.

Paul is a very active member, both of our club and the CTARC committee. In addition to this new responsibility, he also manages the CTARC's weekly Bulletins and Repeater matters.

CTARC Noel Futter ZS1FW - Silent Key - 29 Oct '19

It is with deep regret that we announce that the key of CTARC member, Noel Futter ZS1FW, went silent on Tuesday 29 October 2019 at his home in Bergvliet.

Noel was.an active CTARC member. He was a former Chairman of our club. Until recently he hosted the Monday Evening CTARC Nets and served on the CTARC Committee as Clubhouse Manager. He was also actively involved with setting up and running JOTA stations each year.

He was also a constructor of note, having built his own antenna mast, numerous antennas and various equipment in his shack.

Noel was an enthusiastic, generous and helpful radio amateur. He will be sadly missed from our meetings and on air.

Our condolences go to his wife Joan, his family and friends. .

CTARC Report-Back on October Meeting - 27 Oct '18

The CTARC October 2018 meeting commenced promptly at the clubhouse on Saturday 27 October 2018. Standing in for our club chairman who couldn't attend that day, the meeting was opened by Noel ZS1FW.

At this meeting members were shown the official VK0EK Heard Island Dx-pedition video, by kind courtesy of Paul ZS1S.

After the meeting, members had the opportunity for eyeball QSO's over a cup of coffee and a biscuit or two.

Thanks to Paul ZS1S for showing the video, and to all who attended.

Our next club meeting of the CTARC, and the final one for 2018 will be the End-of-Year function held at the end of November. More details to follow.

Paul ZS1S introduces the video

Afterwards, chairs are packed away, the coffee urn is switched on...

Dennis ZS1AU, Fred ZS1FZ, Celso ZS1MYG and Deon ZR1DE

CTARC JOTA Event 19 - 21 Oct '18

We still require a few members to assists us with Jamboree on the Air 2018.

This year it will be held on Friday 19th to Sunday 21st October 2018.
.
This year we will be setting up a station at the Sea Scout base in Muizenberg.

We need persons to help us set up the station on Friday 19th in the afternoon from 12h00 ish. (Please confirm time with Noel, ZS1FW  or John ZS1AGH. John’s e-mail: zs1agh at telkomsa.net )

In previous years, we used the Girl Guide Hall in Bergvliet, but the Sea Scout base may be more suited to our purpose.

JOTA-JOTI is the largest Scouting event in the world with over 1.3 million Scouts participating across 150+ countries.

Scouts and Guides across the world connect with each other during JOTA-JOTI using the airwaves and the internet.

The event has traditionally been held the third weekend of October since 1957.

CTARC Antenna Work Party - 24 Feb '18

On the morning of Saturday 24 Feb, stalwarts of the CTARC assembled at the clubhouse for a work party to reassemble the club's main coaxial mast. Present were Rob ZS1SA, Barry ZS1FJ, Noel ZS1FW, Danny ZS1BL, Paul ZS1S, and Lem ZS1LEM.

Grateful acknowledgement to Barry / ZS1FJ for the photographs below.

The main meeting at 14h00 is reported on [here]

CTARC Forthcoming October Meeting - 28 Oct '17

Noel / ZS1FW

The Cape Town Amateur Radio Centre will hold its October 2017 meeting on Saturday, 28 October 2017 at the clubhouse. in Rondebosch.

At 13h30, (please note the revised time of start of meeting) Noel / ZS1FW will present a New Hams orientation lecture on "Hamspeak", or Amateur Radio Terminology. Come and learn all about these colloquial 'shortcuts' in our hobby.

This has proven to be a very well attended event before the monthly meeting, and both old and new hams are encouraged to attend.

​

Paul / ZS1S

For the main part of the meeting, starting at 14h00,  Paul / ZS1S will give a presentation on his recent visit with Fred / ZS1FZ, to the Hamfest at the port of Friedrichshafen in Stuttgart, Germany. This is Europe's (and certainly Germany's) largest gathering of radio amateurs of the year and is a major event on the international radio amateur calendar.

