Cray Valley Radio Society

Intermediate Licence Course - Day 1
2025-09-13 08:00 - 18:00 (Europe/London) | CVRS Clubhouse in Eltham, London, Eltham, SE9 2SD, United Kingdom
Day one of the Intermediate Licence training course

SSB Field Day Contest
2025-09-06 08:00 - 2025-09-07 17:00 | Gosenhill Farm, Eynsford Rd, Crockenhill, Swanley, BR8 8LB, United Kingdom
SSB Field Day

Club meeting - Construction Contest
2025-09-04 19:30 - 21:30 | CVRS Clubhouse in Eltham, London, Eltham, SE9 2SD, United Kingdom
Annual “show and tell” club construction contest. Entries at any stage of construction are welcome from all club members. The judges will award prizes for the best projects.

Club meeting : members photography
2025-08-21 19:00 - 21:30 | CVRS Clubhouse in Eltham, London, Eltham, SE9 2SD, United Kingdom
Every year, the club will typically schedule at least one meeting that’s not connected to amateur radio.
This year, members will be invited to bring along photographs they have taken, to discuss, compare and enjoy.
There will be a friendly competition for the best photos (the judge’s decision is final!)

Summer members Barbecue 2025
2025-08-09 15:00 - 19:00 | Fortyfoot Way, 1st Royal Eltham Scouts Averyhill, Fotyfoot Way, London, SE9 2EX, United Kingdom
The annual summer BBQ will be held at the 1st Royal Eltham Scout Hall in Fortyfoot Way, Avery Hill, Eltham SE9 2EX starting at 3pm.
The Scout Hall can be reached via a lane to the side of the Metrogas ASA Sports Club, almost opposite Sidewood Road. All food, tea, coffee and soft drinks will be provided, but please bring your own beer/wine.
Members can purchase their tickets from the members store (link at the bottom of the page).

Club meeting - Data Modes : Richard G8ITB
2025-08-07 19:30 - 21:30 | CVRS Clubhouse in Eltham, London, Eltham, SE9 2SD, United Kingdom
Club member Richard G8ITB will speak about data modes.

Non-contest field day
2025-07-18 14:00 - 2025-07-20 17:00 | Gosenhill Farm, Eynsford Rd, Crockenhill, Swanley, BR8 8LB, United Kingdom
Non-contest field day at Gosenhill Farm, Crockenhill.
This is a chance for members to come on-site and play radio in an excellent location, with plenty of room for antennas and in a low-noise environment.

Club meeting - Slow Scan TV : Mark M0JCF
2025-07-17 19:30 - 21:30 | CVRS Clubhouse in Eltham, London, Eltham, SE9 2SD, United Kingdom
Club member Mark M0JCF will be speaking about Slow Scan TV (SSTV).

Club meeting - How to get a US licence and what's the point? : M0MDR
2025-07-03 19:30 - 21:00 | CVRS Clubhouse in Eltham, London, Eltham, SE9 2SD, United Kingdom
Club member Martin Rast M0MDR, who acquired an American amateur radio operating licence in Febrary, speaks about the process, and why he did it.

GB2CM special event station - Crossness Steaming Day
2025-06-22 08:30 - 16:00 | Crossness Museum, Bazalgette Way, London, SE2 9AQ, United Kingdom
The club will be operating special event station GB2CM at Crossness Museum. We will begin setup at 8.30 with the aim of being on the air when the Museum opens at 10am. Operation will close at 4pm, and we expect to be operating on HF (mainly 40m) CW/SSB and 2m FM.
Operating GB2CM at Crossness Museum is now a regular event for Cray Valley Radio Society:

In 2024, the club operated at Crossness for International Museums Weekends (also known as Museums on the Air)
In 2023, GB2CM was activated at Crossness for Railways on the Air

The Museum itself is well worth a visit while you’re on site. There is a charge for admission to the Museum, and booking in advance is recommended. Visit https://crossness.org.uk/ for details. The ‘Prince Consort’ steam engine will be in steam on the day. This is believed to be the largest working rotative steam beam engine in the world.

