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VK7AX > BCAST 10.02.24 03:47l 432 Lines 24678 Bytes #209 (0) @ WW
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VK7 Amateur Radio News 11Feb24
Text edition:
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VK7 AMATEUR RADIO NEWS BROADCAST
FOR SUNDAY 11th February 2024
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Welcome to the VK7 Amateur Radio News and this was first broadcast on Sunday the 11th February 2024. At the mike of VK7WI this week is Rick, VK7RI.
On Sunday this broadcast goes out on repeaters all over VK7 and on digital radio - DMR Talk Group 5 and D-Star Reflector 91C by Clayton, VK7ZCR.
We go out on medium and high frequency courtesy of the following rebroadcast stations:
On 1.862 MHz by Graham, VK7GS,
On 3.670 MHz by Ross, VK7ALH,
On 7.140 MHz by Garry, VK7JGD,
On 14.130 MHz by Dale, VK7DG,
On 28.525 MHz by Tony, VK7VKT.
UHF CB Channel 24 in the Hobart area - Mark VK7FMAC.
You can hear this broadcast again on Tuesday night at 8:00pm on repeaters VK7RAA in Northern VK7 and VK7RHT in Southern VK7.
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Statewide News
QSL Update
Herman VK7HW let the VK7 AR News team know that he has almost caught up with his backlog of ‘work commitments and has recently started delivering/mailing cards out. This includes VK7WIA QSL cards where requested including overseas.
Herman will be at the REAST AGM/SGM next weekend with cards for people to pickup.
73, Herman, VK7HW
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Statewide News
Thursday Night SSTV Nets
Another busy net night that saw the following participants, VK7s – EV, FGGT, ZAB, ZSB, DMH, ZGK, TW, ZIR and PD all sharing over fifty photos, some are very creative!
The theme was “time”:
Clocks in public places – The Launceston GPO, Ulverstones War Memorial tower, the Cat and Fiddle arcade and a church in Hobart
An ancient Chinese water powered mechanical clock
Art Deco style table clock and unique time machine chair creation
Atomic clocks including a hydrogen maser time standard and GPS disciplined oscillator
A birthday cake, decorated with a clock that has time sliding away
Stonehenge, a giant comic clock and rings of time on a tree
Time Tunnel, a 1966 TV Sci-Fi series
Dr Who, with the TARDIS time travel machine
The “Time Warp” song from the 1975 Rocky Horror Picture Show
A Cathode Ray Oscilloscope with “horizontal sweep time-base generator”
An HP universal counter with select-able time-base
PC synchronisation software, Local and UTC displays
Equipment showing the unusual time of 23 Hours, 59 Minutes and 60 Seconds
The equation for time, distance and velocity
Albert Einstein
Dr David Mills silent key - creator of Network Time Protocol
A mechanical metronome and a workplace punch card time clock
The “next train” railway platform clocks
A time capsule
The White Rabbit with his Fob Watch, from Alice in Wonderland
A hair past a freckle and
Time to have a holiday boat cruise at Arthur River
Remember Ken VK7KRJs and Steve VK7OOs fully automatic 24/7 monitoring sites that allows anyone who has sent an SSTV picture the ability to check them on their pages almost immediately, any time, both South and North Tasmania.
Also if you missed the net there are archives of all SSTV nights. These photos can be seen on Kens and Steves SSTV websites or on NTARCs website under blogs and arranged as weekly nets.
An idea for a theme for next weeks net is “your Pride and Joy”
https://vk7oo.tasme.com/vhfsstv
https://sstv.vk7krj.com/scrolling%20web%20gallery.html
https://www.ntarc.net/blogs
73 from Andre VK7ZAB
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NEWS FROM THE NORTH WEST
NWTARC AGM and General meeting
On Saturday the 3rd February, the club held its Annual General Meeting.
President Ian VK7FICR had a prior engagement, so Vice President Ross VK7WP read his report. He advised even though we are a small club, members work together and achieve some great results.
Ian highlighted JOTA and the WIA Centenary, where the club members had rallied for the cause, and ran very successful activities. The club continues exploring ways to encourage young people into amateur radio.
The Treasurers report shows the club in a very good financial situation, and the club has an ongoing invitation to owners of repeaters, who require funds to maintain that equipment without any caveats.
Annual elections were held, and the following committee elected, President Ian VK7FICR, Vice President Ross VK7WP, Secretary Dave VK7DC, Treasurer Eric VK7EV, Committee member - Neil VK7NX, Committee Member - Matt. Kirsty will remain as Social Coordinator, and Eric VK7EV as News Office and Membership Officer, Matt and Dave VK7DC will continue as repeater officers. After the AGM the February General Meeting was held.
