The next AREG meeting will be held on Friday the 15th of September at the Fulham Community Centre – Phelps Court, Fulham, with doors opening at 7:15 PM, and the presentation kicking off at 7:45 PM. Everyone is welcome!
This month’s presentation will be from Michaela VK3FUR, on how they utilised Amateur Radio during their trip across outback Western Australia in 2022.
If you’ve never come along to one of our meetings, we’d love to see you there, all guests are welcome. For our remote members, the meeting will be broadcast via Zoom, and we’ll also be broadcasting live on YouTube, on Hayden VK7HH’s HamRadioDX channel.
After the talks we’ll all be given an opportunity to have an eyeball QSO among ourselves whilst enjoying a tea or coffee and a biscuit.
AREGs next car-based fox hunt will be held this coming Friday the 8th of September, starting from the car park of the North Adelaide Aquatic Centre Carpark at 6:30 PM. We’ll have three foxes deployed around the Adelaide area, on both the 2m and 70cm bands, so come along and have a go!
The frequencies will be:
145.300 MHz (1W transmit power)
144.390 MHz (100mW transmit power)
439.400 MHz (50mW transmit power)
As usual, liaison will be on the VK5RSB Summertown 70cm repeater which operates on 439.900 (-5MHz) 91.5 CTCSS. Please come up on the repeater so we know how you are faring throughout the evening!
The event is open to anyone with radio direction finding equipment and will cover a ~5km radius from the start location. We would love to see you there!
Horus 60 was launched on the 20th of August 2023 as part of AREG’s 25th Anniversary celebrations, and featured our popular SSTV imagery payload along with a new high-quality Wenet imagery payload and other experimental payloads.
On this launch we had Geordie VK3CLR along for the chase, who put together a great video of the day’s activities, and tells the tale better than I could write it up here!
Thanks again to Geordie for producing this!
A dashboard showing telemetry from the flight is available here, and the main statistics from the flight are shown in the following table:
Horus 60 Flight Statistics
Launch Date:
2023-08-20T00:22:27.000000Z
Landing Date:
2023-08-20T02:35:26.000000Z
Launch Site:
-35.07586, 138.85677
Landing Site:
-35.34007, 139.67903
Distance Travelled:
80 km
Maximum Altitude:
35407 m
Horus 60 Flight Path
SSTV Payload Results
The SSTV payload produced excellent imagery throughout the flight, though unfortunately we had a GPS fault again (likely due to interference from an adjacent payload), so no position/altitude overlays were shown on the images.
Images were received from many people around the Central SA area, with submissions for the SSTV reception certificate from: VK5KVA, VK5KX, VK5ST, VK5ZBI, VK5AV, VK5MA, VK5CLD, VK3FUR/5 and VK5ZM. If you received imagery from the flight, please email us at vi25areg@areg.org.au to get your certificate!
Horus 60 SSTV Reception Certificate Sample
Wenet HQ Imagery Payload
Horus 60 also had the first flight of a new Wenet imagery payload, this time utilising a PiCamera HQ and a large lens, promising much higher quality imagery than we’ve captured previously.
While previous attempts at using higher quality optics have had issues with defocusing in cold temperatures, on this flight the camera performed perfectly, with some of the best quality imagery we’ve seen from a Horus launch in a very long time!
As per tradition, just before packing up the Wenet payload, the chase team took a group photo near the landing site:
The chase team: Mark VK5QI, Drew VK5CLD, Will VK5AHV, Michaela VK3FUR and Geordie VK3CLR
Thanks to all that helped receive the Wenet imagery:
The more receivers we have during a flight, the higher chance we have of obtaining clear imagery for live display on ssdv.habhub.org!
Primary Telemetry Reception – VI25AREG
For this flight, the primary telemetry payload used the VI25AREG callsign, and performed flawlessly (as we always hope it will!). We had many receivers on this flight, with statistics on who received how many packets in the following table:
Callsign
Received Packets
Percentage of Flight Received
First-Received Altitude (m)
Last-Received Altitude (m)
BARC-RRR
1777
95.8%
664
255
VK3APJ
270
14.6%
11495
6738
VK3BKQ
362
19.5%
26022
27416
VK3IRV
61
3.3%
31868
34503
VK3TNU
714
38.5%
8354
9180
VK5ALG
1446
78.0%
864
6738
VK5AMH
1693
91.3%
1731
964
VK5APR
1590
85.8%
1240
6700
VK5ARG
1760
94.9%
477
911
VK5BD
1371
73.9%
5518
6738
VK5CLD
235
12.7%
2399
34005
VK5CLD-9
1516
81.8%
342
22
VK5DJ
662
35.7%
9784
24529
VK5DSP-hab
624
33.7%
25743
6700
VK5IS
1682
90.7%
723
3247
VK5KX
1580
85.2%
1240
22
VK5KX-9
1437
77.5%
8955
70
VK5LN
1102
59.4%
11683
7329
VK5NEX
1529
82.5%
964
6738
VK5QI-9
1348
72.7%
339
16031
VK5RK
1078
58.1%
1661
29780
VK5RR-VK5FO
435
23.5%
14763
6700
VK5ST-4
1466
79.1%
3146
6816
VK5TRM
1597
86.1%
1587
1018
VK5ZBI
1585
85.5%
1220
6777
VK5ZQV
797
43.0%
15601
6777
vk5mhz
546
29.4%
3761
24970
Thanks to all that received!
