Category Archives: Club Activities

Club Activities or Events

Next Project Horus Launch – Horus 60 – Sunday 20th August

Posted on by

UPDATE 21/8: Thanks to all that helped track this flight, it was a great success! A blog post with more information, including lots of great images, will be up in about a week.

Horus 60 Flight path prediction as of 17th August

As part of the VI25AREG celebrations, AREG’s High-Altitude Ballooning sub-group, Project Horus, is planning their next launch for Sunday the 20th of August, with a planned launch time of 10 AM ACST. Backup dates if we have to slip due to weather are the 27th of August… and that’s it!

This launch is currently planned to be performed from the Mt Barker High School Oval with the launch team arriving on site from around 9:00 AM. Note that access to the oval is via Stephenson street, and parking near the oval is extremely limited. 

The payloads for this flight will include:

  • A FM-SSTV Transmitter on 145.100 MHz
  • A Wenet Imagery transmitter on 443.500 MHz
  • Primary Horus Binary telemetry on 434.200 MHz
  • Experimental Radiation Sensor payload (Horus Binary telemetry) on 434.210 MHz 

Details on these payloads are available further below.

Tracking of the flight will be via the SondeHub-Amateur tracker, available by clicking this link.

A dashboard showing telemetry from the payloads is available at this link.

Details on the payloads flying are available below:

Primary Telemetry – 434.200 MHz – VI25AREG

Reprogrammed RS41The primary tracking telemetry will be transmitted on 434.200 MHz using the Horus Binary 4FSK data mode. Amateurs in the Adelaide and Central SA region are also encouraged to get involved with the flight through receiving and uploading flight telemetry from our 70cm band tracking beacons. Every piece of telemetry data is valuable to the flight tracking and recovery teams so if you can help join the distributed receiver network to collect that data you will be making an important contribution to the project!

If you try receiving the telemetry from this flight, you’ll need a SSB-capable 70cm receiver (or a SDR), and the Horus-GUI telemetry decoder software. 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)

Listeners that already have Horus-GUI installed are encouraged to update to the latest version, which is available at this link.

Note that you will need to use a USB ‘dial’ frequency of 434.199 MHz for the 4FSK signal to be centred in your receiver passband and hence be decodable.

There will also be an experimental radiation sensor payload (HORUSRADMON) on 434.210 MHz (434.209 MHz USB dial frequency). If you can only receive one, prioritise the 434.200 MHz signal.

FM SSTV Imagery – 145.100 MHz

This launch will most likely be flying a FM SSTV transmitter operating on 145.100 MHz FM. It will run approximately 200mW transmit power. The transmitter will have 1 minute gaps between image transmissions to avoid overheating the transmitter. This payload last flew on Horus 59 with good results.

SSTV image from Horus 59

The payload will be transmitting images using the PD120 SSTV mode throughout the flight, and can be decoded using any SSTV software capable of decoding this mode (pretty much all of them!). This mode is what was commonly broadcast from the International Space Station.

Examples of suitable software you can use to decode the SSTV pictures include:

Any FM receiver (including handhelds) should be capable of receiving this payload, though as with the cross-band repeater, a Yagi antenna may be necessary for reliable reception at the edges of the transmitter footprint.

We’ve also setup a temporary 2m SSTV skimmer up at AREG’s remote HF receive site, which (if it works!) will post received images here: https://botsin.space/@aregsstv/tagged/PD120

We will have some digital certificates available for listeners that submit an image from the highest 1km of the flight (to be determined after the flight has finished). Email your images to vi25areg@areg.org.au !

Wenet Imagery – 443.500 MHz

Imagery on this flight will be transmitted via the Wenet downlink system, which uses 115kbit/s Frequency-Shift-Keying to send HD snapshots. Reception of the Wenet imagery requires a Linux computer, a RTLSDR, and a 70cm antenna with some gain (a 5-element Yagi is usually enough).

This payload will be trialing a PiCamera HQ, with a much larger lens. This will hopefully give us much higher quality imagery than we’ve seen previously, so long as we don’t hit focus drift issues like we have seen on previous flights.

Wenet imagery from a previous launch.

