Next Project Horus Launch – LaunchBox Payloads – NOW SUNDAY 17th MAY

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Project Horus’s next launch is currently planned for Sunday the 17th of May, with a backup date the following weekend. Launch time is planned for 10AM, with launch crew on-site around 9:15AM.

This flight will be carrying the latest set of LaunchBox student payloads, as part of Fleet Space’s LaunchBox STEM outreach program.

This flight will have the following tracking payloads:

  • Primary: ‘HORUS’ 434.200 MHz
  • Backup: ‘VK5ARG’ 434.210 MHz
  • Wenet Imagery: 443.500 MHz

You can find more information about how to decode this telemetry further below.

This launch is currently planned to be performed from the Mt Barker High School Oval, which is accessible from Stephenson Street, Mt Barker.

Mt Barker Launch Site

TRACKING LINKS

Primary Telemetry – Horus Binary v3 – 434.200 MHz – “HORUS”

Reprogrammed RS41The primary tracking telemetry will be transmitted on 434.200 MHz using the new Horus Binary v3 4FSK data mode.

To receive telemetry, you’ll need either a SSB-capable 70cm receiver (think IC-7100/705/9700, FT-817, etc), or a SDR (e.g. RTLSDR or AirSpy), and some kind of 70cm antenna. Horus Binary is very robust, so it doesn’t take much antenna to receive this telemetry – a small vertical will work just fine!

Our decoding software is available for a range of platforms:

  • Windows / Mac – Horus-GUI – If you’re running Windows or a newer Mac, you can use our ‘Horus-GUI’ telemetry decoder software! Make sure you are on v0.6.0 or newer to decode the Horus Binary v3 telemetry. We have a detailed guide on setting this up, which is available by clicking here!
  • Windows / Mac / Linux / Android / iPhone – WebHorus – On almost any platform (including many mobile phones!) you can also decode the Horus Binary telemetry in a web browser using either audio input, or a RTLSDR (Android / Chrome only) by clicking this link! 
  • Raspberry Pi / Linux – If you have a spare RTLSDR and a Raspberry Pi (or other linux machine), you can set up a dedicated Horus Binary receiving station by following this guide.

Amateurs in the Adelaide and Central SA region are encouraged to get involved with the flight through receiving and uploading flight telemetry from our 70cm band tracking beacons. Every piece of telemetry data is valuable to the flight tracking and recovery teams so if you can help join the distributed receiver network to collect that data you will be making an important contribution to the project!

Backup Telemetry – Horus Binary 434.210 MHz – VK5ARG

A backup tracking payload will be transmitting on 434.210 MHz also using the Horus Binary 4FSK data mode, and can be received in the same way as the primary tracking payload, with information above. For this payload you will need to use a USB ‘dial’ frequency of 434.209 MHz.

Click this link to start up a browser-based receiver:

WebHorus – 434.210 MHz

Wenet Imagery – 443.500 MHz

Imagery on this flight will be transmitted via the Wenet downlink system, which uses 96 kbit/s Frequency-Shift-Keying to send HD snapshots. Reception of the Wenet imagery requires a RTLSDR, and a 70cm antenna with some gain (a 5-element Yagi is usually enough).

We will be using the new ‘Wenet v2’ mode. There is information on updating existing Wenet receive setups available here.

Wenet can now be received on almost any modern computer, and even some newer android devices, using the new WebWenet software! This operates entirely within a web browser. Information on how to get setup to use this is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Euo4BGB6wUU

Click this link to start up a browser-based receiver:

Wenet Web Receiver – 443.5 MHz

Wenet imagery from Horus 62

We encourage new listeners to try out the WebWenet software for decoding signals on this flight – however you can also still receive the signal using the Linux-based decoder, with details on this available here:

https://github.com/projecthorus/wenet/wiki/Wenet-RX-Instructions-(Linux-using-Docker)

During the flight, the live imagery will be available at this link: http://ssdv.habhub.org/

15th May Meeting: I’ve just received by Amateur Licence – what do I do next?

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Are you one of the hundreds of people who have decided now is the time to start your journey into the world of Amateur Radio? We have many newcomers gaining their qualifications every month. Many of those, once they have their licence, take a step back and then ask themselves the question – now where to start gettng my own station on air?

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At our May general meeting, we will have a panel of presenters take you through the process of working out where to begin, what to consider and how to get on the air from your own station.

We will introduce you to the various components you need to consider when getting on air on either the HF or VHF/UHF bands as well as highlight some activities where you can come along and find out more before taking the financial plunge yourself!

The meeting will be held at the Fulham Community Centre, on Phelps Court, Fulham, on Friday May 15th. Doors open at 7.00pm with the presentation starting at 7.30pm.

Visitors are most welcome!

Next Foxhunt: Saturday 4th July 2.00pm – North Park lands (New venue)

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The next AREG foxhunt will be held on Saturday 4th July at 2.00pm, starting from a new location in the north park lands, on Lefevre Road, North Adelaide.

