Author Archives: VK5GR

VK5ARG in the Trans-Tasman Low Band Challenge Contest 2018

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Another TT-Lowband contest has come and gone and this year AREG has set a new personal best score! A huge thanks to everyone who came along and operated, helped set up or sat in the bleechers cheering us on. A huge thanks to Steve VK5SFA who allowed us to setup a 3 seat Multi-Multi station in his home covering all three bands. Steve also fed the team (the BBQ was excellent) and kept us plied with copious quantities of coffee! The unofficial final score was 5360 points for 280 QSOs over the 6 hour event. We now eagerly await the official results.

The Station

The setup consisted of the following:

160m – 2 turn Magnetic Loop Antenna (which is barely 5kHz wide and difficult to tune in hunt and peck mode – much easier when we were running)

80m – we had a choice of 2 antennas – an Inverted V with it’s apex at ~9m above ground as an NVIS antenna and an 80m monopole which worked better for the longer paths such as ZL.

40m – we had a rotatory dipole as part of Steve’s SteppIR  Beam

The transceivers this time it was an all ICOM affair with:

An IC7600 and SPE-1.3KFA Amp on 40m,

An IC7610 and Elecraft KPA500 on 80m

An IC7700 and an AMCOM1000 on 160m

All stations were running 400W PEP simultaneously thanks to a set of 500W rated filters from Low Band Systems loaned to us by Peter VK5KX (thanks Pete!).

The Team

We had a great turnout from the club with lots of people contributing. Thanks must be given to Grant VK5GR, Mark VK5QI and Andrew VK5AKH who together with Steve provided the station equipment. Chris VK5FR also helped with installation on the day. We were also visited by Ben VK5BB and Olga VK5FOLG whom we are trying to recruit as future contest operators – great to see you drop by!

The operating team then consisted of Theo VK5MTM, Darin VK5IX, Steve VK5SFA, Grant VK5GR, Mark VK5QI, Andrew VK5AKH. Between the 6 of us we kept all three stations manned running CW and SSB for the full 6 hours – a fantastic result.

We also had Matthew VK5ZM and his son Daniel along with Darin’s son Cameron and Steve’s wife Linda as the cheer squad. It was all most pleasant being able to sit in the lounge chairs with the contestors going hard at it all around us. A fantastic atmosphere and a great night.

The Contest

So how did it go? 80m was the stand out band of the evening with it generating the majority of the contacts. 40m was great early on but once the sun set across the contest area the band filled up with stations from across the Pacific with the hum of several other contests running at the same time. Unfortunately the TT Low Band contest doesn’t allow you to log calls from other than VK & ZL so 40m became very hard going later in the evening. 160m saw a steady stream of signals throughout the night and was a lot of fun, although challenging to work search and pounce as it would take 2-3 minutes to change even 5kHz in frequency to call someone new on SSB.

All up the following map tells the tale of where we managed to work in the contest

Map processed through tools.adventureradio.de/analyzer/

Conclusion

Overall it was a great night and this year has cemented this as a regular fixture in the club’s contesting calendar! We now eagerly look forward to the results to see how we did!

Next Meeting: AGM + IT Security in the Shack – do you know who’s watching?

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The next meeting of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will be held on Friday July 20th 2018, at the Fulham Community Centre, Phelps Court, Fulham. Doors open at 7.45pm for an 8.00pm start.

This will be the clubs Annual General Meeting. More importantly, it marks the 20th anniversary of the formation of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group! Cake and refreshments will be served befitting our 20 year history!

At the meeting all positions will be declared vacant and the elections for 2018/19 will be held. Come along and join us in celebrating this milestone achievement for the club!

“IT Security in the Shack – do you know who’s watching?”

Our special guest presenter for the evening is Derek VK5TCP who will be talking with us about  IT security and what the risks really are!

Derek is a director of  a specialist cyber security group called CyberOps and has greater than 30 years expereince in IT and business risk.

He will cover:

  • How The Cyber Security Landscape Is Changing?
  • What the criminals are getting up to?
  • What are your risks at home?
  • Hardware hacking tools, techniques and devices.
  • What does a penetration test involve and what does it find?
  • How can I protect my own Internet connected devices?
  • Where can I find the best practice guides?

In this modern era where everyone has more IT infrastructure around them than they perhaps even realize, the importance of IT security can not be under estimated. This fascinating talk will at the very least arm you with knowledge and tools you can use to safeguard your own online activities.

Where to find us?

Everyone is most welcome to attend! You can find us at 1 Phelps Court, Fulham in the Fulham Community Centre (formerly known as the Reedbeds Community Centre).

 

AREG June Meeting tomorrow night!

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The June meeting of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will be held Friday June 15th, starting at 7.45pm. There will be no formal presentation this month. Instead, after the business meeting to be held at 8.00pm there will be an opportunity for a members show and tell.

Bring along your latest gadget and give people a chance to look and see!

The meeting will be held at the Fulham Community Centre, off Phelps Court, Fulham. Hope to see you there!

New FreeDV 700D HF Digital Voice Mode

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Many amateurs are experimenting with various digital voice modes, such as Yaesu System Fusion C4FM, D-STAR and DMR etc, mostly on the VHF and UHF bands. Did you know, however that there is also a digital voice mode for HF radio operation that was specifically designed by amateur radio experimenters?

