Firstly, may I on behalf of all Club members congratulate Ron G6LX on being made Life Vice President of the RSGB - well done Ron.

Secondly, the Sunday 10m net is having its start time brought forward in response to comments and will now start @ 9.30am as of Sunday 5^th September.

Thirdly, the club will be entering the HF SSB Field Day contest over the weekend of 4^th & 5^th September.

This will a meeting to listen and discuss with Bernie G8TB about the many years he has been involved in the Amateur Radio hobby. Bernie reckons this will be a mixture of what one can remember and contrast of change since 1919.

The club will be entering this SSB HF Field Day contest from a site adjacent to Kenley Airfield. This is intended to be a fun event to get people interested - work that DX that you can't from home! Stay for 10mins or all night! By the way Class B's can operate this station - likely callsign is G3ZPB/P. Start time is 15:00 GMT (4pm BST) for 24hrs.

Please contact either Roger G4WAY (020-8 689 7089) or Peter (01737 551413) for site details. All are welcomed to help set-up, operate, etc - thanks.

As mentioned at the beginning of this newsletter the club hosted a unique event last month by beginning the August "A" meeting with the conferring of a Life Vice Presidency of the RSGB to Ron Glaisher G6LX. The President of the Radio Society Great Britain, Hilary Clayton-Smith G4JKS presented a plaque and a badge to Ron.

This is the highest honour conferred by the RSGB and recognises the long service that Ron has afforded to the Amateur radio hobby and to the RSGB, and in particular his hard work for Region 1 IARU over the past 55 years. The attendance was excellent which I am sure gave great pleasure to Ron and Prue. Amongst the 45 or more that were there was RSGB Zonal Council member Fred Stewart G0CSF and RSGB Council member Dick Biddulph M0CGN, and some members of local clubs including CATS.

Whilst the club had the company the Hilary we asked George Bennett G5BZ to formally present the G5BY trophy to the RSGB to be awarded to the winner of the VHF NFD Mix & Match section. We won this last year and hoping we can do the same this year. However the omens are not good because when we last won VHF NFD we handed over the Surrey trophy which we have never seen back since! The G5BY trophy was originally awarded to him by QST back in 1929 for the Best Amateur Station (in the World). It has been dedicated by G5BZ, the executor of G5BY, to the SRCC to be awarded by the RSGB as above. Members should note that in the event of the Mix & Match section being discontinued, the Cup is returned to G5BZ or the SRCC.

May I take this opportunity to thank Arthur G3YRB for building the trophy case, and Gareth for producing the trophy base. Your excellent efforts are greatly appreciated by the Club - thank you.

I do have some photos of this event but these are still in my camera so I shall put them in next month's newsletter, and eventually on the WEB site. I also have a video of the evening presentations that I still need to transfer to VHS!

This proved to be a very popular and interesting talk given by the Technical Manager of Tramtrack Croydon Ltd ("The Engineer"). The feedback we have received has been extremely good - are we doing meetings of this type, a family/non-radio evening?

Jim was an excellent presenter and worked without notes, just a set of 35mm photographic slides, to describe how it was constructed, etc.

I noted that the capital budget was some £200M and there are 38 tram-stops stretching from Wimbledon, through Croydon to Beckenham junction, Elmers End and New Addington in the east. It was the latter terminal that the tram concept was developed for to improve public transport in the Addington area, which had never been connected to the rail network.

To power it there are 13 sub-stations, each at least 600kVA though the ones in Croydon are 1000kVA. A topic in its own right is that of leakage currents and was a particular concern to the telecoms utilities. Tramtrack took special steps to ensure that leakage current stayed within the system unlike the high leakage currents probably generated by the third rail railway system!

It was interesting to note that since tramways operate within public areas, it's a line of sight operation and Tramlink is no different. Fare structures was not available but I noted that Penalty fares will operate with £10 minimum. Bus passes will NOT be valid but Old Age Passes, Freedom Passes, Travelcards, etc are OK.

Each tram will provide 70 seats with 140 standing (!) giving total capacity per two-car set of 210. The tram-stops and trams are fully wheelchair accessible, with each stop having two ticket machines and CCTV with a help point. Trams should be operating from early in the morning to last thing at night, 7-days a week, with a journey time of no more than 22 minutes from a terminal to the centre of Croydon. Wimbledon trams will be running through to Elmers End, whilst Beckenham Junction and New Addington ones will go round Croydon and return.

This was an excellent evening and we thank Jim Snowden for his time and excellent presentation. We note that some of you had difficulty in hearing Jim, especially at the back of the room, and we intend in future for large gatherings for speakers to use a microphone.

Sunday 5^th September is the Ruby Wedding anniversary day for Dawn and Graham (G3RJW) Marshall AND Hazel and John (G3BFP) Headland. John and Hazel were in fact married two hours before Graham and Dawn! Congratulations to you all.

Those of you who remember Gene & Dixie (G4FQQ) Deane may wish to learn that Bernie G8TB shared his birthday with Gene, whilst Blanca (G8TB XYL) shared her birthday with Dixie!

Gail, XYL of Roger G8HDP, is not very well at the moment and has spent some time in hospital. May I, on behalf of the Club, send you Gail our very best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Further to last month's "leaked" news I have received the following letter from Ted describing the day:

Thanks Ted and I reprint the photographs below (will be in colour on the WEB site).

Group Photograph (Who can you Spot)

SRCC Group

Ted G3EUE & Daphne

Gav G2OS has reached his 99^th birthday last week on 29^th August and he attended a birthday party in his honour down in Guildford - happy Birthday Gav, many congratulations.

Bernie G8TB is still collecting these and passes on his thanks to all those who have sent him stamps, the latest being Gav G2OS.

It is with sadness I have to report the sad death of Mike O'dell M1CKT, who passed away on 19^th August following a battle with Cancer. Both his daughter and Bryan G6ODE informed me of the news, with the funeral to take place on Wednesday September 1^st in Hampshire. He was well into his 70's and had lead an active life, being a member of the SRCC for the last two years.

Our deepest sympathies and thought are with the family at this sad time.

This is an early warning notice that the Club is planning its next Annual dinner for February 2000 at The Windmill PH, Wallington. A firm booking cannot be made until November 1999, which is when I shall seek deposits.

The Croydon Airport Society had hoped to have a fly-in to the Airport situated @ Roundshaw Downs by visiting aircraft on Sunday 12^th September to coincide with National Heritage Open Day.

However Sutton Council have blocked the fly-in plans due to, using CAS words, "in deference to the protection of some unusual flora and fauna which had been discovered on the old airport site and declared sacrosanct".

The society now hope to have aircraft flying past the airport which they say was the first purpose built civil airport of its day before the arrival of Heathrow.

Croydon Airport in the 1930's

I thank Phil G1LKJ for this report:

I have added Arthur G3YRB to the members E-Mail list - welcome Arthur to this style of communication, I hope you are enjoying it. One advantage of me having your E-Mail address is advance notice of the next newsletter being available from the WEB site. I tend not to mail it direct due to the inclusions of photographs that do take a time to download!

I have now received the scores for the 2M entry and so I can now provide the full entry which was E-Mailed at the end of July:

4m CW	10778	(10639)
4m SSB	16182	(11962)
2m	83269	(77712)
70cm	23633	(25253)
23cm	7794	(5624)

That's the lot for this month but a final reminder to attend Bernie's Radio Reminiscences on the 6^th and also to take part in the HF SSB NFD 4^th/5^th Sep.