At Friedrichshafen, all the major Ham Radio suppliers (and many smaller entrepreneurs too) are represented, and make use of the opportunity to showcase exciting and innovative new radio products and services. Many radio clubs, both local and international, are present too. In addition, an enormous swop-meet takes place where everything and anything ham-related is usually on sale.

It promises to be a very interesting talk indeed.

​Come early to get a good seat and don’t forget the monthly Ham gear Bring and Buy opportunity after the meeting, where you can bring along surplus radio  equipment, components and assorted widgets for swop or sale. As always, please remove your unsold items from the clubhouse after the meeting.

______________________________________________________________

This event has now taken place. The report-back on the meeting is [here].

CTARC Forthcoming New Hams Presentation - 28 Oct '17

The CTARC committee has received several requests for presentations intended to assist new radio hams to get to grips with aspects of our hobby.

Noel / ZS1FW

As we have been unable to arrange a New Hams Presentation speaker for our September meeting, our next New Hams session will take place on Saturday 28th October beginning at 13h00, an hour ahead of the regularly scheduled main meeting, at the CTARC clubhouse.

All new / recently qualified radio amateurs are warmly encouraged to attend.

This session, conducted by Noel / ZS1FW, will be on the subject of  Ham Radio Terminology.

CTARC Report-Back on September Meeting - 23 Sep '17

On Saturday, 23 September 2017, the Cape Town Amateur Radio Centre held its monthly meeting at the clubhouse in Rondebosch. Starting promptly at 14h00, our chairman, Rob / ZS1SA welcomed a gratifyingly full clubhouse to the meeting.

We had to start with the sad news of a silent key. OM Geoffrey Tyler / ZR1GFT, who passed away recently in hospital after a brief illness. A moments silence was held in memory of Geoff. We offer  our condolences to his widow, Val and her family. Geoff will be missed.

Rod then had the far happier task of handing over a club award to Richard / ZS1RIC, who won the Golden Wellie (for consistent club attendance through thick and thin). Richard had been unavailable at the July AGM when his award was announced.

Rob then gave a brief report-back on our recent Committee Meeting of last Monday, most of which had to do with progress in the repair and refurbishment of our club antennae. It will take several more work parties to get the club on air on HF. The intention is to get the A3S beam antenna up and running as soon as possible, to take advantage of various contests that are in the pipeline.

We also noted the recent Repeater Working Group meeting where Rassie / ZS1YT was elected chairman and CTARC club member John / ZS1EQ was elected vice-chairman there.

Rob also welcomed visitor Paulo / IU2EFB, visiting Cape Town from Italia. Paulo is in Sea Point at the moment and we hope to work him on air.

Then it was time for the main part of the meeting – Show and Tell.

Rob kicked off by showing us a very handy little cable tester that he built from a circuit in QST. It enables you to test coaxial cables for intermittents, shorts and open circuit, and is far handier than an ohmmeter. The circuit is very simple indeed, using just two LED's and a couple of SO-239 coaxial sockets. Rob also showed us his “chicken stick” -  a nifty device for safely discharging the large capacitors on a valve linear amplifier.

Rob was followed by Mike / ZS1FP. Mike showed us a very handy little power supply unit that he adapted from a broken one that he had found. Using a regulator and variable trimpots, he was able to convert it into one that has four switchable voltage outputs.

Mike also showed us a three-pin mains tester, using three neon tube indicators (two green and one red) that can show instantly whether a mains socket is correctly wired or not.

If that weren’t enough, Mike also showed us a canny tester he made that enables one to conveniently measure the current in a mains appliance by way of a clamp-on ammeter that clamps around an insulated single wire loop that extends from an insulated socket box.

Nick / ZS1ZD was next. He showed us a directional DF antenna that uses two loops (etched on a printed circuit board) in the same plane. It works on 144 Mhz / 2 metres. It has a small amplifier and detector circuit that drives a meter to indicate maximum signal. Sensitivity is deliberately reduced as one approaches the fox by way of three switchable ranges and a variable gain control, to obtain a proper null on the meter.