Exercise Blue Ham
2025-06-21 08:00 - 17:00 | CVRS Clubhouse in Eltham, London, Eltham, SE9 2SD, United Kingdom
Club members will be able to come to the club shack to take part in Exercise Blue Ham, where amateurs can make contact with RAF cadets on the 60m (5 MHz) band.

EXERCISE BLUE HAM
Engaging with the amateur radio community on the UK MOD 5MHz (Shared) Band.
BLUE HAM dates for your diary…. 29-30 March and 21-22 June 2025

Blue Ham exercises provide a platform to further develop Cadet radio operator skill and confidence by engaging with the Amateur radio community via the MOD 5MHz (Shared) Band.
Cadet radio operators under supervision will exchange radio messages with Amateur radio operators in the UK and Europe.
More details at: https://alphacharlie.org.uk/exercise-blue-ham/
The Blue Ham Team can be contacted directly at: blueham at alphacharlie dot org dot uk

Club meeting - DF Hunt (Sydney Arms)
2025-06-19 19:30 - 21:30 | Sydney Arms Pub, Old Perry Street, Chislehurst, Kent, BR7 6PL, United Kingdom
NB: This club meeting will not take place at the clubhouse.
The club will hold its annual Direction Finding (DF) Hunt, also known as “fox hunt”, at the woodland in Scadbury, using the beer garden of the Sydney Arms pub as the base, which is the same venue we have used for the last couple of DF Hunts.
This location has many paved paths on a slight slope which will make hunting easier and safer.
The base camp for the evening will be the Sydney Arms Public House in Old Perry St, Chislehurst BR7 6PL. This is halfway between Chislehurst War Memorial and the A20 Sidcup roundabout. The Sydney Arms is a short walk from the Scadbury woodlands and is able to provide liquid refreshment and has a decent hot food menu which you can look up on-line (https://www.sydneyarms.com/menus/) if you wish to bring supporters to liven up the evening!
The pub has a car park and garden, with additional on-street parking available and another car park nearby. The event is a social evening so do come along even if you don’t intend to compete in the DF Hunt.
We aim to meet in the Sydney Arms just prior to 7.30pm and send you out in individual groups with a timed spacing, the last group going out at 8.30pm. The end of the hunt is timed for 9.30pm, so we can all gather safely at the base and announce the winner(s) of the prestigious “Tally Ho! Cup”.
The transmitters will be in the 144.700 MHz region and will be transmitting MCW (modulated carrier wave) signals which can be received by any FM receiver and will be vertically polarized, so any cheap 2 metre transceiver will work.
You will need a directional antenna and a simple switched attenuator in the antenna line. The transmitters will be located just off the paths, no need to go cross country to find anything! The actual transmitters will have a tag attached to them with a message written on it. You are required to note down the message content and show it to the adjudicator upon your return to base. The transmitters will all have different MCW messages and will be sent with different tone frequencies, this will enable those who are not too brilliant at Morse to easily distinguish between transmissions.

Club meeting - Microphones & Loudspeakers : Chris G6HTH
2025-06-05 19:30 - 21:30 | CVRS Clubhouse in Eltham, London, Eltham, SE9 2SD, United Kingdom
Club member Chris G6HTH will be speaking to members about microphones and loudspeakers.

Equipment sale from the shack of G0FDZ
2025-05-25 13:00 - 16:00 | The Montrose Park Club, The Montrose Park Club, 158 Hurst Road, Sidcup, DA15 9AJ, United Kingdom
The club is organising a mammoth sale on Sunday 25th May to help find homes for as much as possible of the equipment from shack of Chris G0FDZ. The sale will be from 1pm to 5pm at the Montrose Park Club, 158 Hurst Road, Sidcup DA15 9AJ. This will be rather like a rally and several surrounding clubs will be invited, the objective being to sell as much as possible. Please note that this is not a club surplus sale and we will ONLY be selling Chris’s gear, nothing else. There is no admission fee.
The club bar will be open throughout the sale, and the venue has been chosen because there is a great deal more parking available than at our regular meeting place.
Last year Chris Whitmarsh, G0FDZ was presented with an RSGB Lifetime Achievement Award by RSGB President John McCullagh GI4BWM and RSGB Board Chair Stewart Bryant G3YSX. Chris is the only amateur in the UK to have had a two-way QSO on every single amateur band for which we are licensed.
Chris has contributed enormously to the club over the decades.

