Category Archives: Meetings

AREG July 2025 Meeting – “Contest Station Planning and Design” by Grant VK5GR

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The next AREG meeting will be held on Friday the 18th of July at the Fulham Community Centre – Phelps Court, Fulham. (Not at last month’s venue in St Peters – we’ll probably be back there at a future meeting!)

This month’s presentation is from Grant VK5GR, on considerations around setting up a station for a large worldwide amateur radio contest!
Grant will take you through various considerations when designing a HF contest station, starting with HF Propagation analysis and station location selection (and how to use the ARRL HF Terrain Analysis package). We will then take us through some station design ideas intended to maximise your ability to be heard at the right times and on the right bands to maximise your competitiveness. Ways of operating multiple HF transmitters from one location will also be discussed, as well as the types of gear to consider. Finally, he will take a look at contest logging systems and show how easy it is to record your QSOs. During the evening, Grant will specifically work through the planning that has so far taken place around the AREG effort to activate VL5X in this year’s 80th Oceania DX Contest during the October long weekend.

Doors open at 7.00pm and the presentations kick off at 7.30. Everyone is welcome to attend. If you’ve never come along to one of our meetings, we’d love to see you there, all guests are welcome. For our remote members, the meeting will be broadcast via Zoom, and the talk will be recorded for later viewing on Youtube.

After the talks we’ll all be given an opportunity to have an eyeball QSO among ourselves whilst enjoying a tea or coffee and a biscuit.

73, Mark VK5QI

AREG June 2025 Meeting – “ESP32 – A magic microcontroller that can do anything!” by Adam Jenkins – NOTE DIFFERENT MEETING VENUE!

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This month’s presentation was recorded and is now available on Youtube here:

The next AREG meeting will be held on Friday the 20th of June at a new meeting venue we are trialing – the St Peters Youth Centre, on Cornish Road, Stepney, within Linde Reserve.

This month’s presentation topic will be from Adam Jenkins, on ESP32 Microcontrollers!

ESP32 Development Boards Review and Comparison - Maker Advisor

Adam will discuss the possibilities inherent in the ESP32 microcontroller for communications. With built-in Bluetooth, WiFi, and a dual-core CPU, the ESP32 is changing the maker world and opening up new possibilities that will enhance radio projects—from remote station control and APRS beacons to digital mode interfaces and portable logging tools. Adam will discuss the capabilities of the ESP32, programming basics, and how it can interface with RF hardware.

Doors open at 7.00pm and the presentations kick off at 7.30. Everyone is welcome to attend. If you’ve never come along to one of our meetings, we’d love to see you there, all guests are welcome. For our remote members, the meeting will be broadcast via Zoom, and the talk will be recorded for later viewing on Youtube. After the presentation we will be holding a Special General Meeting to vote on a special resolution for updates to the AREG constitution. AREG members please check your emails for information on this!

After the talk and meeting we’ll all be given an opportunity to have an eyeball QSO among ourselves whilst enjoying a tea or coffee and a biscuit.

How to find us this month!

The St Peters Youth Centre building is located at the end of Cornish Road, Stepney, with the main entrance off Cornish Road. You can find

Parking is available at:

  • Cornish Road, Stepney
  • The Linde Reserve Carpark, off Nelson Street, Stepney (including a Jolt EV charger!)
  • Even more parking in the other Linde Reserve carpark, off Stepney Street; and
  • Parking across Nelson Street, in The Avenues Shopping Centre.

73, Mark VK5QI

May AREG Meeting – “The Four Sides of a Triangle” by Graeme VK5RE

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The next AREG meeting will be held on Friday the 16th of May at the Fulham Community Centre – Phelps Court, Fulham.

The Four Sides of a Triangle, by Graeme Wilson VK5RE, is a guest lecture on how he drove 521,000 km around Australia in six and a half years checking mobile phone coverage, and how he developed driving techniques to do “Efficient Driving” and  seeing and photographing many interesting “things” along the way.