Tom / ZS1TA followed, with a demonstration of various things:

Firstly, he showed us PowerPoint slides of the noisy conditions at his QTH, especially on 40 and 80 metres. He shared with us his dealings with the municipal power authorities.

Then he showed us a solid project box for a homebrew azimuth-elevation control box that he started building some time ago.

Then he showed us an extensive series of SSTV images he has managed to send and receive by satellite using MMSTV.

Finally he showed us a project he is working on to control satellite tracking antennas with Arduino  / Rasberry Pi type of controllers.

Chris / ZS1CDG was next with two beautifully constructed projects. First was a morse code keyer that can send and read CW signals. Neatly constructed with an LCD readout. Then he also showed us a working milliWatt 10 metre band beacon that he has built. He demonstrated it live on one of the ham rigs in the shack. It transmits a repeating CW ID message.

ZS1AGH / John was next. He showed us an  app available for Android Smart phones for teaching morse code via the Koch method. This app, by IZ2UUF, can be downloaded and used by anyone with an Android smartphone.

Richard / ZS1RIC was up next. He showed us two mast constructions that are small-scale models for bigger ones that he has done as a project for other radio hams. The first is a winch arrangement for a coaxial mast, very similar in fact the the CTARC main mast which he constructed for our club. The second was an ingenious fold-over mast with a thrust bearing in the base, where the rotator may be positioned at the bottom of the mast, allowing easy access for maintenance. Both very well conceived and manufactured items.

Hans-Jurgen / ZS1HJH showed us a very fancy (and surprisingly inexpensive, for what it is) Software Defined Radio he obtained recently. The item, smaller than a pack of cigarettes, covers from 10 kHz up to 2 GHz, with a visible waterfall bandwidth (depending on the kind of computer you run it on) of up to 10 MHz continuous display and recording. Hans-Jurgen, who is no stranger to high-end specification and measurement, put the SDR through its paces and found it to be accurate in frequency to a few Hz at 1.5 GHz, and very accurate in terms of signal level measurement too. Later on he demo'd the unit with the accompanying SdrUno software, running on a PC tablet. Very impressive.

Noel / ZS1FW also showed off his homebrew code practice oscillator project that he built.

With the  Show and Tell section complete, we then held the raffle for the club’s Antenna Fund. Tickets had been on sale for R5-00 since the start of the meeting. Hylton / ZR1HPC managed the raffle and invited Paulo / IU2EFB to draw the winning ticket at random. The raffle was won by Tony / ZS1TK, who generously donated his portion of the takings back to the club. Thank, you, Tony!

The formal section of the meeting concluded, members then had the chance to chat over a cup of coffee and to buy and sell items at the Swop Shop. (ZS1SX, ZS1FP and ZS1TM all brought a variety of items along, and parted with some of them). The club still has a few bits and pieces available, which members will be able to peruse at our next meeting in October.

All in all a most interesting afternoon. Thanks to Rob for running the meeting, to all the participants who Showed and Told, and to all who attended.

Photos are here: Page 1  Page 2.

Our next main members meeting at the clubhouse will be on Saturday 28 October. More details to be announced on the bulletins, in Ragchew and here on this blogspot.

CTARC Report Back on November Meeting - 26 Nov '16

The Cape Town Amateur Radio Centre held its final meeting for the year on Saturday 26 November 2016. Committee members arrived at the club house and started setting up the braai fires, tables, chairs and canopies from 11h30, in time for the main crowd to start arriving from 12h00 onwards. The weather was good and the wind not too strong. We were very pleasantly surprised to see how well attended the function was - around 50 people at one stage.

Our chairman Rob / ZS1SA opened the meeting at 13h00 and welcomed the club's members, guests and families. He then introduced Dennis / ZS1AU, who had donned his famous tuxedo for the official announcement of the Len Wells Ham Spirit Award trophy.

Dennis took some care to communicate that the award is not limited to CTARC members alone. A degree of subterfuge had to be employed to enviegle the prospective recipient into attending the meeting without giving the game away!