This event has been delayed until June as AREG has a commitment to fly a Horus ballon on the 9th of May, and the June date would have clashed with the National Foxhunting Championships in Mt Gambier.

We look forward to seeing everyone again in July!

AREG’s Entry into the John Moyle Field Day Contest 2026

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During the 2010’s AREG used to regularly enter the John Moyle Field Day contest hosted by the WIA. For various reasons that activity waned in the last 4-5 years. So this year, we felt it was  time to re-enter the event and introduce the next generation of AREG members to domestic field day contesting.

VL5X Portable Hindmarsh Island – Multi-Op SSB Portable

Given this is a “Field Day”, it really needed to be a in the field club activity. That is what puts the “field” into the event after all. This year we were fortunate, through a friend of one of our members, to gain access to a 10 acre plot on Hindmarsh Island, about 90 minutes out of Adelaide. The site, which had a 10-15m hill at the back of the property and a couple of sheds in the middle was perfect and allowed us to spread the antennas out so we could operate a multi-operator station without causing interference between the bands.

Station Antenna Farm

Unique “Quick Deploy” Station experiment

One of the unique tricks used in this contest was Andy VK5AKH’s quick deployment station. He hired a van for the weekend, rolled his portable operating desk inside, loaded it up with gear and away he went. He was on air within an hour of arriving on site supporting our full 40m station.

Powering The Station

We set up three 400W portable contest stations on the site and then proceeded to power them as follows:

We had 3x Honda EU20i generators on site, originally planning that as our base load generation, given this contest did not permit us to use the mains to run the station. However, we also had something new that we had never tried before.

One of our members owns a Geely EX5 electric car. This car was unique in that it came equipped with a 3kW 240 Volt AC inverter, which we could use to draw power from the car’s 61kWh battery! Before the event, we were pretty trepidatious – concerned that the car would generate a lot of RFI and interference across HF. To our very happy surprise, however, the car was as quiet as a church mouse. In the end, we ran 2 of the three stations on the car inverter for the whole event. In the process, we invented a new unit of electrical consumption – “equivalent kilometres”. The two stations connected to the car, each with their respective 400W linear amplifiers, used a total of 65km worth of electricity. Not bad given the car has 410km of road range. This really does open up a whole new world for field day contesting into the future!

VL5X On The Air

As for operating the contest, we had a great turnout of operators, with VK5AKH, VK5QI, VK5FLY, VK5DUG, VK5VC, VK5FJ, VK5IR, VK5GR, VK5MN, VK5CIA. We also had a great roster of volunteers who helped construct and support the station including VK5ZM, VK5BX, VK5AG, VK5ZQV, VK5SAW, VK5KX, VK5AOK and others plus we had visits from Sue VK5AYL and David VK5ZL who were also interested to see what we were up to here at AREG.

We had operators as young as 10 yrs old (Douglas VK5DUG supported by dad Louis VK5FLY) right through to some in their mid 70s who remembered the John Moyle field day from a decade ago and wanted to come back and have another go. It was great to see them all getting into the spirit of the contest.

The crew was well looked after as well with support from Michael VK5MN who managed the catering and Jeremy VK5CIA who provided the bathroom facilities from his holiday home nearby. All the little things that become big issues when you are out in the field!

Thanks to Theo VK5IR, we also have a short film showing the setup including a few more details about the car we used to power the station and showing some of the on air activity including young Douglas VK5DUG who operated for us on several bands.

So how did we go?

Results are not out yet, but we were pretty happy with our score. We had the station manned for 22 of the 24hrs of the contest, and due to the lack of contestants during the night spent at least 2 hours calling with no answers. None the less, a great time was had by everyone. We look forward now to seeing the results and discussing what we might try next year!

Foxhunting today! 2pm Victoria Park Wetlands

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A reminder that the next foxhunt run by the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will be run at 2pm today, starting with a foot based hunt around the Victoria Park Wetlands in the south park lands in the City, off Beaumont Road via South Terrace.

A vehicle based hunt will follow starting from ~3pm on both the 146 and 438 MHz amateur bands.

Fox hunts are now run monthly on the 1st Saturday of the month and are open to everyone to participate in. We hope to see you there!

 

Project Horus 70A/B Report – Test & Tune Flights

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Horus flights 70A & 70B were ‘test & tune’ flights, giving receiving stations a chance to update their decoding software to receive our new ‘Horus Binary v3’ telemetry mode. These were run on the 15th and 29th of March, with just a single tracking payload flown on each launch.

Horus 70A – 15th March 2026

This was the first of the test & tune flights, launched at 10:30AM on a nice calm and sunny day at Mt Barker.

Waiting for launch!

The payload on this flight was a single Vaisala RS41-SGE radiosonde, reprogrammed with the RS41ng open-source firmware. A Hwoyee 200g balloon was used, with a slow ascent rate targeting around 23-34km burst altitude – we ended up achieving a burst of 28.7km! The payload landed in a paddock approximately 15km to the north of Lameroo.