Radiation Sensor Payload – HORUSRADMON
This payload was added on somewhat last-minute, and included a photo-diode-based radiation sensor, with the aim of investigating gamma ray levels throughout the flight, similar to what has been performed on previous flights.
Horus 60 Radiation Sensor Results
As expected, the radiation count increased throughout the ascent, before falling again above 20km altitude due the Regener-Pfotzer Maximum effect. Some noise was observed on the sensor just after burst, likely due to the turbulence from the initial fast descent.
Thanks to everyone that received telemetry from this payload, even with the short notice of it’s inclusion in the flight!
Callsign
Received Packets
Percentage of Flight Received
First-Received Altitude (m)
Last-Received Altitude (m)
BARC-RRR
899
91.7%
609
189
VK3BKQ
4
0.4%
34806
35038
VK5ALG
663
67.7%
1092
6727
VK5ALG-9
428
43.7%
8449
76
VK5APR
791
80.7%
1218
6804
VK5ARG
862
88.0%
507
1209
VK5CLD-9
707
72.1%
347
16
VK5DJ
320
32.7%
27784
6727
VK5DSP-hab
314
32.0%
26216
6727
VK5KX-9
715
73.0%
9012
76
VK5QI-9
676
69.0%
346
16113
VK5RK
284
29.0%
30131
6644
VK5ST-4
788
80.4%
2846
2375
VK5TRM
765
78.1%
1762
1264
vk5mhz
19
1.9%
2804
3471
Helium Tracker Payload
This flight also saw a new LoRaWAN payload from Liam VK5ALG, which was received via the Helium Network using the 923 MHz ISM band. On this flight the furthest reception report was from a station in Peterborough, at approximately 250km range. Future flights of this will use a higher gain antenna, and we hope to see even higher reception ranges.
We hope to have positions from this payload showing up on the SondeHub-Amateur tracker on future launches!
Conclusion
A big thanks to everyone that participated in this launch, from those that came along to the launch site, chased, or received telemetry and imagery from home!
We hope to perform a few more flights later this year, including the return of a cross-band repeater payload!
Our VI25AREG Special Event QSL Card is now off to the printers. QSL cards will be available for ordering via our QSL Manager, Charles M0OXO.
The callsign still has 12 days to run and will conclude on 31st August 2023!
Cards can be requested using the Online QSL Request Service (OQRS) which offers options for both direct QSLs as well as via the Bureau. Note: We will only distribute cards via the M0OXO OQRS service. You can access the service via the following link:
Here are some pictures from our BBQ and Parks activity day. We had HF, Foxhunting and more with many of the club members participating either through being there or contacting VI25AREG on the air!
Folks, did you know about the VI25AREG special event certificate of achievement? AREG is offering a special digital certificate to any amateur radio operator who can provide evidence (ADIF log is fine) of contact with the callsign on three different transmission modes!
The next AREG meeting will be held on Friday the 18th of August at the Fulham Community Centre – Phelps Court, Fulham, with doors opening at 7:15 PM, and the presentation kicking off at 7:45 PM. Everyone is welcome!
This month’s presentation will be from Dave Neudegg, with the title ‘Ionosphere 101’. Dave will give us a run-down on how the Ionosphere works and gives us the ability to communicate worldwide via HF radio!
Ionosphere F2-Layer Critical Frequency Map, from the Australian Space Weather Service
If you’ve never come along to one of our meetings, we’d love to see you there, all guests are welcome. For our remote members, the meeting will be broadcast via Zoom, and we’ll also be broadcasting live on YouTube, on Hayden VK7HH’s HamRadioDX channel:
After the talks we’ll all be given an opportunity to have an eyeball QSO among ourselves whilst enjoying a tea or coffee and a biscuit.
AREGs next car-based fox hunt will be held this coming Friday the 11th of August, starting from the car park of the North Adelaide Aquatic Centre Carpark at 6:30 PM. We’ll have three foxes deployed around the Adelaide area, on both the 2m and 70cm bands, so come along and have a go!
The frequencies will be:
145.300 MHz (1W transmit power)
144.390 MHz (100mW transmit power)
439.400 MHz (50mW transmit power)
As usual, liaison will be on the VK5RSB Summertown 70cm repeater which operates on 439.900 (-5MHz) 91.5 CTCSS. Please come up on the repeater so we know how you are faring throughout the evening!
The event is open to anyone with radio direction finding equipment and will cover a ~5km radius from the start location. We would love to see you there!