At the general meeting, members welcome new student member Oliver, who is studying for his FCall. The members voted to discontinue the gold coin donations at meetings, the club is in a great financial position, and members already support the club in many ways, as well as bring afternoon tea for the meetings.
The members also agreed to remove all the previous COVID restrictions at meetings, bar being unwell, so members can once again bring their culinary delights to meetings.
Club members will be providing Radio Comms, for a large volunteer event being run at Lake Barrington yesterday - Saturday the 10th February. Members will also be supporting the Meet your Neighbour event being held in Ulverstone in March this year, setting up a gazebo with operational radios and antennas. After the meeting Eric VK7EV for show and tell, brought along a Quangsheng K5 Hand held radio. This is the new go to radio for amateurs, with many people creating firmware upgrades, from a band scope, SSB TX/RX and able to send Slow Scan TV.
Terry VK7JAI, had bought an AVO model TFM Signal Generator circa 1950s from one of our deceased estates. Terry used to use AVO equipment like this in his days as a Broadcast Engineer and wanted it for a project he was constructing. He was a happy Chappy, when he hooked it up to an Oscilloscope, and the Signal Generator performed flawlessly.
Club members then enjoyed afternoon tea with some members finally leaving at 6:40pm, after discussions on everything from radios, Nuclear power, Professor Michele Simmons and her research team, creating single atom transistors, and using lasers for future radio comms over long distances. And discussions on fibre optics and other related subjects
73, Eric, VK7EV
News Officer, NWTARC
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NEWS FROM THE NORTH
SOTA/WWFF PARKS GROUP
The Summits On The Air/World Wide Flora and Fauna parks group meets twice weekly – Mondays and Fridays 10.30AM till 12.00 at the Glebe Gardens Cafe, Henry Street, Launceston.
For more information contact Al on 0417 354 410.
73, Al, VK7AN
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Northern Tasmanian Amateur Radio Club Incorporated
www.ntarc.net
As promised for this broadcast we will continue with the left-overs from the last technical night.
Trevor VK7TB has moved on from the traditional “Breadboard” designs for electronics into the new realm of “Baking Dish” designing. In fact he brought a baking dish into the club…… no it was not full of food!
It had been repurposed for an electronic project that required a reasonably large flat top working area but did not require much height. Trevor turned the baking dish into a fully functioning thermionic valve tester. Evidently he found it quicker to make a purpose build unit than rush the restoration of an antique tester sitting on his storage shelf.
Visually it is very impressive and not your usual cobbled together breadboard setup that so often happens when testing is required. The non-stick coating on the baking dish gave the exterior a pleasing appearance.
Trevor was interested in particular valves that he is using in a project so there was no need for every valve socket known to man to be included. He settled on 7, 8 and 9 pin bases plus a Top Cap when needed.
The baking dish bottom side is now the front panel.
The middle area of the panel contains the three valve bases plus two rows of banana sockets to the right. The top row of banana sockets extend all the valve socket pins and the lower row of banana sockets extends the equipment test connections.
The lower third has two good sized digital LCD displays, volt meter mounted on the left with current meter mounted on the right hand side. In between there are switches for Screen and Anode voltage range selection, one potentiometer for Screen voltage adjustment and a multi turn counting potentiometer for fine Grid voltage adjustment. A short circuit indicator and ferrite rings on the Top Cap lead complete the unit.
One interesting construction feature is all the controls and patch point labeling is mounted on separately cut strips of metal that are in turn screwed onto the case.
Visually very effective and gives the unit an engineered feel. I cant help wondering if this was an elegant solution because the stick on labels would not adhere to the non-stick surface on the baking dish? hihi
All in all this side project turned out to be a very nice solution to a “Test and Measurement” requirement for other ongoing projects. Thank you Trevor for bringing the home brew test equipment in and sharing it with us.
Peter VK7SP has been working on receiving and decoding terrestrially broadcast HF radio weather fax images. He has loaded up his Raspberry Pi with appropriate software and quickly strung up a temporary 7m long wire antenna at home. These are connected to his newly acquired Icom-IC705. Peter brought the IC705 and Pi into the club rooms to try the combination on some of the various club room antenna. Listening to VMC, Charleville located in Queensland on 13920 kHz, the club room multiband Dipole had marginally higher strength than the vertical. Both of these antenna appeared to be only a little better than measured signal strength at home with his long wire. Peter also has had limited success at home with this frequency as well as 11030 kHz and 5200 kHz. He also had a one off weather fax reception of VMW at Wiluna in Western Australia on 5755 kHz, a couple of weeks ago.
