2012 Barry Goldwater Amateur Radio Award

The Radio Club of America announced this week that William A. Tynan, W3XO is the recipient of its 2012 Barry Goldwater Amateur Radio Award.

The award recognizes Bill's lifelong service to the public through amateur radio. It will be presented at the club's annual awards banquet in New York on November 16th. ARRL CEO David Sumner, K1ZZ, like Bill a club Fellow, will be the keynote speaker.

Bill, one of AMSAT's charter members, is a past President and Chairman of the Board. For many years, he conducted QST's monthly column, "The World Above 50 MHz." He is also a past President of the Central States VHF Society. Bill played a key role in the origination of amateur radio from the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station.

The Radio Club of America, founded in 1909, is the world's oldest radio communications association.

Radio Club of America - http://www.radioclubofamerica.org

Father and Son complete SOTA England

Father and son team Tom Read M1EYP and Jimmy Read 2E0EYP have 'completed England' in Summits on the Air.

Tom and Jimmy can now claim to have activated each of the 176 summits currently in the English (G) SOTA Association, and six more that were previously valid.

Tom, who had been activating in SOTA since 2002, needed to revisit many of the completed hills after his son Jimmy became licensed (originally as M3EYP) in 2005, and expressed his ambition to activate all the same hills as his dad!  Since then, the duo have visited all hilly and mountainous areas of England, and completed all the SOTA regions:  Southern Pennine (SP), Welsh Borders (WB), Devon & Cornwall (DC), South Central (SC), Southern England (SE), Central England (CE), Tees to the Wash (TW), Scottish Borders (SB), Northern Pennines (NP) and Lake District (LD).

Tom and Jimmy have also activated a further 104 summits in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland over the last seven years, and retain ambitions to visit many more, including those in the Isle of Man.  The pair from Macclesfield in Cheshire are both holders of the SOTA Mountain Goat award for achieving 1000 activator points in the programme, and walked the full-length Pennine Way (268 miles) in 2006 as part of their SOTA activities.

The final summit needed to complete the association was Harter Fell (Eskdale) G/LD-028, 654m ASL.  This took place on Sunday 29th July 2012, after a steep ascent from Dunnerdale.  Jimmy operated using his special Olympic Games callsign of 2O0EYP/P and made 33 contacts on 2m FM using a Yaesu VX-110 transceiver and 3 element SOTA Beam antenna.  Tom, also used a special Olympics callsign - MO1EYP/P - and made 40 contacts, mainly on 40m CW.  Tom's working conditions were 5 watts from a Yaesu FT-817 into am inverted V dipole antenna.

Jimmy is the Association Manager for the SOTA programme in England, so it is a particualrly proud achievement for him to have activated all of its summits.  The pair have a website on which a photo journal of all their SOTA activations can be seen.  This includes each of the 182 English summits, and all of the total of 286 UK summits so far activated.  The website is at http://tomread.co.uk

For more information about the Summits on the Air programme, please visit - http://www.sota.org.uk​

Youngest Mountain Goat

The youngest person in the UK, and probably further afield, to have achieved Mountain Goat status in the Summits on the Air (SOTA) awards programme is Jimmy Read M3EYP.

Jimmy (19), from Macclesfield in Cheshire, started trekking up the hills with his dad Tom (callsign M1EYP) back in 2002 when he was 10 years old, and quickly developed an interest in hill walking and amateur radio.

After studying for and gaining his Foundation amateur radio licence with the Macclesfield & District Amateur Radio Society back in 2005, Jimmy went on to become a very keen "activator" of the summits.  Activators need to make a minimum of four contacts from a summit in order to qualify for the points on offer, which are broadly proportional to the height of the hill or mountain.

In six and a half years in the SOTA programme, Jimmy has amassed the 1000 points required for "Mountain Goat" status, the single most sought-after award in the scheme. 

As well as conducting amateur radio from the summits of local favourites like Shining Tor, Kinder Scout, The Cloud and Gun, Jimmy has travelled further afield, usually with his dad Tom, and operated from mountains such as Snowdon, Scafell Pike and Ben Nevis.

He completed his mission towards 1000 points with a long day out in the Shropshire hills on Saturday 10th March 2012, in which he transmitted from the tops of Brown Clee Hill, Titterstone Clee Hill, Long Mynd and Stiperstones.  Finally, just over the Welsh border, an activation of Corndon Hill gave him the final five points he needed to pass through the magical 1000 points mark.

Jimmy celebrated the milestone with a bottle of ale on the summit, before packing his amateur radio station away and descending.  Jimmy says that his next target in SOTA is to climb the remaining ten summits he needs in the Lake District to have completed all the 176 qualifying summits in England.  Jimmy also continues to serve as the English Association Manager for SOTA, monitoring the latest news from topographical surverys, and updating the programme's documents and websites with the results.

Shortly after the Mountain Goat triumph, Jimmy was successful in his Intermediate Licence examination after another course with the Macclesfield & District Amateur Radio Society.  This means he now has callsign 2E0EYP, and may transmit with a power of up to 50 watts.  He expresses his thanks to the instructor, Brian Holland M0GOB at the club.  Also successful at the same sitting was Mike Cooper who now has the callsign 2E0CKK.

For more information about the Summits on the Air programme, please visit the website - http://www.sota.org.uk

For more information about the Macclesfield & District Amateur Radio Society, please visit the website http://www.gx4mws.com​