A guide on how to get set up to receive the Wenet signal is available here: https://github.com/projecthorus/wenet/wiki/Wenet-RX-Instructions-(Linux-using-Docker)

Please note the transmit frequency of 443.5 MHz, which may require listeners to re-configure their Wenet setup. Listeners who are already setup to receive Wenet should consider updating their decoding software to the latest version (Due to be released at the beginning of August 2023), with update instructions available here.

During the flight, the live imagery will be available at this link: http://ssdv.habhub.org/

VI25AREG Picnic, ARDF & WWFF Activation Lunch!

Posted on by

As part of the VI25AREG celebrations, AREG will be holding a picnic lunch at the Para-Wirra Conservation Park, starting around 12PM on Sunday the 30th of July. We’ve booked the ‘Bush Oval’ site, which can be found at this Google maps link. We’re planning on running a BBQ for lunch, and there’s even some talk of 25th anniversary cake!

We’re planning on activating the conservation park (VKFF-1739) on a few HF bands with some members portable HF setups – if you have a portable setup you want to try out, bring it along, there’s plenty of space.

There will also be a short Amateur Radio Direction Finding (ARDF) course setup around the area, with plenty of spare receiving equipment available for anyone that wants to have a go.

Please note that Para Wirra Conservation Park does have a vehicle entry fee, which can be paid online here.

Hope to see you there!

73 Mark VK5QI

Next Fox Hunt – Friday 14th July

Posted on by

AREGs next car-based fox hunt will be held this coming Friday the 14th of July, starting from the car park of the North Adelaide Aquatic Centre Carpark at 6:30 PM. We’ll have three foxes deployed around the Adelaide area, on both the 2m and 70cm bands, so come along and have a go!

The frequencies will be:

  • 145.300 MHz (1W transmit power)
  • 144.390 MHz (100mW transmit power)
  • 439.400 MHz (50mW transmit power)

As usual, liaison will be on the VK5RSB Summertown 70cm repeater which operates on 439.900 (-5MHz) 91.5 CTCSS. Please come up on the repeater so we know how you are faring throughout the evening!

The event is open to anyone with radio direction finding equipment and will span most of the Adelaide metropolitan area. We would love to see you there!

73

Mark VK5QI

VI25AREG – AREG’s 25th Anniversary! Come find us on HF, VHF/UHF, DSTAR, DMR, Satellites, and more!

Posted on by

The 27th of July is the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group’s 25th Anniversary!  As a celebration of this event, we will be activating the VI25AREG special-event callsign between the 1st of July and the 31st of August. The aim is to have the call active on as many bands and modes as possible, reflecting the huge diversity of interests of AREG’s members across the whole spectrum of amateur radio activities.

Special Event QSO Award

AREG has always sought to promote experimentation in amateur radio as a pathway to learning. To celebrate this, we are offering  a special award available for any station who contacts VI25AREG using a minimum of three different transmission modes. The aim being to encourage people to experiment with different modes. You will find the call in use in some unlikely places as a result, including PSK, Olivia, FreeDV, DMR, FUSION, FM, AM, HF, VHF, UHF and more. Work us on three modes and you will qualify for our award!

 

 

To apply for the certificate, just send an email to vi25areg (at) areg.org.au with your ADIF log extract showing the three qualifying QSOs. If your QSOs are found in our log, you should receive your digital certificate within a few days!

Special Event QSL Card

Click to request QSL Card

A special 4 sided QSL card is being designed by the members of AREG for this event. The card design will be completed by August 31st (aligned with the close of the celebrations). Requests for a copy of the card can be submitted via our QSL Manager, Charles M0OXO. You can also see whether you are in the log via Clublog!

Clublog Log Access

 

On Air Celebrations: Where to find VI25AREG

 

Look out for VI25AREG on the following bands and modes over the next few weeks, and check back on our website often for specific activity announcements!

