AREG members are having their interest in Fox-Hunting rekindled thanks to the efforts of Theo VK5IR. Anyone can participate and you can use some fairly simple equipment too. The hunts are conducted on both 2m and 70cm at present and are usually held on the 2nd Friday of the month.
Keep watching the AREG Website for details!
The Amateur Radio Experimenter’s Group, in conjunction with the Riverland Radio Club, has for many years now provided support to the Marathon Canoe Club’s 200km long River Paddling Marathon down the Murray River held over the June long weekend each year.
After being interrupted last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was back this year, running again from Berri to Morgan across South Australia’s Riverland region.
Devlins Pound 100km event Start Day 2 – Photo courtesy Ivan VK5HS
AREG & RRC assist this event by building and running three radio networks aimed at tracking the participants through the course as well as monitoring the event progress downstream through the position of the safety boats. Over 25 volunteers man positions along the river Murray from Berri through to Morgan over the full 3 days of the annual June long weekend.
THREE-DAYThe networks are:
Over 1100 hours of volunteer effort is contributed to the event each year with AREG & the Riverland Radio Club combining forces to ensure the safety of the event participants. This is one direct way that the Amateur Radio service can directly provide a benefit to the public.
Communications Command Bus – provided by Peter VK5KX
The event has numerous obstacles to overcome including muddy bog-hole checkpoints (eg New Residence on day 1) and River Locks (the 200km event passes through three of these on its journey downstream).
Lock 4 team marshaling the paddlers through the lock on Day 1
From a radio perspective, much of the event is in very challenging terrain with coverage required at water level at the bottom of 20-30m canyons for much of the trip. Extensive use is made of both portable repeaters and manual relay stations to get the messages through.
Portable Repeater installations across the event
Most of all everyone who participated just enjoys being out in the countryside counting canoes in the sun (and fortunately again we didn’t get any significant rainfall during the event).
Checkpoint Operators by the banks of the Murray River
This year was also notable for AREG in that for only the second time since the club has been providing support did one of our own members receive the Marathon Canoe Club of South Australia’s David & Sue Speck Volunteer Award. Matt VK5ZM was the recipient this year. As lead organizer and volunteer safety officer, Matt has championed AREG’s involvement in this event since 2015. A very deserving recipient indeed! Congratulations Matt!
Matt VK5ZM receiving the Volunteering award from Andrew Stoodley, MCC President.
All up this was another very successful event, and a very enjoyable one too for all of the participants. We look forward to seeing the team join us again in June 2022!
We must say a special thank you also to all of the members of both AREG and the Riverland Radio Club who turned out to support this event. Your contributions combined to ensure the safety of over 100 participants again this year. Well done!
With the River Paddling Marathon behind us, we can return to our usual second Friday of the month fox hunts.
The next AREG fox hunt will be held this coming Friday night, July 9. The hunt will again commence from the southern end of the car park at the Adelaide Aquatic Centre.
Hunters are free to meet in the car park from 6.15pm with the foxes (beacon transmitters) being switched on at 6.30pm.
As always, everyone is welcome to join in and we invite you all to liaise on the VK5RSB 70cm repeater on 439.900 MHz (-5 MHz offset & 91.5 HZ CTCSS required on the input).
See you on the night!
Members and friends are advised that our next monthly fox hunt is scheduled for the evening of Friday, the 25th of June.
Due to noise on the 2m band at our previous starting postions, we have decided to try a new and more central starting loaction this month.
Hunters are to meet at the southern end of the car park at the Adelaide Aquatic Centre, Jeffcott Rd, North Adelaide, from 6.15pm and our regualr 144MHz and 433MHz foxes will be activated and the hunt will commence at 6.30 PM.
As usual, all particpants are welcome to liase with AREG’s VK5RSB 70cm repeater on 439.900 (-5MHz 91.5Hz CTCSS).
Everyone (members and non-members) is welcome to join in and we look forward to seeing you on the night.
The next AREG Foxhunt will be held on Saturday May 15th, starting at 5:00pm. This hunt is being called the “AREG Masters Hunt”. The aim is to encourage all of the old school fox hunters in particular, as well as our new generation hunters to come along and have some fun. It is an ideal chance to blow the cobwebs off your hunting equipment, particularly if you are planning an assault on the National Foxhunting Championships in Mt Gambier in June.
The winner of this series of hunts, which will be the first person to find both 2m fox transmitters, will qualify for a special AREG Foxhunt trophy to be presented at the June AREG meeting.