Doors open at 7.00pm and the presentations kick off at 7.30. Everyone is welcome to attend. If you’ve never come along to one of our meetings, we’d love to see you there, all guests are welcome. For our remote members, the meeting will be broadcast via Zoom, and the talk will be recorded for later viewing on Youtube.

After the talks we’ll all be given an opportunity to have an eyeball QSO among ourselves whilst enjoying a tea or coffee and a biscuit.

73, Mark VK5QI

AREG April Meeting – Good Friday Park Picnic / Foxhunt / HF Activation

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For April’s meeting (on Friday the 18th of April, the Good Friday public holiday), AREG will not be holding a meeting at the Fulham Community Centre. Instead, we’ll be trying something a bit different and meeting up in a park for a BBQ lunch, HF activation, and some fox-hunting!

We’ll be meeting at the lower section of the Morialta Conservation Park from around 11AM with parking available off Moritalta Falls Road. We’ll be near one of the BBQ areas, so look out for a red AREG flag!

We’ll have a HF station going to activate the Morialta Conservation Park (VKFF-0783) so listen out for VK5ARG on the bands! There will also be a fox-hunting (amateur radio direction finding) course set up around the park, with plenty of equipment available to borrow and give fox-hunting a go.

If you’re coming along, we suggest you bring a chair, drinks, and food for lunch (the club will provide some basic BBQ fare too).

Hope to see you there!

AREG March 2025 Presentation: RADE – Machine Learning for Speech over HF Radio

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At our March meeting we had an excellent presentation from David Rowe, VK5DGR, on the new Radio Autoencoder digital voice mode! Thanks very much to David for giving the presentation, and pushing the state of the art in Amateur Radio!

This presentation was recorded, and is now available for viewing on Youtube:

Next AREG Meeting – “RADE – Machine Learning for HF Speech” by David Rowe VK5DGR

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The next AREG meeting will be held on Friday the 21st of March at the Fulham Community Centre – Phelps Court, Fulham.

This month we have a presentation from David Rowe VK5DGR, on the ‘Radio Autoencoder’ (RADE) digital voice mode, which is in active development and available for preview right now in the latest version of FreeDV. RADE combines machine learning techniques with classical DSP to send high quality speech over HF radio at SNRs as low as -2 dB.

Doors open at 7.00pm and the presentations kick off at 7.30. Everyone is welcome to attend. If you’ve never come along to one of our meetings, we’d love to see you there, all guests are welcome. For our remote members, the meeting will be broadcast via Zoom, and the talk will be recorded for later viewing on Youtube.

After the talks we’ll all be given an opportunity to have an eyeball QSO among ourselves whilst enjoying a tea or coffee and a biscuit.

73, Mark VK5QI

160m Interference Investigation by Arthur VK5AI – Presentation Recording

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Thanks to Arthur for a great example of how with the right approach, interference to the amateur radio bands can be resolved amicably and with great results!

Arthurs presentation was recorded and has been uploaded to Youtube here:

Arthur’s presentation slides are available here: 160 m Interference Investigation.pdf

During the presentation Arthur gave some examples of near-field E and H-field probes, with further information on constructing these available at this link.

73, Mark VK5QI

Next AREG Meeting – “Wide area 160 m interference – Investigations and Rectification” by Arthur VK5AI

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The next AREG meeting will be held on Friday the 21st of February at the Fulham Community Centre – Phelps Court, Fulham.

In this presentation, Arthur, VK5AI, will detail the investigation to determine the source of 160m band (1.8 MHz) interference that was being experienced across the eastern suburbs of Adelaide and the subsequent actions to resolve the issue.

Doors open at 7.00pm and the presentations kick off at 7.30. Everyone is welcome to attend. If you’ve never come along to one of our meetings, we’d love to see you there, all guests are welcome. For our remote members, the meeting will be broadcast via Zoom!

After the talks we’ll all be given an opportunity to have an eyeball QSO among ourselves whilst enjoying a tea or coffee and a biscuit.

73, Mark VK5QI