  • HF – Regular activations on many HF bands, check dxheat.com/dxc/ and ClubLog to see where VI25AREG was last heard! The following specific activations are planned:
    • VI25AREG Picnic at Para-Wirra Conservation Park, starting ~12PM on Sunday the 30th of July.
  • 6M – VI25AREG is planned to be used on 6M at the following times:
    • As part of the weekly 6m FM net, on the VK5RSB 6m repeater, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11AM ACST.
    • Sunday mornings, 10:30 AM ACST on 53.100 AM, and 10:45 on 52.100 SSB.
  • Repeaters – We plan to run a net on the Central VK5 Linked Repeater Network at 10AM ACST on the following dates:
    • 8th July
    • 22nd July
    • 5th August
    • 19th August
  • Satellites – the following satellites passes are planned to have VI25AREG activations:
    • TBD!
  • Digital Voice Modes – activity is planned on each of the following networks
    • DMR: Tuesday 25th July, 0900Z, on VKDMR Talk-Group 505.
    • DSTAR:
    • FUSION:
  • High-Altitude Balloon Launch
    • We are planning a High-Altitude Balloon launch making use of the VI25AREG callsign in mid-to-late August. Tentative launch dates are either the 13th of 20th of August.

We are hoping to get many of our members on air operating the callsign.

AREG History

Formed back in July 1998, AREG started out with 7 members focused on amateur radio and electronics experimentation. There were early projects driven by interests in high altitude balloons and repeaters and the group started some early fund raising efforts to support these.

Over time the group continued to slowly grow through until ~2010 when larger activities were attempted, including efforts in various contests and operating on air using special event call VI5MCP (100th anniversary of Morialta Conservation Park). Around this time, the group moved from meeting at members homes to the Reedbeds Community Centre in Fulham too, and the groups focus began to broaden and look to engage more actively with the wider amateur radio community. In the last ~15 years, the group has gone from strength to strength, partnering with the Project Horus high altitude balloon team, being very active in radio contesting, began providing community service communications for the River Paddling Marathon in the Riverland and establishing many new services for members, growing the club’s reach through its internet presence in the process.

VK5CLD’s portable setup
A typical HF spectrograph from May 5th 2023
The happy hunters

From our original 7 members, the group has now grown in size to well over 100 people located across 6 states. With that base, AREG continues to seek opportunities to make a positive contribution to the amateur service in Australia. We therefore are now celebrating the past 25 years and are looking forward to the next 25!

We look forward to working you from VI25AREG!

No June Fox-Hunt

Posted on by

AREG regrets to advise that due to the proximity of the usual monthly fox hunt date to the Riverland Paddling Marathon (where many AREG members will be heading to), the June fox hunt will not be going ahead.

Stay tuned for details regarding our July hunt, to be posted here closer to the date.

73 from AREG!

Save the date: AREG’s Adelaide Amateur Radio & Electronics Sale – Sunday November 26th

Posted on by

The event calendar this year is looking pretty good for South Australian Amateur Radio operators, with the South Coast Amateur Radio Club Buy & Sell coming up on the 23rd of April, and the Adelaide Hills Amateur Radio Society Buy & Sell on the 15th of July.

To round out the event calendar for 2023, AREG are happy to announce that Sunday November 26th will see the return of the AREG Amateur Radio & Electronics Sale! It will again be held at the DogsSA Training Facility in Kilburn as a car boot sale format. We will be inviting all of the SA Radio Clubs to participate as well as a number of commercial vendors!

More details will follow in coming months – but for now you simply need to:

Sunday

November 26th

2023

We hope to see you there!

Horus 59 Flight Report

Posted on by

Horus 59 came about as a result of the Southern Hemisphere Space Studies Program launch, as we still an almost-full cylinder of Helium left over. Launch planning progressed through February, resulting in a launch on Sunday the 25th of February 2023.

The following payloads flew on this launch:

  • A FM-SSTV transmitter, sending imagery in the PD120 mode on 145.100 MHz;
  • A Wenet imagery transmitter on 443.500 MHz, with the new Pi Camera v3;
  • A Geiger-Tube based radiation sensor payload on 434.210 MHz (the same one that flew on Horus 58 and SHSSP 2023);
  • A LoRaWAN beacon, provided by Liam VK5ALG; and
  • Our usual Horus Binary telemetry payload on 434.200 MHz.

