Radio Officers Amateur Radio Society
ROARS MISSION STATEMENT
- To encourage Radio Officers to use their professional skills to benefit the worldwide radio amateur community
- To promote the use of professional skills in radio amateur-led communications during times of national disaster and emergency
- To preserve and extend the use of a professional standard of morse code in the radio amateur fraternity
- To advise and, where practical, assist Radio Officers in the installation of radio amateur stations and antennae
- To provide and manage on-air net forums for Radio Officers to communicate directly using radio amateur facilities
- To assist Radio Officers in gaining a radio amateur licence if required
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Amateur Radio – A National Asset
- Amateur Radio in the United Kingdom performs the following National and International functions:
- It provides a source of interest and expertise which encourages and supports careers in electronics industries and services.
- Amateur Radio operates and maintains national and international emergency communications networks for disaster relief – viz. Mexican and Californian earthquakes, Lockerbie air crash, rescue of ocean going yachtsmen, New York’s September 11th, East Anglia Floods, Balkans uprisings and civil wars, Tsunami aftermath. (The basic design of amateur radio equipment enables it to be operated from minimal supplies e.g. car batteries, if the national grid is put out of action.) Its application to assist in countering the effects of a major terrorist attack should be recognised.
- Amateur radio provides a pool of telecommunications, computer and electronics expertise which can be quickly drawn upon in times of war.
- The Amateur Radio fraternity bridges cultural, political and ethnic boundaries. Its various modes of operation enable language barriers to be overcome.
- Amateur radio participants provide one of the World’s largest R&D facilities (unpaid) which contributes to the many fields of communications viz. propagation studies, new modes of communication such as HF SSB and meteor scatter, satellite communications, digital modes and related systems.
- Some 60,000 amateurs are licensed in the U.K. (131 ROA Members have amateur callsigns). Hundreds of thousands embrace the hobby from every country on the Planet. The USA, Rest of Europe, Russia and Japan are leading proponents.
ROARS NETS
CW net on Thursday evening at 1930 UK local time, 7018 KHz in summer and 3538 KHz in winter. During the autumn, it is advisable to listen to both frequencies 40m at first and then 80m to see which has the better conditions. There are one or two members on the continent that find 80m impossible and there will be an informal listen-out for ROA members on 10.119 MHz 1530zand 1630z on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
ROARS QSL CARDS
Any member requiring QSL cards then please contact the ROARS secretary Geoff Valentine. These are currently £10 per 100 cards plus postage. For overseas members, due to the prohibitive cost of postage there is a .pdf file of the actual card, which is available for home printing purposes.
QRZ Newsletter
The original hut in use for the Lizard Wireless Station used the call sign LD, which were the original call letters of the station. These later became MLD and in 1909 GLD. The station closed its maritime service in 1913 and moved to St. Just near Lands End to become perhaps the most famous coast station in the world LandsEnd Radio GLD. ROA members are welcome to visit the station and can try their hand on the morse key once again. Contacts have been made world wide from the web site and it is a great tourist attraction.
QRZ is the newsletter of the ROARS and is published concurrently with QRZ and ROA Journal. It gives news about amateur radio affairs as they affect the former radio Officer. Articles about working QRP (low power), amateur direction finding and other interesting topics included.
ROARS Call sign and station MX0ROA & GB2LD
ROARS has its own club callsign of MX0ROA which has been registered since the new M call signs came into being on 1st January 2000. ROARS runs the amateur station at the Lizard Marconi Station with the callsign GB2LD. This is very fitting as the Lizard station is the oldest surviving operational Marconi station in the world.
Marconi's hut is to the left, the one on the right is the National Trust's Wardens residence, what a fantastic view! Antenna in the foreground is an inverted 'V'.
Another View of Marconi's Hut
Lizard Lighthouse, the most southerly point in the United Kingdom, photograph shows Marconi's Lizard Station hut to the left.
Lloyd's signal station, before the advent of radio, messages were sent to vessels by the use of flags, whistles and lights.
Marconi's monument which can be found on the coastal path from the Poldhu Radio Amateur Club, and adjacent to the site from where the famous letter 'S' was transmitted across the Atlantic.