There will also be a bonus 70cm fox deployed for those with 70cm equipment.
Team ZSN at the Mt Gambier Foxhunting Championship
The fox hunt will start from the car park of the AREG clubrooms, Phelps Court, Fulham. Hounds are asked to liaise via the VK5RSB 70cm repeater on 439.900 (-5MHz 91.5Hz CTCSS).
After the hunt, everyone will be invited to gather at a venue (TBA) for a coffee and a catch up. Details will be finalised over the VK5RSB repeater. We hope to see you all there!
The next AREG hosted fox hunt will be another hand-held foot hunt and BYO picnic on Sunday the 11th of April at Morialta Mukanthi Nature Play Space in Woodforde, commencing at 10.30am. This location has large area with plenty of places to hide the foxes, lots of shading, a BBQ area and public toilets onsite plus a fantastic kids playground.
AREG will deploy 6-8 hidden beacon transmitters on the 2m amateur band and possibly one 70cm beacon. The challenge will be to see who can find them the fastest!
To participate, just bring along your direction finding antennas and receivers. We will do staggered starts and you will be free to hunt the transmitters in any order you like!
If you haven’t got any ARDF gear of your own, AREG will 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.
At the conclusion of the fox hunt, we will gather for BYO picnic lunch, so bring along your food, drinks and a chair or a picnic rug. This will be a family friendly event but children must remain under your supervision at all times. All members and visitors are welcome to join us. Don’t forget to SLIP, SLOP, SLAP!
AREG will most likely be gathered towards the rear of the park on the day but if you have trouble finding us, put a call out for VK5ARG on the VK5RSA or the VK5RSB repeater and we’ll guide to where we are.
Also, don’t forget that if you’d like to stay up to date with what we’re up to at AREG, why not consider subscribing to the AREG news mailing list. This is open everyone and all you have to do to subscribe is send an email to announce-subscribe@areg.org.au
See you there!
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The next foxhunt run by AREG will be held this Friday, March 12th. The hunt will again start from Lockleys Oval. Hounds are asked to gather from 6.15pm and will be released at 6.30pm. Three foxes will operate on the 144MHz and 439MHz bands from somewhere in the Adelaide metropolitan area.
Team ZSN at the Mt Gambier Foxhunting Championships
The frequency of the fox(es) will be broadcast on AREG’s VK5RSB Summertown 70cm repeater on 439.900 MHz (-5MHz) a few minutes before 6:30pm with all invited to liaise and discuss their progress on the repeater throughout the night. (Remember VK5RSB requires a 91.5Hz CTCSS tone on its input).
Horus 55 was the culmination of something that had been discussed for many years within the Project Horus team – Live video from a high-altitude balloon. The technical challenges in doing this are many, from designing a transmitter system that provides enough signal without melting in the thin atmosphere at high altitudes, to building a high performance receive system that can capture that signal, and then upload it to the internet for everyone to enjoy. (After all, if it didn’t get live-streamed, did it really happen?)
At 10:30AM on the 7th of March 2021, all of this came to fruition with the first flight of the Project Horus DVB-S payload.
The DVB-S payload was the primary experiment on this flight, and had been in development by Mark VK5QI and Peter VK5KX over the last 12 months. The payload utilised a Raspberry Pi Zero W to capture and compress video (using F5OEO‘s DVB-S encoder and natsfr’s LimeSDR Gateware – this project would not have been possible without their work – thanks!), which was then modulated as a 70cm (445MHz) DVB-S transmission using a LimeSDR Mini. The signal was amplified to ~800mW using a LDMOS-based power amplifier. The overall power dissipation in the payload was ~6 watts, so a heat-spreading and heat-sinking system was built by Peter, including custom-milled interface plates for the LimeSDR.
The payload was powered from 8x Energizer Lithium AA primary cells, which are well-regarded for their low-temperature performance.
Much testing and tuning of the payload was performed in the lead-up to the launch, including monitoring of the temperatures within the payload when sitting in full-sun, to ensure it would not reach dangerous temperatures.
Mark VK5QI gave a presentation on the payload at the AREG February meeting, which is available here:
The final DVB-S parameters used on the flight were:
Also on this flight was an experimental LoRaWAN tracking payload built by Liam VK5LJG. The aim was to transmit position beacons into ‘The Things Network‘ (‘TTN’), which has gateways (receiver stations) in many locations across Australia.
The payload operated on the 915-928 MHz LIPD band, with a transmit power of ~50mW. The hardware was a RAK Wireless RAK5205 board, running custom firmware for the flight. Position updates were only sent every ~3 minutes to comply with TTN fair-usage guidelines.