Iain Crawford VK5ZD captured much of the days events on video:

Launch Planning

This launch aimed to get more AREG club members involved in the launch planning process. Mark VK5QI ran a series of workshops in the lead-up to the launch, working through the regulatory and planing aspects of a high-altitude balloon launch. The day before the launch a smaller group got together to test telemetry reception and go through some of the more practical aspects of a launch. We hope to run more workshops like this for future launches!

Some of the launch planning group working through practicing filling a balloon.

Preparations & Launch

The launch team gathered at the Auburn Community oval at 9AM and started preparing for the flight. This launch saw many spectators, including a few from the mid-north. Iain VK5ZD was also on-site to document the launch activities, with a video to come soon (once he’s back from a holiday!). The launch site weather was perfect, with mostly clear skies and only light winds.

AREG Club Members preparing the balloon for launch, with many onlookers! (Imaged by the Wenet payload waiting to be launched)

All the payload were powered on, tested and sealed up, and the balloon was filled. This was a ‘fast fill’ launch, using up all the leftover gas from the previous SHSSP 2023 launch, and went smoothly.

The balloon and payloads were raised into the air, with the final payload handed over to Jackson (son of AREG member Brett VK5TLE) to perform the launch!

Launch!

Chase & Recovery

After the launch, the chase teams (and there were 7 of them on this launch!) headed north-east to get closer to the predicted landing area, pulling in at a rest stop south of Hanson, SA.

Chase Teams waiting for the balloon to burst near Hanson, SA

Peter VK5KX was set up here with his portable rotator station, receiving telemetry from all payloads:

Peter VK5KX’s portable tracking setup

While waiting at the Hanson rest stop the balloon was spotted flying at 30 km altitude, almost directly above the rest stop location! Appearing as a small white dot, many of the chasers were able to watch the balloon travel across the sky for about 20 minutes, before seeing it disappear when it burst at 32,807 metres altitude.

Iain, Ady, Drew and Mark watching the balloon drift along at 30km altitude.

The chase teams didn’t have far to travel to get to the landing area, only 7km to the North-East of Hanson, just off the Barrier Highway. All the teams were able to get into position to watch the payload descend into an empty paddock, a great experience for the new balloon chasers!

 

Horus 59 Flight Path

The payloads were quickly recovered, with the mandatory Wenet Payload group photo being taken once the payload were back at the cars:

Horus 59 Chase Team Group Photo, taken by the Wenet Payload camera.

FM-SSTV Payload Results

Apart from an issue with the onboard GPS receiver, the FM-SSTV payload transmitted imagery fine all throughout the flight. So far we’ve received a few reception reports from the Adelaide area, and also Pt Lincoln, though we expect this payload would have been receivable well into Victoria. If you received imagery from this flight, please let us know!

A selection of images received by Mark VK5QI’s home station in Adelaide are shown below:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Wenet Payload Results

The new camera (A Raspberry Pi Camera v3) under trial on this launch produces images with excellent colour and low distortion, however as it ascended the lens started to de-focus, resulting in all the images above a few km altitude being quite blurry.

This is most likely due the extreme cold the camera was subjected to resulting in physical variation of the lens-to-sensor spacing. Whether this can be compensated for will be determined through some on-ground experiments (dry ice might be involved…), though it’s likely we’ll look at other camera options for future launches.

A selection of photos taken by the Wenet payload camera are shown in the following gallery:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

LoRaWAN Payload Results

On this flight Liam’s LoRaWAN payload featured an upgraded antenna, and even though the maximum altitude of this flight was 500m below when the LoRaWAN payload was previous flown (Horus 58), it was received another 50km further afield, by a TheThingsNetwork station in Ballarat, Victoria. We’ll try out this payload again on future launches, hoping to get even longer reception reports!

LoRaWAN Payload Coverage Map

Receiver Statistics – Horus Binary Telemetry

The Horus Binary payload proved to be as reliable as ever, reporting position and sensor data throughout the flight. A Grafana dashboard summarising the telemetry data from the flight is available here.