A work in progress that I wouldnt be surprised to see ending up on a certain sailing boat. Thanks Peter and hopefully we will get to see some weather faxes in the near future.
Now continuing the tenuous marine theme, Ross VK7ALH brought in a mature radio called the “Sailor”, manufactured by S.P. Radio of Denmark. The name on the unit was very specific in that it was a “2182kHz Watch Keeping Receiver Type R501”.
To set the scene the Sailor R501 complies with the requirements of the international convention for SAFETY OF LIFE AT SEA, or SOLAS for short, ratified in 1974. It states that “on board all ships above 300 tons gross tonnage there must be continuous listening on the radiotelephonic emergency frequency of 2182 kHz”, end quote. One can only assume that a reasonably large ship gave the radio to Ross.
This Sailor R501 was manufactured about 1990. It is a single-channel telephony receiver designed to receive A2, A2H, A3, and A3H signals on the international emergency frequency.
The front panel is quite simple, it has a volume knob, speaker and five push buttons to select operating modes, timer reset and for testing with a simulated distress call.
It can operate as an unmuted receiver or in automatic volume mute mode that ensures the receiver is muted, but still listening, until a two-tone alarm signal or a navigation warning signal is received to un-mute the audio. Automatic mode also provides control of mute function and is timed to the international listening period. This is and I quote “To increase the chances of a weak distress transmission being received, 3 minute periods of radio silence are observed on the hour and half hour on distress channels. All transmissions must stop during silence periods except distress calls”, end quote. Now think back…. How many can remember watching the December REAST DATV night on the “Gibson Girl”, where Justin highlighted the analogue clock on the club room wall. It had these listening periods marked on its face.
This unit is a solid-state design and runs on 24 Volts DC with overall dimensions of 230 x 150 x 163 mm. It has a coated steel front panel with two internal chassis made of aluminium. The chassis are back to back, one opening facing up and the other facing down. With the speaker nestled between them. One chassis holds all the RF receiver side of things. The other side has a printed circuit board covered with of CMOS 4000-series digital logic integrated circuits. They are mainly counters, gates and shift registers, there is even a 555 timer and not a microprocessor to be seen. hihi
This was yet another interesting artefact from Ross expansive archival collection of equipment. This one did have one more secret on the radio side, it was equipped with a reasonably large huntsman spider hiding within, but it had well and truly, “Shuffled off this mortal coil”.
As always pictures, including the spider, will be available on the NTARC Web site under “Blogs” for this broadcast.
https://www.ntarc.net/blogs
UPCOMING EVENTS
TestNet and TechNet session - Every Wednesday, TestNet/CW course on 3.580MHz from 7pm till 7.30pm…. and a TechNet on 3.567MHz from 7.30pm till about 8.30pm. Your host for the evening will probably not be Nic VK7WW this week, you will have to tune in to find out.
Coffee Morning - held every Friday in the NTARC Club rooms. Time is from 10am to noon and we look forward to seeing you all there. So why not pop in and join us for a cuppa, there is endless tea and coffee along with biscuits available for a donation.
Annual General Meeting & General Meeting – This Wednesday the 14th February 2024 at the NTARC Club Rooms, Rocherlea Scout Hall, Archer Street Rocherlea commencing at 19:30 hours (7.30 pm).
Club Room Technical night session - The next session will be on Wednesday the 28th of February and will commence at the usual time of 6.30 pm, running through to about 10 pm, at the Club room Archer Street, Rocherlea.
Finally - A reminder to all members that if you have any items of news you would like added to our weekly roundup, no matter how trivial, then please email them to the Secretary at the following address news(at)ntarc.net all items to be received no later than 5pm on the Friday prior to the Broadcast.
Thats all folks,
73 from Stefan, VK7ZSB, Secretary NTARC Inc.
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NEWS FROM THE SOUTH
Repeater Update
VK7RCR/VK7RAK
A reminder that VK7RCR 438.525 DMR repeater is no longer hosted at Clayton's VK7ZCR Lenah Valley QTH. Clayton has reconfigured his VK7RCR 146.96125 - 1.6MHz repeater to now serve on the VKDMR Network and Dstar on REF-091C.
So for those who have a GD77 programmed with this repeater will need to update the timeslots for the talk groups available.