Congratulations go to Ettienne / ZS1AX, who, with his wife Yolanda / ZS1CX, are this year's recipients of the Len Wells Ham Spirit Award. Dennis told us that there had been seven nominations (and he broke with tradition by naming them), but Ettienne was top of the list for his steadfast sticking to his beliefs throughout a dispute with officialdom, where he even had to appear before a disciplinary committee. In the end, having won his point, Ettienne offered magnanimously to serve on the SARL Committee, which he now does. Ettienne accepted the trophy plus the certificates for himself and Yolanda from Dennis.

Ettienne gave a short speech on receiving the award, and thanked our club for the steadfast support he received throughout his stressful ordeal earlier on in the year.

The official business done, we all settled down to an afternoon of great camaraderie, natter, chewing the rag and meeting up with our friends. We were sustained throughout this by delicious hamburgers, ably cooked by Tony / ZS1TM and served up by Anne, Elsabe and Sandi, who were kept busy for a large portion of the afternoon feeding and watering hungry and thirsty hams.

We were very pleased to see a number of new faces at our meeting - some are radio amateurs who have just qualified, others are interested people from around Cape Town. Three new members signed up at the meeting! Welcome!

Members who had placed their orders earlier were able to collect their fancy gold CTARC Name Badges, which look very classy indeed. So classy in fact, that we suspect another batch of badges will be produced before long.

CTARC A3-sized Year Calendars for 2017, laminated and in glorious technicolor, were also on sale. A few were left over and will be on sale again at our January meeting. These useful calendars list all CTARC Monthly Meetings, Events and Committee Meeting dates as well as the public holidays for the year. They also make interesting table mats!

Paul / ZS1S brought along a beautifully constructed MW receiver - solar powered and with a large square loop antenna. This unique rig kept us freely entertained with music throughout the afternoon.

Peter / ZS1PGC brought along his RigExpert antenna analyser and he and Paul were busy checking Paul's discone antenna later on.

The Bring-&-Buy Swop Shop was also in operation. Tony / ZS1TK, Ian / ZS1SX, and Karl / ZS1KC all brought various items along to swop or sell. Excited clusters of radio hams were to be seen crowding around certain car boots which were opened to reveal their treasures within. These Swop Shops will be a continuous feature of our monthly meetings henceforth, with the Mega-Flea Market on 5 March next year being a major event.

Very grateful thanks must go out to a number of people without who's sterling efforts the meeting would have not been so enjoyable:

Rob and Anne, for organising the food and liquid refreshments, and especially to Anne, Elsabe and Sandi, for serving up the food all afternoon long;

Tony / ZS1TM, for patiently and expertly braai-ing the hamburgers;

Noel / ZS1FW, providing the bags of ice that kept the beers and cool drinks cool throughout the afternoon;

Dennis / ZS1AU, for making it all the way here to deliver the Len Wells award (and for wearing that tux in the blazing heat!). Also Tony / ZS1TK, for providing kindly transport for Dennis to and from the meeting;

All others who assisted with setting up, running the event and cleaning up / packing away afterwards.

The meeting ended at around 16h00. A most satisfying event indeed.

We look forward to seeing you all at our next meeting, which will be at the Clubhouse at 14h00 on Saturday 28 January 2017. More info on this meeting will be published in due course.

Photos of the November meeting are [here].

Report-Back on October Meeting - 22 Oct '16

The Cape Town Amateur Radio Centre held it’s October 2016 Meeting on the 22nd, starting at 14h00. The meeting, which was very well attended, was opened by Paul / ZS1S, who welcomed us all. He took the trouble to welcome back a number of old friends who had not been at the club for some time, as well as a number of newcomers, some of whom have just written their RAE and yet others who are involved with technical subjects at UCT. We do hope the newcomers will be joining our club, which now has a paid-up membership (and excluding life members) of over seventy strong.

We remembered Richard / ZS1RIC who is currently attending his wife in hospital, and we welcomed back Hugo / ZS1HSF, who has returned from a spell in the white house.

Noel / ZS1FW then gave a report-back on the recent JOTA field station set up in Meadowridge on Saturday. See that report [here].

