Exploring Banbury flood defences

On Christmas morning Richard, Peter and I took Monty for a dog walk we left the little house into the county and drove into Banbury parking near M&S at the Banbury shopping park on the east side of the Marks and spencer shop there is a foot path to Chacombe 2 Miles we joined the footpath and followed the river cherwell EastP1020024-001

Walking under the M40 and onto the Banbury Flood Alleviation Scheme.
The flood alleviation scheme consists of five major elements: 1) a large flood storage reservoir upstream of Banbury, 2) a key highway with raised elevation into the community, 3) new earth embankments, flood walls and pile walls in strategic locations, 4) a new pumping station and 5) a bio-habitat, complete with ponds, trees and hedgerowsP1020027 P1020028

A local borrow pit provided 100,000 cubic meters of earth needed for the reservoir embankment. Limestone blocks discovered in the borrow pit were used as an alternative to stone-filled gabion baskets in the river, or crushed to provide granular material for the haul roads. This removed the need to import material.P1020035

A local borrow pit provided 100,000 cubic meters of earth needed for the reservoir embankment.

P1020041Limestone blocks discovered in the borrow pit were used as an alternative to stone-filled gabion baskets in the river, or crushed to provide granular material for the haul roads. This removed the need to import material.

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The Oxford Canal looking north

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canal bridge 159

 

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Canal bridge 159P1020048

I noticed two bridges in the landscape one crossing the Oxford Canal number 159 and a second

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Iron bridge crossing the river Cherwell upon closer inspection this was the former Great Central railway line from Banbury to woodford Halse This 8 and a half mile double track line financed by the GWR left the GCR main line just south of woodford hales it has two intermediate holts Eydon road and chalcombe road and opened to freight traffic on 1 June 1900 followed by passenger services on the 13 august. The branch line soon became part of the east-west cross county corridor with Banbury at it centre. During the second world war the lined handled huge volumes of freight traffic and in 1940 more than 700,000 wagon loads were processed at the GCR Banbury exchange yard the line closed in 1966

 

operating via amateur satellites

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Now Peters station has the full bells and whistles and it would be

very easy to mess things up with this in mind I had over a period of
time watched Peter, and I also asked for some operating instruction
which I was told “click on the letters in SatPC32 and spin the VFO“.

Of course I had to turn the PC on switch the power on to the IC-910
and turn the power on for the G-5500 elevation – azimuth dual
controller having a fully computer controlled station made things a
lot easier.

antennas

However I am use to operating on HF and its an entirely different ball
game and operating style I was surprised how weak some of the signals
were the s’meter hardly moved and of course I was speaking to people
who sometimes sounded off frequency I soon learnt how to use the VFO
in the log are:

AO-85

IZ5TEP (JN53), EA1IW (IN83), EA4AYW (IN70), GS3PYE/P (IO75)

XW-2A

SP9RXP (KN09), EA1JM (IN70), EA1IW (IN83), II6CC (JN63), M0NPT (io92)

XW-2C

G0TKZ (JO01), SP9RXP (KN09), ON4CJQ (JO21), GS3PYE/P (IO75)

FO-29

IZ1DBY (JN45), EA4BFK (IN80), GS3PYE/P (IO75)

I wrote and sent the qsl cards on the 3rd of July apart from the GS3PYE/P qso’s as they are oqrs.