For more details on the timeslot can be found on DMR website. https://vkdmr.com/
The Motorola DR3000 that was at Clayton's is now being used on VK7RAK on 438.700 - 5MHz at Danny VK7HDM Gagebrook QTH
73, Scott, VK7HSE
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Radio and Electronics Association of Southern Tasmania
https://www.reast.asn.au/
https://www.facebook.com/reasttas/
https://www.youtube.com/reasthobart/
February Presentation Night
Last Wednesday night we had a fantastic presentation on the Tasmania state-wide Surf Life Saving Radio Network from Greg Bird.
https://www.slst.asn.au/
Greg started with an introduction and outline of the fleet resources that the SLST have around the state and the challenges that present.
Greg outlined the ICOM VOIP radio network solutions including location services where the radio location is transmitted over the radio network and displayed using the Firemapper application and this data is extracted into the Tas Government Common Operating Platform. This makes radio location available to emergency services when undertaking rescues.
SLST are the agency that Tasmania Police call on for surf and swift water activities.
Greg then outlined some of the improvements they have been making to the radio network including multicasting and IP interfacing in each repeater and virtual control of the network from anywhere so long as you have internet connectivity.
The presentation was recorded and is available on the REAST YouTube channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7c8VKH4WIdo
A huge thank you to Greg for giving of his time to update us on the Tasmania-wide radio network that Surf Life Saving Tasmania rely on.
73, Justin, VK7TW
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REAST AGM & SGM
Annual General and Special General Meetings
Will be held in the Queens Domain clubrooms next Sunday February 18th 2024 from 1pm and will be preceded by a free sausage sizzle from 12 noon.
Emails are currently being sent to all members with details of the meetings.
If you do not receive an email then please contact the secretary on secretary(at)reast.asn.au. Nominations are now closed for all committee positions and there will be a ballot held at the AGM for committee member positions.
73, REAST Committee
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March Presentation
Space Junk and Amateur Radio
REASTs March presentation night will be a fascinating presentation from Mars Buttfield-Addison who is a pHd candidate with UTAS and CSIRO.
Mars speciality is tracking Space Junk and Tasmania has a special role in this endeavour and amateur radio can play a part in this too.
It will be held on Wednesday night the 6th March 2024 from 7:30pm in the Queens Domain Clubrooms and it will also go out on DVB/T RF and via the REAST YouTube Channel streaming service.
This should be a great night, see you there.
73, REAST Committee
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April Presentation - Save the Date
The History of UTC and the Leap Second
REASTs April presentation night will be a fascinating presentation from Peter Pokorny VK2EMR.
This will be a humorous presentation about how universal coordinated time (UTC) came into existence and why we need Leap Seconds.
There will also be a very timely update from WRC 23 on Leap Seconds as well.
Peter attended the World Radio Conference 2023 with Dale Hughes and is a well verses in the ITU and WRC behemoth as he has been involved many years due to his professional maritime background.
It will be held on Wednesday night the 3rd April 2024 from 7:30pm in the Queens Domain Clubrooms and it will also go out on DVB/T RF and via the REAST YouTube Channel streaming service.
This should be a great night, see you there.
73, REAST Committee
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DATV Experimenter's Night
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsnsP_zjw831-VOfvOCwPIHKiCSAsDfkm
This week's show will be another block-buster blow your head off blast from the past show-case of all things amateur radio and much more. We will have a deep demonstration of the RADIACODE Radiation Detector - which includes a radiation detector, dosimeter and spectrometer in the same handheld device. We will also have a look inside the Cambridge Labs Potentiometer that was featured a few weeks ago. See you there or on the stream.
https://www.reast.asn.au/news-events/live-stream/
https://www.reast.asn.au/special-interest-groups/amateur-tv/
https://www.youtube.com/c/ReastHobart/
We stream the nights on the REAST YouTube stremaing channel and we also go out on RF - DVB-T 7MHz Standard Definition on 445.5MHz. So, if you have a TV, Set-top box or USB DTV Dongle that you can tune and scan 445.5MHz and you can see the Queens Domain, then you have a good chance of receiving the DATV Experimenter's Night Signal. Look out for VK7OTC.
73, Justin, VK7TW
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Training and Assessments
Our next REAST training and assessment day will be on the 24th February 2024.
The training schedule for 2024 has been set and so foundation licence training and all licence assessment days will be held on the following Saturdays:
24th February, 27th April, 29 June, 24 August and 26 October.
Other sessions can be organised if there is enough interest and people wanting assessments and training.