Noel also gave us feedback on the recent antenna work party held at the clubhouse on the 8th October - details [here].

We were shown the new CTARC name badges that the club hopes to have produced and have ready by the November meeting – details [here].

Details of the forthcoming November 2016 meeting (details here) and January 2017 meeting (details TBA) were mentioned.

We were all reminded to get in the nominations for the Len Wells Ham Spirit Trophy – details [here] – which must reach Dennis / ZS1AU by 31 October.

There was also a brief mention of a recent Memorandum of Understanding being drawn up between the SARL and ICASA.

The very successful Bring and Buy / Swop Shop was also announced and is discussed [here].

Then it was time for Paul to introduce John / ZS1PM, an electrical engineer (now retired) from UCT who has had a long and fascinating career, both in amateur radio and in the field of professional RF engineering.

John described his introduction to radio when a neighbour, Herbie Taylor / ZS1JK came on air with a signal sufficiently strong to blank out the green “magic eye” tube on his parent’s radiogram! This lead to a visit to Herbie and an introduction to the world of radio. In 1949, the CTARC was called the Cape Town Branch of the SARL and used to meet in the Cape Town YMCA Hall.

Through Herbie, John met Max Adler / ZS1ACD, who was a gifted musician and piano accordion player. John was so impressed by a performance given at the Hotel Cecil in Claremont that he took up lessons with Max and later joined his band of accordion players in Johannesburg, where he was to meet his future wife!

John described a visit as a schoolboy to the radio station in Milnerton, which was the radio communications receiver link to the UK. At the time it had five 100m tall masts with wire beam antennae. The transmitter station was a little further away at Klipheuwel. The link consisted then of just two duplex voice channels and an RTTY channel. The Milnerton receivers were 1930’s Marconi rigs with separate tuning controls for RF Stage, Oscillator and Mixer – none of this new-fangled ganged-tuning nonsense!

In those days, what with all the war surplus equipment still available, radio components were in plentiful supply. Certain companies foresaw the potential of the hobby market and Jack Twine started the Hamrad company. Later on he was joined by the Morris bothers and Hamrad moved to larger premises.

In those days, ham transmitters were home-made. 807 and 813 beam tetrodes, and 809 and 811 triodes were used. Antennas were most wire -  folded dipoles, long-wire and ground-plane verticals. There were few beam antennas in Cape Town then. When John moved to Constantia to a larger property, there was enough space for him to put up a 270 foot long wire  antenna. Later on in his talk, John was to show us his homebrew 100 mW crystal-controlled transceiver with which he was able to work Joburg – via Tippy Marais (ZS1CL)’s beam antenna!

1957 was a peak in the solar sunspot cycle - (a maximum that has never been  achieved since then) and correspondingly there was a great interest in amateur radio. John would work the Eastern Coast of the USA on the long path and have QSO’s with good signal strengths with just 50w of power into his LW antenna.

In those days, even before Springbok Radio came on the scene, there was just the “A” programme (English) and the “B” programme (Afrikaans). For a little variety, L. M. Radio would magically rise out of the static on 11.7 MHz in the early mornings in the summer months. Receivers were Hallicrafters SX28’s (which had been made in quantity for the war effort), Hammarlund, Eddystone, the legendary National HRO and, for those with the necessary folding stuff, the Collins 75A series, which were accurate down to 1kHz and stable enough for SSB (although most ham transmissions were on AM at the time).

John built a dual band double conversion receiver for 7 and 14 Mhz (21MHz was to only become available later). He also was building homebrew transmitters and made his first contact with the USA in 1954 using 50W. Later he was to acquire an enormous transmitter (christened “Big Bertha”!) that had been a beacon transmitter, which he converted to the ham bands. Sufficient was its output power that he could walk around the garden at 100 metres distance holding two fluorescent tubes that would light up! Prudently, Big Bertha’s usage was limited to occasional test transmissions.

A cubical quad antenna for 28 Mhz was used by John to work New Zealand with regular success.14Mhz contacts with New Zealand were more difficult.

