blog.wsplc.com

SBS Virtual Radar Changes?

The rumours continue about the SBS virtual radar with shortage of stock (as of 15th August 2010) and rumblings about distributorship changes. As far as we know the product continues but we are glad to say that there are no such rumours abour AirNav Systems’ RadarBox. We have good stock levels and excellent software update support as the product becomes recognised as a matuer and stable platform. We welcome xompetition because it helps to show the strong features that are exclusive to RadarBox.

At our 20^th Annual Open day we held a Charity Raffle in aid of Marie Cure Cancer care.

 We collected a total of £320 which Jeff Stanton presented to the local organizer as shown in our picture.

 We would like to thank all those visitors who bought a ticket to support such a worthy cause.

The Radio Society of Great Britain have invited Waters & Stanton PLC to be principle sponsors of the National Club of the Year competition.

The initiative has been set up by the Society to encourage the membership and growth of Radio Clubs around the country.

Each Region will be invited to run it’s own local competition and then each regional winner will be invited to take part in the National Competition.

The winning Club receives a £1,000 cash prize, the second place receives £500 and the third place £250. The competition will be held at the Society’s Annual General Meeting.

Waters & Stanton already sponsor their local regional competition which was last won by the Chelmsford Amateur Radio Society (CARS) who then went on to win the national prize.

 Peter Waters, G3OJV said “We are delighted to sponsor this competition which aims to encourage our hobby through local Club activities. We have many active Clubs around the country who deserve our support”

The picture below is of members of CARS receiving their regional prizes from Jeff Stanton, G6XYU at Waters & Stanton premises in March 2010.

You may remember us reporting a short while ago that Steve Richards, G4HPE, purchased the 500th Kenwood TH-F7E that we have sold, and received a Kenwood goodie bag. Steve was a BBC engineer and heading out to work on the BBC’s coverage of the World Cup in South Africa, he  promised to send us a picture of himself using the TH-F7E and has lived up to his word, sending us this picture from the media centre:

Hi all from Johannesburg,

Regards,
Steve Richards G4HPE

That’s right, we here at Waters & Stanton in Hockley want to know what you think of us.

We want to know what you think we do well, what you think we could do better, your ideas on how to improve our service, the successes and complaints, any products you would like us to stock that we currently don’t.

Whatever you have to say just send your feedback to our Sales Director, Mark Francis by email. His address is mark.francis@wsplc.com

We look forward to hearing from you!

Back in May, Jeff Stanton & Peter Waters headed to Dayton, Ohio in the United States for the annual Hamvention, and came back with lots of information on new products that we’ll be seeing in the coming months. While they were there they also caught up with many of the amateur manufacturers as you can see below!

Jeff Stanton & Peter Waters with Martin Jue (centre), boss of MFJ Enterprises at the 2010 Dayton Hamvention.

Gerald Youngblood (left) presents Jeff with the first Flex-1500, we’re expecting them in stock next week!

A selection of New radios first seen at Dayton Hamvention!

Yaesu FT-DX5000 on display (top) and inside (above).

Yaesu FTM-350E

Icom IC-9100

New Kenwood Handheld

Kenwood TS-590

There was a great turn out for our 20th Annual Open Day last Sunday, and more exhibitors than ever with Yaesu, Kenwood, Icom, bhi, Essex Repeater Group, Colchester Amateur Radio Society and Mark Sanderson M0IEO (RSGB Area Manager) all in attendance. The weather was excellent, and the Service Deptartment sold all their bits & pieces on the outside stalls. We were very pleased that there was lots of interest in the new FT-DX5000 which we had on display courtesy of Yaesu, and this will remain on display in our shop for the next few days. We sold plenty of tickets for our Charity Raffle, raising £310 for Marie Curie Cancer Care, the prize winners are listed below. Everyone, staff & visitors had a great day, and we’d like to thank everyone who came along.

Charity Raffle Winners

1. Rob M0VFC – Kenwood TM-V71E
2. G7FBI – Yaesu FT-7900E
3. Mark G0GBY – Icom IC-T70E
4. Peter G1RVP – Watson W-8682
5. Mr J Frost G0DCR – Watson W-2001
6. Mr Hawes (mail order) – Watson W-620
7. Jack SWL – Watson Multiranger-200
8. Paul M3XLD – Icom Goody Bag
9. Murray G0ODY – Yaesu Goody Bag
10. Robert G4OBE – Kenwood Goody Bag

 Below are a selection of photographs from the day, but you can see more if you become a fan of W&S on facebook.

Mark Francis with the queue waiting to get in at 10am

Yaesu’s Kumi (right) presenting Jeff with the New FT-DX5000. In the centre is Mikiko.

Kenwood’s Dave Wilkins presenting Rob M0VFC with his prize – a TM-V71E!

As usual we’ll be holding a Charity Raffle at our Open Day this coming sunday, with ALL proceeds going to our designated charity, which this year will be Marie Curie Cancer Care.

Tickets cost just £1 per strip, and could win you one of these 10 fantastic prizes!

1. Kenwood TM-V71E Dualband Mobile Transceiver
2. Yaesu FT-7900E Dualband Mobile Transceiver
3. Icom IC-T70E Handheld Transceiver
4. Watson W-8682 Wireless Weather Station
5. Watson W-2001 Wireless Weather Station
6. Watson W-620 SWR & Power Meter
7. Watson Multiranger-200 Multiband Mobile Antenna
8. Icom Goody Bag
9. Yaesu Goody Bag
10. Kenwood Goody Bag

What’s more you can even buy your tickets in advance this year, by clicking below and buying tickets from our website. Remember every £1 paid will go directly to Marie Curie Cancer Care and could win you a fantastic prize! Click Here

Other Open Day News: New RSGB Area Manager, Mark Sanderson, MøIEO will be attending the Open Day on Sunday.

Ailsa from Yaesu will be bringing the first Official FT-5000 in the country along to our Open Day on Sunday 30th May, and putting it on display for you to feast your eyes upon! Another exclusive for W&S!

Congratulations to Steve Richards, G4HPE, who purchased the 500th Kenwood TH-F7E that we have sold, and courtesy of our friends at Kenwood there is goodie bag winging it’s way to him as we speak.

Steve said that the TH-F7E is “a fantastic radio & working great” which is good to hear. Steve is a BBC engineer and will soon be departing to work on the BBC’s coverage of the World Cup in South Africa! He has promised to send us a picture of himself using the TH-F7E at one of the stadiums, where he’ll be using the ZS10 callsign for the duration of his stay.

Update 25/5/10: Steve has now received his goody bag, and sent us this lovely email;-
Hi Jeff,
Good to talk to you and I returned home to find the goodie bag! Thank you very much for this, a complete surprise and plenty to adorn the shack here.
I head off to Johannesburg on 30th May and will be there until 14th July, so plenty of time to get the manual out for the TH-F7E and learn some of its advanced features. Being until now the owner of the ‘classic’ but rather outdated FT290, I am amazed at the advances in the design of handies and on a recent Raynet event I was particularly impressed by the battery life.
Through my involvement with the IRESC organisation, I have several good ham friends in South Africa who I hope to keep in touch with via their repeater networks, so I should give ZS10/G4HPE a good airing in my few hours of downtime a day. I will try to get a decent photo of a bit of operating with a World Cup back-drop although it may not be straight away as I am spending a lot of my time in the International Broadcast Centre which is a very dull technical bunker. I can’t promise to put it into Beckham’s hand, either!
Thanks again for the bag of goodies and for the first rate service all round.
Regards,
Steve G4HPE