FreeDV, based on a fully open source codec known as Codec2, has been created by David Rowe VK5DGR in collaboration with a team spread across the globe.

FreeDV is enabling amateur radio enthusiasts to experiment with new open source digital based voice transmission techniques on the High Frequency (HF) bands.  While text based HF digital modes are common, FreeDV is the first new VOICE mode for HF since SSB was introduced in the 1950s and 60s.

New version of FreeDV – 700D announced

Over the past 18 months or more, David and his team have been busy working to improve the lower bit rate versions of FreeDV. The original system, released as FreeDV 1600, was based on a 1600bits/sec data stream, but was a few dB off being equal with SSB. Now, David is pleased to announce that the new FreeDV 700D mode is ready for wider trials.This new version uses a 700 bit/s speech voice codec, powerful forward error correction, and a new modem to send digital speech over HF radios.

What is really exciting however is that testing of FreeDV 700D has demonstrated that it is outperforming SSB on poor channels! Here is a demo of SSB, followed by FreeDV 700D, on a poor quality 3,200 km path between Adelaide and the Bay of Islands, in New Zealand.

Where can I get it?

You can run FreeDV using any PC set up for digital modes, using the FreeDV 1.3 GUI program, which you can download from freedv.org.

Where can I find FreeDV activity?

Australian FreeDV activity is typically on 7.177 and 14.236 MHz. You can also coordinate FreeDV QSOs using the FreeDV QSO finder at qso.freedv.org

So why not try the new FreeDV 700D mode, and join us in experimenting with it on the HF bands!

Next AREG Meeting Friday May 18th – RF Connector Myths Dispelled

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Like most Amateur Radio operators your shack probably contains a plethora of different RF connectors linking radios to tuners, antennas, amplifiers, receivers etc. Have you ever wondered why there are so many varieties? Have you ever wondered which ones are the right ones to use in a given situation? Do you run high power and have you considered whether your connectors are up to the task, especially if you are dealing with high VSWR leading towards your tuner?

Our guest speaker this month is Matt VK5ZM, who will take you through the different types of connector and provide an insight into their design and the criteria to consider when choosing them for your installation.

The meeting will start at 7.45pm at the Fulham Community Centre, off Phelps Court in Fulham (formerly known as the Reedbeds hall) with the presentation starting at 8.00pm. Following the meeting, tea coffee and cake will be served followed by a club business meeting.

Visitors are most welcome to come along – the meeting is open to everyone. We would love to see you down at the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group!

River Paddling Marathon 200: Practice Day This Saturday!

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In preparation for the RPM200 there will be an opportunity to run through the practice for checkpoints at Murray Bridge this Saturday the 5th May.

Why are we getting together? We are honing our skill at spotting paddlers on the river for their back to back event, which in turn is a practice for the RPM. Getting the opportunity to practice scribing the paddlers numbers while they are on the far side of the river will help prepare us for tracking at checkpoints. This event will also help us understand what equipment we will need for the RPM. An afternoon sitting  beside the river isn’t a bad thing either, with a sausage or two sizzling on the BBQ.

What time: Arrive at the reserve at 12:00pm for the BBQ, with the first paddlers arriving around 1:00pm, through until around 4pm.

What to bring;

  • Lunch, offerings to the BBQ, drinks etc.
  • Hat, sun screen, jumper
  • Table and Chair
  • Optical amplification, ie binoculars
  • Pen & paper
  • Hand held radio

Where will you find us? Under the shelter at the Murray Bridge Foreshore Reserve;

Liaison on 439.025MHz FM Simplex.

If you are coming to participate, please let us know; kimhawtin@gmail.com

AREG Members Decoding SSTV from Space!

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Captured by VK5QI SatNOGS gateway

AREG members across VK5 have been enjoying the latest series of SSTV broadcasts from the International Space Station this week coming from RS0ISS. The following from the AMSAT UK website tells more:

ARISS Russia is planning a special Slow Scan Television (SSTV) event April 11-14 from the International Space Station in celebration of Cosmonautics Day.

The transmissions are to begin on April 11 at 11:30 UT and run through April 14 ending at 18:20 UT.

Supporting this event is a computer on the ISS Russian Segment, which stores images that are then transmitted to Earth using amateur radio, specifically the onboard Kenwood TM-D710E transceiver.

Transmitted images will be from the Interkosmos project period of the Soviet space program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interkosmos

The transmissions which were coordinated with the ARISS scheduling team, will be made on 145.800 MHz FM using the PD-120 SSTV mode.

The pictures here were captured by Theo VK5MTM, Graham VK5EU and Mark VK5QI in Adelaide on the 144MHz band using FM receivers.

Photos captured by Theo VK5MTM

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Photos Captured by Graham VK5EU

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April Meeting: Project Horus Update

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The next meeting of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will be held on Friday 20th April starting at 7.45pm. The presentation will be given by Mark VK5QI on the latest developments with the new telemetry systems and modes that are being developed and show how you can become involved. The talk will cover:

  • Results of the recent THOR16 test flight
  • A progress report on modifying the Bureau of Meteorology RS41 RadioSondes
  • An introduction to the new MFSK modem being developed

Members will also be introduced to a new proposed member payload launch program. It’s aim is to encourage experimentation and technical development among club members in the area of high-altitude balloon payload development.

Visitors as always are MOST WELCOME! You will find us at the Fulham Community Centre, Phelps Court, Fulham!

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