We expected that this would be received by TTN gateways all around the Adelaide area… it actually performed much better than expected!
The flight also included the usual complement of telemetry and flight management payloads. Primary telemetry was provided by a reprogrammed RS41, transmitting the ‘Horus Binary‘ 4FSK mode on 434.200 MHz. This was received by a large number of amateur stations running the ‘Horus-GUI’ demodulation software. Tracking of the payload was available on the HabHub tracker online, allowing global access to the position of the balloon throughout the flight.
The separate flight management payload was a LoRa-based payload operating in the 70cm (430.0MHz) amateur band. This payload allows remote termination of the flight if necessary (and it was actually used in anger this flight!).
On the weekend prior to the launch, two test-and-tune events were conducted, where receiving stations around the Adelaide area had the opportunity to configure and test the software and hardware necessary to receive the DVB-S signals. Transmissions were conducted from Steve VK5SFA’s QTH on Saturday, and from Black-Top Hill on Sunday. Both sites provided excellent line-of-sight to the Adelaide metropolitan are, enabling eight stations to be able to receive the test transmissions ready for the live balloon flight the following weekend.
Finally, a full systems check was conducted with Peter VK5KX. The test covered all of the equipment which would comprise the primary ground-station for the flight, receiving video from the payload and streaming it live to Youtube. This involved testing of the 2 x 18-element Yagi-Uda array, and all the receiver and streaming software. A big thanks to Hayden VK7HH for helping get the Youtube streaming working via his HamRadioDX channel.
The ground station crew, chase teams, and spectators started to assemble at the Auburn Oval launch site around 9AM, to find that showers had set in.
It was decided to continue on with launch preparations and wait for the showers to pass.
By a bit after 10AM the showers had died away to a light sprinkling, and the balloon filling was started. Around this time the live-stream from the launch site was switched on, with many viewers from around the world tuning in to watch the proceedings.
The balloon used for this flight was a Totex 1000g, and an entire 3.5m^3 cylinder of helium (donated by the University of Adelaide) was used to fill it. Using the fast-fill rig the fill was completed in a few minutes (as opposed to the almost 1 hour of slow-filling that used to be required), and the balloon was tied off ready for launch.
After a final check that all payloads were working as expected, the (short) countdown began, and the balloon and payloads were released!
After launch the ground-station system was switched into ‘auto tracking’ mode, and began pointing the high-gain Yagi antennas to follow the balloon and payloads. This ensured the best quality video reception, and it definitely worked!
Viewers at the launch site and all around the world via Youtube were treated to clear visuals relayed from the primary ground station as the balloon ascended up to cloud-base. Reports from other receiving stations around the region started trickling in, with Ian VK5ZD (near Kapunda) and Joe VK5EI (Adelaide) being the first to report in.
As the balloon reached the first cloud layer the views of the surrounding landscape was replaced with grey, and the chase teams took this as a sign that it was time to head off towards the expected landing area. Meanwhile the ground control team of Matt VK5ZM, Pete VK5KX and Grant VK5GR kept watch on the balloon state and the TV signal being relayed to YouTube and being broadcast around the globe.
The ground-station team continue to keep tracking the payload, uploading live video to over 200 viewers on Youtube. A big thanks to Hayden VK7HH for hosting the live stream on his Youtube channel, and helping answer the many questions that were asked by the viewers throughout the flight. Please make sure to Like and Subscribe his Youtube channel!
One of the last shots received before the balloon was cut away so the payloads could land
This flight had four chase teams:
All the teams headed off in convoy towards Eudunda as their first stop, where the traditional bakery visit was made mid-flight instead of after recovery.
Mark and Will were receiving the video from the DVB-S payload in the car, which worked surprisingly well even with the fairly modest antenna setup on Mark’s car (an upward-fading turnstile).
After a quick lunch, the teams headed south towards the predicted landing area. As the flight processed and the balloon rose past the expected burst altitude of 30km, Mark made the call to terminate the flight to help land the payloads in an easily recoverable area. A few radio commands later, the payloads started falling, with the cut-down event observed via the video link (though the fast tumbling did result in a lot of broken video). The maximum altitude achieved was 32379m above sea level.
The teams headed towards the new predicted landing location, and after a bit of back-and-forth were able to be in position to watch the payloads land under parachute. Unfortunately the payloads were just a bit too far away for the teams to get imagery of the final descent.
