AREG would like to thank Hayden VK7HH for streaming our Friday night (20th November) presentation on FM Radio DXing by Andrew VK5LA to amateurs across the globe via the Ham Radio DX Channel. You can watch the stream here!
Times:
COVID-19 has struck the Adelaide 
area hard and our state government’s response has been swift. The state of South Australia has entered what could only be described as a “CRASH STOP” lock-down for 6 days starting tonight. No one is allowed outside their property except to get food and other essentials as the authorities work to stop a COVID-19 cluster from getting out of control.
AREG members, who will be locked in their homes, will take to the airwaves and activate the WIA’s special event call sign VK20HOME to mark some of the harshest lockdown restrictions seen in Australia since the start of the pandemic.
Look for activity on multiple bands and modes from tonight until the 26th of November by AREG members across the state.
COVID-19 has made an unwelcome reappearance here in Adelaide. As a result, the state government has tonight mandated that all COVID-Safe events (which includes our in person meetings) have been cancelled for the next 2 weeks.
The AREG meeting will now take place exclusively online on Friday night. Members will have access via Zoom while Non-Members will be still able to view the livestream on Youtube.
Links and details will be made available shortly!
We are pleased to report that thanks to the hard work of our dedicated volunteers, in this case Matt VK5ZM, Ben VK5BB and Bob VK5FO, we have completed the cut-over to our new Internet link!
The VK5RWN D*STAR repeater has been reconnected to the internet as has the Weather Sonde receive station. The VK5RWN D*STAR Gateway is active and hotspot users should also be able to connect again to our host server.
(Note: Hot spot users may have to wait a few days to allow the Host Files to update VK5RWN’s IP address. It is also recommended that hot spot users log into their hot spots and force an update to the Host Files).
AREG has now moved to a new internet provider. We would like to thank Phil and Christine at Kern Internet for their help in re-configuring the on site router!
Other Dash Boards associated with VK5RWN are also back online, including the registration page and user access to their accounts.
(You may need to allow a security exception to access the pages the first time you log in via the vk5rwn.areg.org.au.)
Adelaide D*STAR users who are not already members of AREG are encouraged to join our group or make a yearly donation to our running costs, to support the D*STAR system here in Adelaide.
We hope you enjoy our return to service!
Note if there are users in Adelaide that want to experiment with the 1.2GHz ports, please contact us and AREG can look at re-activating them. They were disabled originally after they sat idle for 2 years consuming power for no reason. If interest in D*STAR on 1.2GHz returns we can turn them on again.
As D-Star users in Adelaide will be aware, the club’s VK5RWN repeater has been disconnected from the Internet for several weeks now. This is due to AREG needing to change internet provider, coupled with installing a new microwave link to the site. This also created downstream problems with the LAN design and router configs at VK5RWN. We are happy to report that we have now made some good progress, with the link to our new provider Kern-WiFi successfully commissioned.
We are not out of the woods yet however. Running multiple 24×7 services on the live internet while making sure the site is not open to hostile online attacks is not a trivial exercise. It is taking us longer than originally hoped, to secure the new connection and re-open all of the services from VK5RWN (including the BOM Balloon tracking station and the DSTAR repeater). With luck, that should be done in the next 7 to 10 days (after the Oceania DX Contest is complete this weekend).
Stay tuned for further updates! Meanwhile, local D-STAR contacts are still possible via the VK5RWN over the air on 147.0375MHz (+600kHz) and 438.4MHz (-5.4MHz).
The next meeting of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will be held on Friday October 16th, starting at 7.30pm. Doors open from 7.15pm at the Fulham Community Centre, Phelps Court, Fulham.
This meeting will be a little different in format. We will first open with a standard business meeting. Following that, members are encouraged to bring along something radio related that they have been tinkering with since the COVID-19 lock downs began to show what you have been up to this past 6 months.