Cray Valley Award On-air Activity Period
2025-05-18 18:00 - 20:00, 2025-05-17 12:00 - 16:00 | Eltham
This activity period is to help everyone log contacts towards the Cray Valley Award.
The activity periods are not contests, but devised to encourage activity amongst members to make it easier to obtain the points required to claim the award.

For a valid contact to have taken place, signal reports must be exchanged, and dates, times, bands, modes, reports exchanged must be logged.
Cray Valley members will call “CQ Cray Valley” on SSB or FM, and “CQ CV” on CW.
Cray Valley members will use the following centre frequencies:

SSB: 144.325, 7.170 and 3.720MHz
CW: 7.020, 3.520MHz
FM: 70.425, 145.350MHz

Activity periods will take place at the following times:

Saturday 17th May 2025 – 40m SSB/CW: 1100z – 1300z (noon – 2pm local UK time)
Saturday 17th May 2025 – 2m: SSB/FM: 1300z – 1500z (2pm – 4pm local UK time)
Sunday 18th May 2025 – 80m: SSB/CW: 1700z – 1900z (6pm – 8pm local UK time)

Some of the club’s callsigns (e.g. G3RCV, GX3RCV, G1RCV, GX1RCV) will be active at these times.

Club meeting - Social & Technical Evening: Club Construction Project Workshop
2025-05-15 19:30 - 21:30 | CVRS Clubhouse in Eltham, London, Eltham, SE9 2SD, United Kingdom
This is a social and technical evening, where members can bring in their club construction projects to get help building, testing, or troubleshooting their kits.
The evening is open to everyone, so please come along for the social part, even if you aren’t participating in the club construction project.

GB6MW Special Event Station at Meopham Windmill (Mills On The Air)
2025-05-10 09:00 - 17:00 | Meopham Windmill, Meopham, DA13 0QA, United Kingdom
Meopham Windmill was last activated for Mills on the Air Weekend in 2019. Following repair work to the mill, by kind permission of the Parish Council we will again activate the mill on Saturday 10th May 2025 using the callsign GB6MW.
Operation will be from the club’s gala tent on the lawn in front of the mill, with the club’s 30ft scaffold mast supporting the HF antenna, while the 2m/70cm white stick will be installed on the gallery of the mill. It’s an elevated site and we always get out well from there. The mill has undergone extensive renovation and the cap now turns to follow the wind, which is why we can no longer hang the HF antenna from the cap of the mill itself.

Help is needed from 8am on Saturday to put up the tent and antennas, to be ready to start operations at around 9.30. Assistance is also needed in getting items from the club’s lockup in the preceding days. It would be great to have some of our newer licensed members do some operating, helped by experienced club members of course.

If you can’t come along please get on the air and work us. It’s a fun weekend there are dozens of mill stations to be worked.

Meopham Windmill is about five miles south of Gravesend on the A227 and there are buses from Gravesend. If driving please note there is no parking at the mill itself, you will need to park in the roads surrounding Meopham Green opposite the mill.

Refreshments can be had in the Cricketers Pub which is only a few yards down the road but we will also have tea-making facilities on site.

Organisation of Mills on the Air has been taken over by Nunsfield House ARG and the club are on the list at https://www.nharg.org.uk/content/registered-mota-stations. They offer an award for working ten or more mill stations, and this ought to be achievable on 40m SSB. Some stations will be active on both days but we are limiting ourselves to Saturday only. Unfortunately the mill will not be open to visitors as all the H&S signoffs have not yet been obtained but the intention is to open the mill to the public later in 2025.

We very much hope this weekend will again become a regular event in the CVRS calendar.

