Community Activities

For the second time in 2022 Cardiff & District RAYNET provided assistance to the Cardiff Half Marathon, on this occasion sponsored by Wizz air, Cardiff & District RAYNET had 11 operators out on the course plus an additional operator managing the Comms Relay on high ground in the Pen-y-lan area of Cardiff and one additional operator in the control centre. The event was controlled from the Silver command centre in Cardiff’s City Hall.

Control room operations
Control Room Operations Desk.

Cardiff & District RAYNET Group visited Treforest in August 2021, location of Storm Dennis Flooding to undertake an NVIS HF Radio exercise.

Cardiff & District RAYNET were pleased to be able to assist A Walk for Parkinson’s on September 25th 2022 in Bute Park, this event is vital for the charity to raise essential funsd for their organisation and Cardiff & District RAYNET has supported this event for many years.

Parked in Bute Park
Control Operations in Bute Park

This Event took place in August 2021 and was an opportunity to undertake communications tests from low ground, usually operators would look for high ground locations to get radio signals out as far reaching as possible.

Near Vertical Incidence Skywave (NVIS) is a technique where the object is to reduce the range of communications by sending signals high into the atmosphere and bring them back to earth over a few hundred miles, rather than the thousands of miles HF signals can achieve.

In Association with other RAYNET groups in Wales we were on the air to test our NVIS capabilities. Our group was able to make contact to groups in West Wales on the day, some other Welsh groups whom we didn’t speak to on the day learnt some lessons from the exercise with wishes to undertake the experiment again in the near future.

We also listened for RAYNET groups countrywide, some of which were heard as far as dorset and whom were also testing communications equipment as part of regular weekly routine testing of communications in preparedness for any UK based incidents, as nationally we continue to plan for community assistance in potential times of need.

It was also the first time the group were back in circulation following Covid 19 restrictions, and as part of the Exercise a BBQ was held to make the event a nice social experience for the group members whom attended.

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