Author Archives: Grant

AREG Handheld ARDF Picnic – 12:00pm Saturday January 9th

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VK5ZM hunting 2m “Foxes” in 2019

The next AREG hosted fox hunt is planned to be an ARDF “hand held – on foot” style event held in Drage Park / Riverside Park, in Felixtow, just 6km north east of the city centre (near the Kelmzig O-Bahn bus interchange). Members and visitors are welcome to join us in the park from 12.00pm, Saturday 9th January 2021.

AREG will deploy a minimum of 5 beacon transmitters on the 2m amateur band (144MHz). The challenge will be to see who can find all of them the fastest!

To participate, you will need to do a SA MyGov COVID Checkin with us at the start, and ideally bring along your 2m (144MHz) direction finding antennas and receivers. We will do timed staggered starts and you will be free to hunt the transmitters in any order you like!

For those who dont have any equipment, take a look at (this design) by NT1K! It is very simple and quick to put together! Add a variable attenuator and a receiver and you are away!

For those who aren’t sure, AREG is hoping to have at least 1 or 2 loan sets of gear available, based on the very popular VK3YNG sniffer receivers, or we can arrange to buddy you up with one of the club members who do have equipment so you can get a first taste of fox hunting ARDF style.

For those not into fox hunting, but who would like to gather and welcome in 2021 with all of us at AREG, we are also promoting this event as the AREG Summer BYO Picnic for 2021.

This will be a COVID Safe event with family groups spread out across the banks of the Torrens to observe social distancing requirements. AREG has picked this location as it has lots of amenities for all of the family. There are public BBQs, a kids playground and public toilets in the area as well as ample parking in the Drage Reserve car park. The marshaling check-in point will be marked with AREG Flags and will be located on the south side of the river Torrens near the Riverside Park western BBQ area (west of the play ground closest to the Drage Reserve Car Park).

We will also endeavor to have someone monitor the VK5RSB 70cm repeater on 439.900 (91.5Hz CTCSS access tone) to help guide anyone in who is having problems finding us.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Project Horus: Test flight towards VK3 – SUCCESS!

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UPDATE: Flight a success! 

Thanks to all that helped track the flight today! The tiny payload travelled over 550km from the launch site in Adelaide, to land near a piggery just outside Bendigo. Hopefully it gets recovered soon!
RS41 PowerSave Test Flight PAth
I recorded the following callsigns decoding telemetry:
AXB2035 (SWL), VK3AGD, VK3BQ, VK3EEK, VK3GP, VK3JED, VK3KZM, VK3NCC, VK3OF, VK3OHM, VK3TPM, VK3TWC, VK3WRE, VK3ZPF, VK5DJ, VK5EI, VK5HS, VK5IS, VK5KX, VK5LJG, VK5MAS, VK5MCA, VK5NTM, VK5PE, VK5QI, VK5RK, VK5ST, VK5TRM
… also a special mention to N0CALL, who received 154 packets.
RS41 PowerSave Test Flight
Thanks to all that setup the decoding software – one of the aims of this flight was to get more people setup to decode telemetry from these payloads, and get feedback from users to help improve it. There are a few groups in Melbourne that are planning on using the same kind of telemetry, so more listeners in VK3 able to decode will make their flights even safer.
73 and cheers,
Mark VK5QI

Tomorrow at ~9AM ACDT VK5QI is going to launch a lightweight (<40g) balloon with a 70cm 4FSK transmitter onboard. This is a test of some software updates to the 4FSK transmitter payload (a reprogrammed RS41) to improve the battery life. There will be ~30 second gaps between telemetry transmissions, with short ‘pips’ every 5 seconds so you know you are on the right frequency!

The transmit frequency is still subject to change but will most likely be 434.200 MHz. (Note that this is different to our usual Horus 4FSK frequency of 434.660 MHz – this is because there are a few 70cm repeaters in Melbourne with inputs near this range).

With a bit of luck this one should make it into VK3, and reach an altitude of ~23km or so. This should make it receivable from western Victoria, and likely from Melbourne too.

If you want to have a go receiving the telemetry from this flight, you’ll need a SSB-capable 70cm receiver (or a SDR), and my horus-GUI telemetry decoder software ( https://github.com/projecthorus/horus-gui ).

A brief guide on setting this up is available here: https://github.com/projecthorus/horusdemodlib/wiki/1.1-Horus-GUI-Reception-Guide-(Windows-Linux-OSX)

Note that this flight is going to head east *very* quickly, and may go out of range of Adelaide receivers during the flight. If you know anyone in VK3 who might be able to receive this please forward on this information!

Tracking of the flight is available via the following link: https://tracker.sondehub.org/?sondehub=1#!mt=osm&mz=8&qm=6_hours&mc=-35.40036,140.03814&f=HORUSBINARY&q=HORUSBINARY

Next AREG Meeting: A Virtual Christmas Party – Friday December 18th

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Merry Christmas everyone from the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group!

We have finally made it to the end of 2020 and what an unprecedented  year it has been! To draw a line under this year’s events, we are inviting our members to gather online this Friday night for a Christmas Chat on Zoom, hosted by our president, Matt VK5ZM. Bring your glass and share some cheer as we all start planning for 2021.

The Zoom session will open at 7.45pm ACDT (8.15pm AEDT, 7.15pm QST) and will last as long as the merriment prevails!

AREG will resume meeting in person in January and has some events in the wings for the fox hunters as well as a club picnic being planned.

Stay safe everyone and we wish you a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year for 2021!

Friday Foxhunts: Next Adelaide hunt 11th December 6.30pm

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On Friday 14th of November, three hunters set out to locate the two foxes that were hidden by Theo, VK5IR. The hunters were Mark, VK5QI, Louis, VK5FLY and Allan, VK5MAD. The first fox was hidden low in a tree at Victoria Park, south of the CBD and the second fox was stuck to the flying fox at a playground in St Clare, next to the St Clare Recreation Centre.

Both Mark and Louis were successful in locating the fox at St Clare and this was really a job well done as this fox only outputs 100mW so was very hard to hear. Mark was also successful in locating the other fox at Victoria Park which he found first before setting off for the low power fox. Unfortunately Allan had radio issues and called it a night early but has vowed to return for the next hunt.

The next hunt is planned for the evening of Friday the 11th of December and with hunters meeting at Lockleys Oval, Rutland Avenue Lockleys from 6.15pm and the hunt will commence at 6.30pm. Everyone is welcome to join in and we hope to see you there.

 

AREG November Meeting ONLINE: Thanks to Ham Radio DX!

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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:

  • 7:45pm ACDT (South Australia)
  • 7:15pm QST (Queensland)
  • 8:15pm AEDT (New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania)
  • 6:45pm ACST (Northern Territory)
  • 5:15pm AWST (Western Australia)
  • 9:15hrs UTC

 

AREG Activating SES VK20HOME as VK5 enters hard lockdown

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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.

AREG November Meeting now exclusively online

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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!

VK5RWN DSTAR – We’re Back!

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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!

  • VK5RWN 2m 147.0375 +600kHz
  • VK5RWN 70cm 438.400 -5.4MHz

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.