We had a great turnout of receivers on this flight, with 34 stations uploading telemetry for the new Horus Binary v3 mode. These were as follows:

AX5AA, BARC_4, Gum, VK3BQ, VK5AI, VK5AKK, VK5ALG, VK5APR, VK5ARG, VK5BL, VK5CV, VK5DSP, VK5GY, VK5HS/p, VK5HW, VK5KX, VK5LN, VK5NEX, VK5OCD, VK5OI, VK5PJ, VK5QI-9, VK5SFA/R, VK5ST, VK5ZAR, VK5ZM, VK5ZMD, VK5ZMK, VK5ZTS, VK5RK, VK5IS, webhorus-jms, webhorus-jyyrhv, webhorus-p9zuu5

Horus 70A Receiving Stations (Green dots)

The longest received distance was to Andrew VK3BQ with a range of 529km, and the last packet was received by Ivan VK5HS at 113km range, both excellent efforts!

A dashboard for the flight is available by clicking here.

Horus 70B – 29th March 2026

Another calm launch day! This time around we used a smaller 100g balloon, targeting about 20km altitude. The payload was also a re-programmed Vaisala RS41 radiosonde, however this time it was modified to run off a single AA battery. This reduces the runtime to < 8 hours, but also reduces the payload mass to less than 40 grams!

Horus 70B just before release.

We ended up with a slow flight tracking north from the Mt Barker launch site, ascending to 23825m before bursting and landing north of Kersbrook.

Screengrab of the Sondehub-Amateur tracker during the flight, showing many receiving stations

We had a great round up of receiving stations, with 34 unique callsigns contributing to the tracking effort! It was also great to see a few new callsigns on the list compare to the previous flight. The full list of receiving stations is as follows:

BARC_RRR, Gum, MILEEND, VK5AKK-H, VK5AKK-V, VK5ALG, VK5ALG Mac ,VK5APR, VK5ARG, VK5BL, VK5CV, VK5DSP, VK5FLY, VK5GA, VK5HS/p, VK5HW, VK5KX, VK5LN, VK5NEX, VK5OCD, VK5OI, VK5QI-1, VK5QI-9, VK5ST, VK5ZAP, VK5ZBI, VK5ZM, VK5ZMD, VK5ZTS, VK5RK, vk5is, vk5st-991, vk5zts-1, webhorus-p9zuu5

The longest reception on this flight was by Michael VK5LN in Pt Lincoln, at a range of 285km – great work Michael!

A dashboard for this flight is available by clicking here.

Next Project Horus Launches

Thanks to everyone that updated their tracking software and received these launches! We’re now much more confident in being able to move to Horus Binary v3 telemetry on our upcoming flights – having tracking redundancy through the many home stations receiving our flights really helps in ensuring they can be safely tracked and recovered.

Our next launch is planned to occur on Sunday the 26th of April, with a backup date on Sunday the 3rd of May. We are also expecting to perform a launch in mid to late May as part of the LaunchBox program. More details on these launches should be release in the next few weeks!

AREG April 17th Meeting – Software Defined Radio for Radio Amateurs

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Modern amateur radio is changing rapidly, and Software Defined Radio (SDR) is at the centre of that change. Many amateurs already own an SDR — or use one indirectly — but few have had the chance to understand how it actually works or why it feels so different from traditional radios.

This upcoming lecture will provide a plain‑language introduction to SDR, aimed specifically at amateur radio operators, not engineers or programmers.

Rather than focusing on mathematics or theory, the talk will explain SDR concepts using familiar radio ideas: receivers, mixers, filters, IF stages, and transmitters — and show how these functions are now being done in software instead of hardware.

Topics will include:

  • What “software defined” really means in a radio
  • Why SDRs can see so much spectrum at once
  • The role of analogue‑to‑digital converters and why bit‑depth matters
  • Why some SDRs are better at weak‑signal work than others
  • How modern SDRs replace IF strips with digital processing
  • What limits SDR transmit power and why filtering still matters
  • How SDRs are used by amateurs, researchers, and modern networks

The lecture will also touch on GNU Radio, the most widely used SDR software framework, explaining what it does and why it has become so important — without requiring any programming knowledge.

Whether you are:

  • Curious about SDR but unsure where to start
  • Using an SDR “black box” and want to understand what’s inside
  • Interested in digital modes, weak‑signal work, or experimentation
  • Wondering how modern radios differ from classic superhets

…this session is designed to demystify SDR and connect it back to the radio principles amateurs already know.

No prior SDR experience is required — just an interest in radio.

So when are where is this event? AREG meets at the Fulham Community Centre, off Phelps Court, in Fulham, Adelaide. Doors open at 7.00pm, Friday 17th April.

This month the meeting will begin with a short Special General Meeting to address a minor change to the group’s constitution, followed by the presentation which will likely start around 7.45pm.

For our regional members, the meeting will, as usual, also be interactively streamed via Zoom. If you are a regional amateur and are interested in finding out a little more about AREG, guest passes are available to our Zoom meetings on request. Please contact our secretary – via vk5arg@areg.org.au