If you are thinking of booking for training or assessment this year please let Reg Emmett VK7KK REAST Learning Organiser know by phoning 0417 391 607 or via the REAST Website Contact Form.
https://www.reast.asn.au/contact/online-contact-form/
Check out the REAST Foundation Licence Training Videos that can be found on the REAST YouTube Training and Assessment playlist.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsnsP_zjw831mdC6sY4XqavRUY-53ZWUn
73, Reg, VK7KK
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Regular VK7 gatherings and events over the coming months:
Regular gatherings:
Sewing Circle Net – Daily on 3.640MHz commences at 6:30pm ADST.
Statewide SSTV Net - held every Thursday night via the North/South Link on VK7RAF/VK7RJG from 7:30pm. In the North and North West - VK7RJG on 438.55 -7MHz and in the South - VK7RAF (146.650 -600kHz) CTCSS tone 141.3Hz to link RAF North-South.
State-wide – MICROWAVE QSO Party – following the Sunday broadcast call-back on 1296.15 MHz FM. One group in the greater Hobart area and another in the greater Launceston area.
Then North-south digital contacts on 1296.2MHz using Q65-60B.
Stations in the Launceston area transmitting on the odd minute. Southern stations on the even minute.
SOTA/WWFF Group – Meeting Mondays and Fridays 10.30-12.00 midday at Glebe Gardens Cafe, Henry St, Launceston.
NTARC - TestNet and TechNet sessions every Wednesday night. TestNet/CW course on 3.580MHz from 7pm till 7.30pm…. and a TechNet on 3.567MHz from 7.30pm till about 8.30pm
NTARC Coffee Mornings held every Friday in the NTARC Club rooms. Time is from 10am to noon in the Rocherlea Clubrooms.
NTARC - Club Technical nights - Wednesday the 28th February and will commence at 6.30 pm through to about 10.00 pm, at the Club room Archer Street, Rocherlea.
NW VK7 – Wednesday from 8:00pm local – NW Tassie Amateur Repeater Group Net on VK7RMD
NW VK7 - Thursday commencing at 8:30pm local - N.W. Tassie 2m DX Net 144.190 USB
NW SSTV Nights - Monday 26th February - hosted by Eric VK7EV from 7:30pm using VK7RMD 70cm repeater on Mt Duncan on the 4th Monday in the Month.
Events:
NTARC - February 14, 2024 - Annual General Meeting and General Meeting - NTARC Club Rooms, Rocherlea Scout Hall, Archer Street Rocherlea from 7.30 pm.
REAST - February 18, 2024 - Annual General and Special General Meeting preceded with a free sausage sizzle from noon and meetings start 1pm at Queens Domain Clubrooms
REAST - March 6, 2024 - Space Junk and Amateur Radio with Mars Buttfield-Addison - from 7:30pm in Queens Domain clubrooms.
REAST - April 3, 2024 - History of UTC and the Leap Second with Peter Pokorny VK2EMR - from 7:30pm in the Queens Domain clubrooms.
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A reminder to those people rostered for next weeks broadcast:
Newsreader: VK7FB
Repeaters: REAST, NTARC and in the NW thanks to N W T A R C, West Coast Radio Group, Cradle Coast Radio Amateur Radio Club, VK7AX, VK7JH and VK7DC
160m: VK7GS
80m: VK7JGD
40m: VK7TW
20m: VK7TPE
10m: VK7VKT
UHFCB24: VK7FMAC
DMR: Talk Group 5 and D-Star: Reflector 91C VK7ZCR
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You can hear this broadcast again on Tuesday night at 8:00pm on repeaters VK7RAA in Northern VK7 and VK7RHT in the South.
A huge thank you to all people and organisations that assisted with this broadcast.
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That concludes our VK7 Amateur Radio News Broadcast for this week.
You have been listening to or have just missed VK7WI. Next week the National WIA news can be heard at 0900 followed by the VK7 Amateur Radio News around 0930 hours.
Items for the broadcast can be emailed to vk7arnews(at)gmail.com
Further information about the broadcast can be found at the VK7 Amateur Radio News Groups.IO Group.
https://groups.io/g/vk7arnews
The deadline for items is 21:00 on Friday prior to the Sunday of the broadcast.
Callbacks will be taken on the frequency to which you are listening. Relay stations will use their own callsigns during the callback.
On behalf of the VK7 Amateur Radio News Team, 73 and stay safe from Rick, VK7FB.
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(Posted to the packet network courtesy Tony VK7AX)
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