We saw a total of 25 unique callsigns receiving on this flight, with reception statistics for each station shown below:

Horus 59 - HORUS-V2 Receiver Statistics

CallsignReceived PacketsPercentage of Flight ReceivedFirst-Received Altitude (m)Last-Received Altitude (m)
BARC-RRR160.9%115763437
N0CALL10.1%33473347
VK3TNU pi3-384145.0%1342415292
VK5AJQ141375.7%90211681
VK5AKH94050.3%6888536
VK5AKK176394.4%5501030
VK5ALG170791.4%7261427
VK5ALG-9181297.1%311536
VK5APR10.1%10811081
VK5ARG183498.2%309570
VK5CLD-9151881.3%310536
VK5DJ98252.6%1040512276
VK5DSP-hab136873.3%77754207
VK5EME-5181497.2%6381342
VK5FADE824.4%19364044
VK5HI160.9%1469014867
VK5IS184899.0%406570
VK5KX#2935.0%1143813232
VK5KX-9164988.3%669570
VK5KX-i555229.6%13942570
VK5LN155183.1%43735363
VK5NEX178695.7%12951342
VK5NTM177795.2%1842806
VK5QI-9164588.1%310606
VK5ST-4150780.7%7261797
VK5ZBI107057.3%67393600
VK5ZQV56430.2%1406930447

Horus 59 - HORUSGEIGER Receiver Statistics

CallsignReceived PacketsPercentage of Flight ReceivedFirst-Received Altitude (m)Last-Received Altitude (m)
BARC-RRR155483.0%1011890
VK3TNU pi3-390048.1%1182115415
VK5AKH82043.8%6884562
VK5AKK173792.8%5671697
VK5ALG173792.8%6391929
VK5ALG-9180296.3%312500
VK5ARG182897.6%312598
VK5CLD-9167689.5%312500
VK5CV147879.0%9873986
VK5DSP-hab134271.7%77796660
VK5KX-9180296.3%733530
VK5QI-9181697.0%311530
VK5ST-4178995.6%6391122
VK5SWR603.2%2223923376

Receiver Statistics – Wenet Imagery

This flight saw 10 receiver stations contributing packets to the live imagery on https://ssdv.habhub.org/. Thanks to all that helped out with this!

VK5LO: 63593 packets (15.53 MB)
VK5IS: 126191 packets (30.81 MB)
VK3TNUpi4-1: 7311 packets (1.78 MB)
VK5CLD-9: 40111 packets (9.79 MB)
VK5PW: 110448 packets (26.96 MB)
VK5KX: 56684 packets (13.84 MB)
VK5AKH: 40550 packets (9.90 MB)
VK5QI: 146240 packets (35.70 MB)
VK5ALG: 98107 packets (23.95 MB)
VK5ST: 638 packets (0.16 MB)

Conclusion

Even with some payload issues, Horus 59 was a successful launch and saw lots of AREG club members get involved in the planning, execution, and chase aspects of the flight. Thanks to all that came out for the day, and also thanks to those that helped receive telemetry throughout the flight!

Project Horus’ next launch will likely not be for a few months, and will hopefully see the return of the DVB-S transmitter payload, and live video from the stratosphere!

Horus 59 - Flight Statistics

MetricResult
Flight Designation:Horus 59
Launch Date:2023-02-25 23:29Z
Landing Date:2023-02-26 01:42Z
Flight Duration:~2 hours, 12 min
Launch Site:-34.02935, 138.69128
Landing Site:-33.70648, 138.88831
Distance Traveled:40 km
Maximum Altitude:32,807 m

Next Fox Hunt – Friday 31st March

Posted on by

AREGs next car-based fox hunt will be held this coming Friday the 31st of March, starting from the car park of the North Adelaide Aquatic Centre Carpark at 6:30 PM. This is somewhat out of our usual schedule due to the foot-based hunt held earlier in the month, and we hope to get back to our usual second-Friday schedule in May.

We’ll have three foxes deployed around the Adelaide area, on both the 2m and 70cm bands, so come along and have a go!

The frequencies will be:

  • 145.300 MHz (1W transmit power)
  • 144.390 MHz (100mW transmit power)
  • 439.400 MHz (50mW transmit power)

As usual, liaison will be on the VK5RSB Summertown 70cm repeater which operates on 439.900 (-5MHz) 91.5 CTCSS. Please come up on the repeater so we know how you are faring throughout the evening!

The event is open to anyone with radio direction finding equipment and will span most of the Adelaide metropolitan area. We would love to see you there!