INITIAL PLANNING
"How do you fancy attending the Science Festival???"
"Me Personally ???...."
"No - The Club...put on a Station, and fly the flag for the hobby.."
And thus began a conversation between myself and Ian, sometime during August 2001 - We'd always wanted to do something like this, and we had been given an opportunity.
Ian had contacted the Science Festival organisers, after he and his daughter Carys had visited the Science Festival the previous year, At Scientriffic, Carys won tickets to the Sea World Center at Rhyl, He wrote to them, thanking them for the tickets, and the fact that they had enjoyed the Scientriffic event immensely, he also happened to note he was the Chairman of the local radio club....And that could we be a part of the following year's event.
They said that they had been looking to contact a local radio club for such an event...co-incidence? However, we put the idea to the club and they agreed unanimously - We had about 7 months..
Initially myself, Ian and Stephen (MW1STE) met up (Glyn unfortunately couldn't make the meeting) one evening at Stephen's house, some weeks after the members gave the plan the go ahead...Many cups of tea, and biscuits were consumed, while many ideas were put on the table, some were frowned upon, and some were taken on-board. However, by the end of the meeting we had a basic framework of ideas, those of which would become the event..
For a couple of weeks after that meeting, very little was discussed, the ideas we had discussed underwent some fine-tuning and tweaking, admittedly we all knew that we may be doing something totally different by the time the event arrived. Given that JOTA was only weeks away, very little actually got done.
We decided that we would like to have some sort of retailer support - an idea that was shelved, mainly as those retailers we contacted ignored us, and in the end we thought "what exactly are doing here? - promoting amateur radio, or helping shift boxes?" - this was later re-worked into manufacturer support. Thinking about it, perhaps the fact that none of the retailers came back to us - perhaps they had an inkling of where we should be going.
Given the time-frame in front of us, we had plenty of time to promote the event. But we still had to make best use of the time we had. We had al agreed that if it was at all possible, could Rob Mannion, editor of PW attend. This would prove beneficial in many ways, firstly - I'm sure Rob has many more stories to do with the hobby than I do, and has years more experience in amateur radio - and the club members agreed that after his previous (somewhat successful - it's still talked about now!) talk - It would be great to have him back to help us in what would be the biggest event in our clubs calendar, but also an important event for the hobby itself.
I contacted Rob, by e-mail, who apologised and said that due to health reasons he was cutting down on his talks and visits, but offered to help us in whatever way he could....
It was around September that the Foundation Licence was announced...Although in support of the whole concept, until the Class B -> M3 Morse tests were announced, I must admit I was a little infuriated - granted I had been given 50W from 6M upwards, and 4M (Which my Transceiver doesn't TX on anyway) - but it would mean that I would have to sit an entire course to get on HF - even for 10 hours??? - I was already fishing my Microreader out of a cupboard.
It was some months after this announcement, that we discovered amateurs in our locality bad-mouthing our event as "promoting the Foundation Licence" - Admittedly at the time of its announcement, we had no idea or intention of how we were going to incorporate the Foundation Licence into our event.
I don't intend to stir up a hornets nest - mainly as M3s take enough flack as it is, which is sad - as this is being written after the event - we spoke to a lot of interested people, some who seemed to grasp the whole morse thing, brilliantly - and some who had wanted to get into the hobby for years, some of whom had been put off, even by the Novice (Intermediate) Licence - I would hate to think that these people are going to run into people on the bands, some of which have stated that they won't talk to M3s - take a look through Google Groups (type in Foundation Licence)
Also - given the fact I help out with another local course, I have had opportunity to speak to many of the future M3s in my area, Suddenly now - the bands in my area are alive - Seeing as the Morse Assessment was introduced, I headed up to Frodsham on one cold Sunday morning, received 30 or so characters,sent 30 or so characters - and I am now an M3.
But back to the matter in hand....
It was now mid-October - We had a talk booked at last minute from the Science Festival Organisers - they had brought along a reporter and photographer - who had expected us to be sat round radios, working DX....Only problem was - we don't but when they asked if we had a radio on us - and all we had between us was Stephen's FT-90, and my Alinco V5 handie - they scarpered....Can anyone suggest why media see amateur radio clubs in the same light?
As we had our JOTA station coming up - very little progress was made on the Science Festival, although the think-tank was forever coming up with ideas....we were in no way short of inspiration. Once JOTA was out of the way - we had a clear run, but although we had about 2 months between the intial idea and JOTA - we still had to juggle both events!
Looking at an e-mail I sent around mid November - Our original plan had been a Special Event Station, but with an 'Evolution of Radio' exhibit - everything from Crystal Sets to WorldSpace...with an exhibit by Patrick (GW0VMR) - who is our local QRP and home-brew expert.
As We had a stand at Llandudno rally - we also used this as a way of promoting the upcoming event - A Lot of interest was shown.....
Some of the preparations were made during the latter half of last year, Ian had the callsign and licence agreed by October, I contacted Icom, Kenwood and Yaesu - all 3 came back to me with a positive yes - they would send us promotional literature and goods for our event.
We'd decided that as Rob wouldn't be able to make it, why not some back issues ?? - It wouldn't be until early Jan 2002 that we'd have solved the 'getting back issues from Dorset to Wrexham' issue.....
Then Christmas arrived.......