Club meeting - AI : Talk and demo by Jakub M0KUK
2025-05-01 19:30 - 21:30 | CVRS Clubhouse in Eltham, London, Eltham, SE9 2SD, United Kingdom
Club member Jakub M0KUK will be speaking to members about AI, and how it may be useful to our hobby. He’ll also be showing a practical demonstration of AI in action.

Club meeting - AGM
2025-04-17 19:30 - 21:30 | CVRS Clubhouse in Eltham, London, Eltham, SE9 2SD, United Kingdom
This is the Annual General Meeting of the club, where the club’s finances are discussed, annual committee appointments are made, and club trophys and awards are given out to members.

Foundation Licence training course - day 2
2025-04-12 08:00 - 17:00 | CVRS Clubhouse in Eltham, London, Eltham, SE9 2SD, United Kingdom

Foundation Licence training course - day 1
2025-04-05 08:00 - 17:00 | CVRS Clubhouse in Eltham, London, Eltham, SE9 2SD, United Kingdom

Club meeting - Contest Logging : Dave G8ZZK
2025-04-03 19:30 - 21:30 | CVRS Clubhouse in Eltham, London, Eltham, SE9 2SD, United Kingdom
Dave G8ZZK will be speaking to club members about contest logging, and the software and tools available to operators.

Club meeting - A Talk by Dave G4NOW about Morse Code / CW
2025-03-20 19:30 - 21:30 | CVRS Clubhouse in Eltham, London, Eltham, SE9 2SD, United Kingdom
Club member, Dave G4NOW, will speak about Morse Code, including the “Cray Valley Year of CW” and CW Academy.

Club meeting - RF Filters (talk) , and AF Audio Amp (practical) : Mark M0JCF
2025-03-06 19:30 - 21:30 | CVRS Clubhouse in Eltham, London, Eltham, SE9 2SD, United Kingdom
This will be a social & technical evening, where club member Mark M0JCF, will be speaking about HF RF filters, and then leading a practical session to build a useful audio amplifier.
The talk will cover Low Pass and Band Pass filters, and Mark will demonstrate his homebrew examples.

Mark will be bringing a selection of toroids and silver mica capacitors for people to take away and experiment with later, if they wish.

For the practical session, Mark will bring a pile of LM386 ICs, resistors, capacitors & IC sockets, and he will supply copper strip vero board to build a very useful audio amplifier.

Mark noted that using proto board for the last two sessions proved messy and problematic for some constructors, which is the reason for choosing vero board this time.

Club meeting - Loop Antennas : Chris Hall G6HTH
2025-02-20 19:30 - 21:30 | CVRS Clubhouse in Eltham, London, Eltham, SE9 2SD, United Kingdom
Club member Chris, G6HTH will be speaking to members about the fascinating world of Loop Antennas.

Club meeting - DX Cluster : Martin M0MDR
2025-02-06 19:30 - 21:30 | CVRS Clubhouse in Eltham, London, Eltham, SE9 2SD, United Kingdom
Martin, M0MDR will be talking about how to use the DX cluster, and also how to add spots to the cluster yourself.

AFS Contest SSB
2025-01-18 13:00 - 17:00 | Eltham
SSB on 80 and 40m 1300-1700. If you have capability on either band, please come on and support the Club.
The exchange is RS and serial number starting 001. Full rules are at https://www.rsgbcc.org/hf/rules/2025/rafs.shtml

Club Meeting - annual planning meeting
2025-01-16 19:30 - 21:30 | CVRS Clubhouse in Eltham, London, Eltham, SE9 2SD, United Kingdom
Planning meeting for 2025, led by Dave G8ZZK.
Members will have an opportunity to influence and drive the agenda for this year’s club meetings.
During the meeting, Dav M0WDV will introduce the club construction projects for 2025.

AFS Contest Datamodes
2025-01-12 13:00 - 17:00 | Eltham
Data modes on 80 and 40m 1300-1700. If you have capability on either band, please come on and support the Club.
The exchange is RST and serial number starting 001, and you can work stations on RTTY and again on PSK63. Full rules are at https://www.rsgbcc.org/hf/rules/2025/rafs.shtml
