Author Archives: Grant

Horus 37: Flight Currently GO for tomorrow morning!

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Preparations are continuing to fly a large helium balloon this coming Sunday from Mt Barker in South Australia. AREG will be flying the balloon on behalf of LaunchBox who are undertaking a schools science education program.

Lift-off is planned for 10am, with a flight path that currently looks like it will orbit the eastern Adelaide hills.

The only risk to the launch currently is the low level weather forecast. The Adelaide Hills area has received yet another significant rain band this evening. If this hasnt cleared by morning the flight start could be delayed. Watch this website for the latest news.

Predicted flight path, as per 2016-09-17 06Z GFS model. (5m/s ascent rate, 3.5m/s descent rate, 34km burst altitude)

Amateur Radio operators across SA and western Victoria as far east as Melbourne should be able to hear the telemetry transmissions on 434.650 MHz using 100 baud RTTY (7N2). If you decode the transmissions using the dl-flDigi program, you can contribute your received frames to the global pool of tracking data enabling us to follow the flight.

You can find a guide to tracking the balloon flight using the dl-fldigi software at the following link: https://ukhas.org.uk/guides:tracking_guide

As usual, the payloads can be tracked live on the Habhub Tracker, available here.

As an added bonus, this flight will be carrying an experimental payload transmitting 115kbaud FSK on 441.200MHz, downlinking live images from the payload. This payload has been in development by David Rowe (VK5DGR) and Mark Jessop (VK5QI) for some time, and utilises an open source modem stack. If all works as expected, images should appear on this page: http://ssdv.habhub.org/VK5QI

Next AREG Meeting: Microwave Equipment and Operation

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The next meeting of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will feature an introduction to Microwave Amateur Microwave Equipment and Communications, presented by guest lecturer, Iain Crawford VK5ZD. Iain will be talking about the gear he uses and some of the basic operating tips involved.  This will provide the ideal opportunity to whet your appetite for these bands just as the sunspot cycle draws to a minimum on HF, and coincidentally right before the VHF/UHF contest season!

http://www.vk5zd.com/Images/Blog/IMGP4702.JPG

http://www.vk5zd.com/Images/Blog/IMGP4702.JPG

Iain has been experimenting with these modes for many years, and has constructed transverters for 23cm, 13cm, 9cm, 6cm and 3cm.

The meeting will be held at the Reedbeds Community Hall, Phelps Court, Fulham on Friday 16th September. Doors will open at 7.45pm with the presentation starting at 8.00pm.

After the talk, there will be coffee and cake and an opportunity to socialise with fellow amateur radio enthusiasts, followed by a short AREG business meeting.

All amateur radio operators and people with just an interest in radio in general are welcome to attend! We hope to see you there!

Project Horus Balloon Launch – Advanced Notice!

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AREG members will again be involved DSC_6524with Project Horus, undertaking another high altitude balloon flight for some high school students on Sunday September 18th.

The Launch time will be 10.00am from Mt Barker, in the Adelaide Hills.

Amateur Radio operators from across SE Australia can get involved in the flight by contributing to the telemetry gathering effort. Tune your 70cm SSB radios to 434.650 and decode the RTTY telemetry using the dl-fldigi software.

Keep watching the AREG website for further details and confirmation of the flight day (flights can be cancelled up to 24hrs before liftoff if adverse weather is predicted).

AREG Members entering RD Contest 2016

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Members of the Amateur Radio Experimenters

RD Contest Trophy

Group are banding together to form teams to participate in this year’s Remembrance Day Contest to be held on Saturday August 13th and Sunday August 14th 2016. The contest starts at 0300UTC and runs for 24hrs.

Andy VK5AKH, Theo VK5MTM and Grant VK5GR are forming one of the AREG teams. They will be operating from Sedan, Mansfield Park and Tickera respectively. Their team team is “AREG: Mostly Harmless”. We are hoping to field at least one other team as well!

Several of us are planning on operating in the mixed modes section as well, using both RTTY/CW and SSB. All participants are encouraged to listen for RTTY contacts throughout the contest.

Full details of the contest can be found on the WIA Website.

Next Meeting: August 19th – HF Digital Modes for Beginners

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The next general meeting of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will be held on Friday August 19th. Doors open 7.45pm with the meeting starting at 8.00pm.