After getting permission from the landowners (thanks!), the teams were able to enter the property and drive almost right up to where the payloads had landed.
While a bit bent and dented (and upside-down!), the DVB-S payload continued to transmit video after landing, with the receiver in Mark’s car capturing the team walking up and recovering the payload.
Analysis of log files from the payload showed that overheating was certainly not an issue – instead the heat-spreader plate within the payload reached a chilly -27˚C during the descent phase of the flight!
So far the following stations have reported being able to receive video from the DVB-S payload:
If you received video from this flight, let us know!
The longest distance the payload was received from was by the stations in Whyalla, at almost 190 km range, followed by Bill in Middleton, at 145km range. The payload designers are absolutely ecstatic at how many stations were able to receive video during this flight – hopefully we can repeat this success on more flights in the future!
With every Project Horus flight we like to thank all the receivers that helped receive telemetry from the flight. All the telemetry you receive and upload to the net helps keep the tracking map up-to-date throughout the flight, and serves as a backup in the case of ground-station or chase-car receiver failure. On this flight telemetry was recorded from as far away as Horsham, though there were reports of telemetry reception in Melbourne – however it appears these stations did not upload their telemetry to the internet.
| Callsign | Received Packets | Percentage of Flight Received | First-Received Altitude (m) | Last-Received Altitude (m) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VK5ABN | 399 | 20.1% | 8138 | 1585 |
| VK5BD | 1748 | 88.2% | 1070 | 2142 |
| VK5EME | 1871 | 94.4% | 679 | 1599 |
| VK5FJGM | 121 | 6.1% | 11592 | 3349 |
| VK5GY | 1771 | 89.4% | 927 | 2975 |
| VK5HI | 1919 | 96.8% | 549 | 1278 |
| VK5HS | 1659 | 83.7% | 4142 | 1702 |
| VK5HSE | 507 | 25.6% | 28528 | 987 |
| VK5KJP | 1874 | 94.6% | 699 | 658 |
| VK5KX-i5 | 1878 | 94.8% | 306 | 1013 |
| VK5LJG (Home) | 1381 | 69.7% | 2946 | 3156 |
| VK5LJG-9 | 965 | 48.7% | 306 | 4916 |
| VK5NEX | 1798 | 90.7% | 801 | 1637 |
| VK5NTM | 1930 | 97.4% | 886 | 498 |
| VK5QI-9 | 1799 | 90.8% | 306 | 498 |
| VK5RK | 1853 | 93.5% | 1214 | 825 |
| VK5SFA | 1311 | 66.1% | 631 | 2131 |
| VK5ST-2 | 1829 | 92.3% | 556 | 670 |
| VK5SWR | 330 | 16.6% | 11309 | 18461 |
| VK3GP | 509 | 25.7% | 19672 | 13866 |
| VK5IS | 1893 | 95.5% | 579 | 1026 |
| VK5IX-9 | 1913 | 96.5% | 306 | 498 |
| VK5MHZ | 1533 | 77.3% | 4583 | 2741 |
As mentioned earlier, the LoRaWAN payload was transmitting telemetry packets to be received by The Things Network gateways. We expected the payload to be received by stations in the general Adelaide area, however it turned out that at the peak of the flight we were received by gateways as far away as Ballarat, Victoria! Full details on what gateways received each packet are available here.
The longest path was 585km, which for a ~50mW transmitter at 923 MHz is quite an achievement! The world record distance for this system is 823km, and we’re interested to see if we can beat this on a future launch!
At the conclusion of the flight we were also able the telemetry into this flight profile, which gives an appreciation of the journey the balloon and the experimental TV transmitter under took.
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Flight Designation: | Horus 55 |
| Launch Date: | 2021-03-07 00:02Z |
| Landing Date: | 2021-03-07 02:37Z |
| Flight Duration: | ~2.5 hours |
| Launch Site: | -34.02932,138.69124 |
| Landing Site: | -34.25959,139.11443 |
| Distance Traveled: | 46 km |
| Maximum Altitude: | 32,379 m |
With the huge success of this flight, the team plans to follow this up with more video flights in the future. There are many lessons to be learnt from this flight, and many improvements that can be made to both the payload, the ground-station, and the live-streaming systems. Viewers can look forward to higher quality video, more running commentary, and hopefully live video from the chase-cars as they recover the payloads.
The next few months will be getting busy for the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group, with the upcoming Riverland Paddling Marathon taking up a lot of club members time. Expect the next full-scale flight sometime in late June – weather permitting!