RAYNET - Milton Keynes Raynet Group

Group News

Past Events and Meetings

Christmas Dinner - 25th November

This was the third year that we have had our Christmas dinner at the Flying Fox. Unfortunately it was rather a disappointment this year as we were unable to sit together. Furthermore it seems very likely that this was the place where Ray's car was broken into and the spare wheel stolen, although this was not discovered until two days later. Perhaps we will have to look for somewhere else next year.

Exercise Waterscape - 21st November

On 21st November the Buckinghamshire Emergency Planning Unit held an exercise involving the Bucks & Oxon 4x4 Rescue Group (BORG) and RAYNET (The Buckinghamshire Groups plus ourselves). The exercise was aimed at practicing potential areas of flood from rivers bursting their banks, following flood warnings for the area.

This involved RAYNET operators being deployed to various rendezvous points to meet up with BORG vehicles. The vehicles were then deployed across the region from the River Thames in the south and along the River Great Ouse up as far as Olney on the Milton Keynes/Northampton border. Mobiles were required to report river conditions at the various grid reference points to which they were despatched during the course of the exercise; which lasted about five hours.

The exercise should that had the event been real it would have fulfilled its purpose by providing good quality and timely information back to the county operations centre in Aylesbury.

Technically the exercise was very impressive, deploying eight talk-through units (TTUs) at five sites. 3 of the TTUs worked cross band (2mtrs - 70cms) whilst the other five were 70cms in-band units using a 7.6MHz split. Two of the in-band TTUs served as Combined Relays, one proving the link back to Control and the other providing a link to Marlow which provided a backup location manned by Mid Thames RAYNET. Through this arrangement everyone was able to hear everyone else and Control at Aylesbury was able to use 70cms exclusively (apart from a local net) which was considered an advantage as there is a lot of 2mtr noise in the town.

We did have to remember to pause for about 1 second after a transmission to cope with the delay across two repeaters but everything worked from start to finish… well apart from a three minute break when the EPO introduced a power cut in the control centre and we had to fetch one of the battery supplies from a car.

Group Annual General Meeting, Thursday 14 November

The Group's AGM was held on 14th October. The incumbent Controller Ray Hughes, G0FTI stepped down after seven years in post. (Ray had generously given us twelve month's notice of his intention to do so, just to make sure we didn't look surprised!).

Our thanks went to Ray for running the Group for all this time and he departs from post leaving a healthy balance sheet! Fortunately, Ray stays with us as an ordinary Group member so we will not be losing his experience and expertise.

Our new Controller is Don Kirkwood, G3YQO. Also joining the Committee to fill the long vacant post of Secretary was Paul McVay, M0AAD. We also welcomed back Ann Fountaine, G7AFL. Ann was a past Secretary of the Group and despite having officially left us, has frequently helped out when we have been short of resources and has consequently succumbed to the inevitable - If you can't beat 'em, (re)join 'em! Ann brings back to three the number of Fountaines in the Group. All three have made a valuable contribution to the Group over many years, and continue to do so.

The AGM voted in a new Constitution, the main aim of which was to enable the Group to legally take advantage of advances in technology in the administration of the Group.

Sunday 5 September

The Barnardos Bike Ride at Willen. This was a small event, requiring only six operators, two of whom were in Control. This was be the third year that we have assisted with this event. The event started at 10.00 and finished at 15.30.

Unfortuantely there were three injuries to riders, including one on the way to the event, and the other two were reported more or less simultaneously. Fortunately the on-site medic was an ex group member and was able to keep in communication with us throughout.

We had reasonable weather and a goodly number of riders, both making for an enjoyable event.