The topic for the evening will be “Introducing Digital Modes on HF – how to get started – from a beginner who just has”. I will be taking you through what can be achieved on a fairly modest HF station using digital modes, including what software you can use, what hardware you need and what some of the more “exotic” modes are that you can play with on HF digital, including:

Feld-Hell-decode

Feld Hellschreiber Signals on 20m

  • RTTY
  • PSK31/63/125
  • MFSK16
  • Olivia
  • Contestia
  • Hellschrieber
  • JT65/JT9 and WSJT
  • SSTV
MFSK16-VK2YQA-with-images-2

MFSK16 from VK2YQA/4 on 20m

I will also discuss calling techniques, frequencies and contesting on HF as well as logging on rig integration.

I don’t profess to be an expert on these modes either – this is all relatively new (apart from RTTY) to me too (despite being licensed since the 1980s) as until March this year I had never had my own HF station. Having said that, even with a modest 100W station I have managed to work 62 countries using a variety of these modes, even in the relatively poor conditions on HF that we have seen over the last 6 months.

sstv-MMSSTV Program

MMSSTV Software

VK4LHD on 14230kHz SSTV
VK3OHM on 7171kHz SSTV
VK3OHM on 7171kHz SSTV

SSTV Pictures on 40 and 20m.

After the presentation there will be a light supper followed by the monthly business meeting.

VK2YQA/4 MFSK16 Picture from QLD on 30m

VK2YQA/4 MFSK16 Picture from QLD on 30m

Oceania DX Contest 2016: Planning Meeting FRIDAY 29th July

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OceaniaDXContest-in-CenturyGothic-horiz-930

AREG is again planning on participating as a Multi-Multi portable station in this year’s OCDX contest. Planning for the station has been quietly underway for some time, however now that we are only a couple of months out, it is time to get serious!

To move things along, an AREG OCDX planning meeting will be held at the Clubrooms, Reedbeds Community Hall, Fulham starting at 6pm on Friday 29th July (tomorrow). The meeting is open to anyone who wishes to come along and contribute to the station construction or operation. A group collection to fund Pizza and the room hire will be conducted at the start of the night.

Contest Countdown!

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FreeDV WIA Broadcast: New Relay Time

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tiki-download_fileThe AREG (VK5ARG) is continuing to conduct an experimental re-transmissions of the National and VK5 WIA News Service in the FreeDV-1600 mode on Sunday mornings. The aim is to encourage amateur radio operators to come and try FreeDV HF Digital voice.

CHANGED BROADCAST TIME

Due to HF radio propagation conditions over the past few months, the team running the relay has decided to try relaying the broadcast an hour later at 1000 CST (0030 UTC) instead of the earlier 0900hrs time. This is so that there is a better chance of skywave propagation being available into VK5 as well as VK3.

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Callbacks are conducted after the broadcast providing an ideal opportunity for you to experiment further with FreeDV! Callbacks are conducted in FreeDV mode initially, and SSB at the close (to allow SWL stations to provide their reports also).

Online logging of FreeDV has been disabled for the time being due to a problem with the website.

For more information about FreeDV please visit the www.freedv.org website or log onto Internet Relay Chat (IRC) on irc.freenode.net. (http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=freedv) and connect to the #freedv channel.

If you have FreeDV set up with your HF station why not tune in and see how you go? You can use one of the many open source software packages or perhaps using an SM1000 FreeDV modem to receive (and transmit FreeDV. You can visit the AREG HF Digital Voice project page for more information as well!

AGM – July 15th – Topic: Road Traffic Control Systems

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AGMThe committee wishes to formally advise members that the Annual General Meeting for 2016 will be held on Friday 15th of July starting at 8.00pm.

The location will  be the Reedbeds Community Hall, Phelps Court, Fulham.

After the formal part of the AGM meeting, there will be a guest presentation by Rod Baker, VK5ZTV. Rod will speak about the technologies used to manage Adelaide’s road transport system. This will provide a fascinating insight into this very complex system.

Visitors are most welcome. Doors open at 7.45pm and there will be a light supper after the presentations. If you need help finding your way to the venue, give VK5ARG a call on 439.900 via the Summertown repeater.