Tables will be set up around the hall, and rather than having to stand up and give a presentation, you can instead sit on your table and discuss what you have been working on with anyone who wonders by. (Hopefully this will encourage a few less confident speakers to still bring along what they have been working on). It may be a project, an antenna, a new radio or in fact anything at all provided it has some link to Amateur Radio!
The aim – to share your fun projects, or to present your problems in a way that others can come along and admire your handiwork or give you a hand or a helpful suggestion.
We will (hopefully) be able to have a roving Zoom terminal as well so that the remote members can also join in. Stay tuned for details of that one!
At the very least, it will give us all a chance to have more face to face discussion time given the complete lack of that over the past 6 months. Visitors are welcome to attend the hall, but will be required to sign in with their contact details in line with the COVID-19 Marshall requirements.
We hope to see you all there!
Calling all contesters – help the Oceania DX Contest celebrate it’s 75th year!
First established in 1934 and earlier known as the VK/ZL contest, the Oceania DX Contest continues to grow. Please join us here in Oceania from all over the world for the 75th running of our international HF radio activity over the first two weekends of October.
PHONE: 06:00 UTC Saturday 3rd Oct to 06:00 UTC Sunday 4th Oct 2020
CW: 06:00 UTC Saturday 10th Oct to 06:00 UTC Sunday 11th Oct 2020
NOTE: New Start times!
See www.oceaniadxcontest.com for the latest version of the rules and list of plaques.
The Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will be running again this year as VK5ARG in a Multi-Multi entry in the PHONE contest this weekend. Our station is a large portable effort, constructed over the past 2 weeks at our remote contesting site (~100km north of Adelaide , the capital city of VK5). We would love to get you in our logs and will be looking for contacts on all bands from 160m to 10m.
Members who have never contested before and those that just like to come for the view and to socialize are asked to let the president know you are coming for catering purposes. We will then let you know the protocols for accessing the site (which is locked away on remote farmland). If you want to operate the station, please make sure you have registered with Matt VK5ZM who is coordinating the roster.
The OCDX Committee have advised that there are a number of new plaques on offer this year thanks to their generous sponsors. Here are the new ones available for 2020:
Everyone is encouraged to have a go and submit a log, even if you only make one or two QSOs, so the contest organisers can verify these QSOs when calculating the final scores for all entrants. Upload your log via http://www.oceaniadxcontest.com/html/enter.html .
Oceania DX Contest Committee (ZL3GA, VK3GK, VK3MI/ZL1AZE, VK3TZ, VK4FH, VK4QS, VK7GN, YB0NDT)
This year AREG has a keen sub-group of members who enjoy contesting. So much so we have named September 25 through October 26 Contesting Month! During this time the club is going to be active in three major contests, CQ WW RTTY, Oceania DX SSB and CW WW SSB.
This weekend is the RTTY contest and VK5ARG is on are calling CQ on all bands from 80 through 15m (and 10m if conditions work) . We operate on a farm about 100km north of Adelaide and build the station as a portable setup each year. (One day we hope to make it more permanent). The weather so far has severely hampered preparations this year, which meant that most of the antennas couldn’t be erected until the day of the contest (when we had the wind drop for the first time in 2 weeks). As of now, we are closing in on the half way mark of the contact target we set for the event.
We are running two Elecraft / Microham based stations, manned by VK5GR, VK5FR, VK5LA, VK5AKH, VK5ZQV, VK5ZM and VK5FJ. We had help from VK5SFA, VK5ANV, VK5FDEN, VK5JG, VK5KX, VK5XDX and VK5PH over 2 days to build the station as well!
It has been great to see the club members come together and work on a common project like this. I know we will also greatly appreciate not having to do the complete build for OCDX the day before the contest this year!
The antennas consist of a tri-band Spiderbeam for 20-10m, a 40m 4-square array (used last on the A35JT DXpedition) and an 80/160m Inverted L.
Keep watching for more news as we progress through the contest!