When John graduated, he travelled to the UK and worked there, then, after a spell in Cape Town working for IMC he went to the National Institute for Telecommunications Research up in Johannesburg at Wits University. Working under Dr Hewitt, he met and worked with Dr Trevor Wadley. One of the first projects was an Ionosonde instrument, used to measure the height of the ionosphere at different frequencies thoughout a 24-hour cycle. The MUF (Maximum Unsable Frequency), (HPF) Highest Possible Frequency and OTF (Optimal Traffic Frequency) charts put out by the NITR and – extremely useful to radio amateurs – were published in Radio ZS for many years.

John then spoke about the Tellurometer, Dr Wadley’s invention (and a first for South Africa in the world) that was to revolutionise the practice of Surveying. Up until then, surveying was carried out by measuring angles and using Trigonometry to work out the distances between beacons.The Tellurometer measures the transit time of a (GHz) radio wave between two points. Making allowances for the speed of the wave through the medium, one can calculate the distance accurately.

In 1959/60, John worked on the first solid-state Tellurometer (you can appreciate how surveyors would have appreciated not having to lug “valve” equipment and associated large batteries up to mountain summits!). Throughout his talk, we were made aware of the gradual improvement of radio components, from bulky valves, through whiskery germanium transistors, through to silicon transistors, through to integrated circuits, with the consequent effects on the possibilities of miniaturisation. 

So too were there developments in accuracy and calibration. Initially, equipment was calibrated against the WWV time signal. Later on a Hewlett-Packard frequency counter at the NITR provided  accuracies in the order of 1 Hz at 20 MHz. While much of the ancilliary circuitry could become solid state, the source of GHz frequencies had to remain hollow-state - the Klystron (and its appropriately bulky power supplies) - for some time.

The Tellurometer is still very much in use to this day, though the technology has become far more portable. Many specialised variations have been developed for specific surveying applications.

John also touched briefly on the technology behind the legendary Wadley Loop, which was to revolutionise receiver tuning, stability and design methods, as illustrated in the Racal series of receivers.

After his talk, John kindly answered some questions from the floor, and then it was coffee, biscuits and the chance to peruse the items brought for sale or swop. All in all a great meeting. Thank you so much to John for his very informative talk, and to all others who attended and participated. We look forward to seeing you all at the November Meeting!

Paul / ZS1S opens the meeting and welcomes all

A well-attended meeting - and they kept on arriving!

Noel / ZS1FW gives his report-back on the JOTA event

Pauk introduces John / ZS1PM (on left)

John's talk provided a fascinating insight into the development of
radio in South Africa, for young and old alike

Above: "Big Bertha", John's massive transmitter that started off as a
beacon transmitter, and was later converted to the ham bands.

The late Trevor Wadley, inventor of the Wadley Loop
and the Tellurometer

John shows us his homebrew crystal-controlled transceiver

Afterwards, the chance to socialise and chat

Danny /  ZS1BL, with some of the UCT crowd who attended

   

CTARC Report-Back on JOTA Event - 17 Oct '16

In response to very positive feedback from last year's event, the CTARC put up a field station again for the JOTA weekend on Saturday 15th October 2016, at the Meadowridge Scout Hall, off Ladies Mile.

Noel /ZS1FW reports that the event was well-attended by Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, who responded with enthusiasm at the chance to make supervised contact on with others on HF and VHF. An HF wire antenna was erected and some contacts were made despite the rather disappointing solar figures.

A morse code key and oscillator were also set up at the station, which also generated great interest.

Thanks to all who assisted with the setup, running and take-down of the station afterwards.

Photos will be added here presently

CTARC Forthcoming JOTA Event - 14/16 Oct '16

This year the Cape Town Amateur Radio Centre will again run a field station for JOTA (Jamboree On The Air).

The JOTA event involves many thousands of members of the Scouts and Girl Guides association being given the opportunity to make supervised radio contacts with other Scouts and Girl Guides internationally, via radio amateur stations.

This year the CTARC will, as with last year, set up a field station at the Meadowridge Scout Hall. Noel /ZS1FW, who is managing this event for CTARC, envisages setting up the station on Friday afternoon, and operating on Saturday, taking the station down either on Saturday afternoon or Sunday.

Interested hams who would like to take part in this worthwhile and rewarding activity are please to contact Noel via the CTARC email address

CTARC Report-Back of AGM - 24 Jul '16

On Saturday 23 July 2016, the Cape Town Amateur Radio Centre held its AGM at 14h00. In spite of some rather soggy winter weather, the meeting was well attended.

The meeting was opened by CTARC chairman Rob / ZS1SA, who welcomed members and visitors, and then delivered his Chairman's Report for the past year.

This was followed by the Secretary's Report by our well-organised secretary, Anne.

Our vice-chairman, Noel / ZS1FW, then read out the Treasurers Report on behalf of Danny / ZS1BL who was unable to attend the meeting.

Our chairman then had the pleasant job of handing over the Club Awards for the year.

The Golden Wellie Award (the Wellington boot is in fact black in colour), which celebrates that member whose attendance of club events (through rain, hail, sleet, snow, dust storms, hurricanes and other meteorological phenomena) has been most consistent, this year was awarded to Tony / ZS1TK.

The Club Participation Award, which is awarded for significant club involvement, assistance and participation, this year was awarded to Barry / ZS1FJ in absentia.

The Buck Taylor Trophy (the CTARC's top award) was awarded to Davey / ZR1FR for his extremely helpful and generous assistance of our club recently.

At this point, the chairman stood down and handed over the reigns to John / ZS1AGH while nominations for the post of club chairman and the committee were called for. The entire committee was re-elected, with Rob as chairman, for another year. The committee's details are [here].

The formalities now concluded, the club's members and visitors were asked to briefly assemble outside the clubhouse for a group photograph (see below).

Thereafter we returned to the clubhouse for a bowl (or two) of not one but two delicious varieties of hot soup kindly provided by Anne and Elsabe, as well as a glass of warming sherry for those who required a little further warming on that cold afternoon. A good opportunity to catch up and natter with friends then ensued.

Paul / ZS1S later on continued with some repair work to the antenna cable feed-in panel, which has been in need of refurbishment since our recent Antenna Work Party.

By about 16h45 the meeting had run its course and we made our way home.

Below are some photos of the event:

The quiet before the storm...
Anne & Elsabe await the arrival of the hungry masses

Rob / ZS1SA has just acquired a transformer,
Note the unique model of his car (next to the number plate)

Members settle down for the meeting

Rob / ZS1SA reads out the Chairmans Report. Throughout the event
the slide show from the 70th Anniversary celebration was projected

Anne delivers the Secretary's Report

Noel / ZS1FW delivers the Treasurer's Report

Tony / ZS1TK receives the Golden Wellie Award from Rob /  ZS1SA

Rob / ZS1SA announces the Club Participation Award for Barry /  ZS1FJ

Davey / ZR1FR receives the Buck Taylor Trophy from Rob / ZS1SA

John / ZS1AGH takes over as temporary club chairman while nominations
are received for chairman and committee and the voting takes place.

Rob / ZS1SA, our re-elected club chairman commits himself
and the committee to another year at the helm of the CTARC,
in service to the club's members

Group shot outside the clubhouse.
In the foreground is John / ZS1AGH'S prized Dart.

Left to right: Wolfgang /ZR1WHL, Hans-Jurgen /ZS1HJH, Mike /ZS1PE,
Noel /ZS1FW and Richard /ZS1RIC

Anne and Elsabe provided litres of very delicious soup!
(Chicken Noodle on the left, Butternut on the right)

And to keep the chill away there was a glass of sherry

Much discussion taking place after the AGM, as is always the case

Paul / ZS1S and Mike / ZS1FP.
In the background are Tony /  ZS1TM and Rob / ZS1SA

Gerald / ZS1GRM makes an emphatic point to John / ZS1AGH
and Geoff / ZR1GFT

Noel / ZS1FW and Charles / ZS1CJO

Wolfgang / ZR1WLH, Hans-Jurgen / ZS1HJH and Richard / ZS1RIC