Category Archives: Meetings

AREG October Meeting: SATNOGs Satellite Gateways

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The next meeting of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will be held on Friday October 20th @ 7:45pm at the newly renamed Fulham Community Centre.

Mark VK5QI will talk about the SatNOGS project, an open source project and community which is developing a worldwide network of satellite ground-stations, to help provide downlink capacity for the growing numbers of Low-Earth-Orbit cubesats being launched. Included will be a ‘worked example’, showing how you can set up a SatNOGS ground-station at a reasonably low cost.

After the presentation there will be a light supper available followed by an AREG business meeting. All members and visitors are welcome to attend so why not come along and find out more about whats happening in the world of automated satellite ground station technology?

The clubrooms are located off Phelps Court in Fulham. You can usually find members listening to the club repeater VK5RSB on 439.900 (91.5Hz CTCSS) if you need directions! Hope to see you there!

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AREG News: September Meeting – Power Supplies

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AREG’s next meeting is this coming Friday the 15th September at the Reedbeds Community Hall, Phelps Court Fulham, doors opening at 7:45 pm.

This coming meeting will be another in AREG’s Amateur Radio Beginners Series and the topic for this evening will be, Power Supplies.

Matthew, VK5ZM, will take people through the basics of power supplies, what their characteristics are and what do people need to look out for when selecting a power supply for Amateur Radio use. He will also discuss the pros and cons of Linear vs Switchmode and what makes a good or bad power supply.

AREG Repeater News:

We have noticed that VK5RSB 70cm appears to be dropping coverage. Our fault investigation team will take a look at our earliest opportunity but we suspect a problem with the antenna feeder or connectors. Also the VK5RWN D-STAR repeater is suffering from reduced performance due to mechanical issues with the antenna mounts. Plans are well underway to make repairs at both sites, which we hope will be completed in October.

Contesting news:

AREG is again making plans to mount a portable DX Contest Station for the Oceania DX Contest in October. This will be a QRO Multi-Multi station this year operating from a new site north of Adelaide. We hope to see other VK5’s get involved in this contest this year too, as it is your one opportunity to have the DX stations around the world pointing their antennas our way looking for us! The OCDX SSB contest is being held on the weekend of October 7th and 8th.

In DX News:

AREG wishes Grant VK5GR good luck in his activation of Niue starting next week. Grant should be heard across VK signing as E6AG, Echo 6 Alpha Golf, from September 14th through until September 25th on most HF bands. So keep a lookout for Grant and Grant, goodluck with your operations.

2017/18 Subscriptions now Due

Finally, all AREG members should note that their subscriptions are due for 2017/18. It is a great time to be a member of AREG and this year will be big, with the club turning 20 years old next July – who would have thought! Look out for some special activities throughout 2018 marking the occasion.

So remember folks, come along to AREG’s next meeting, it is this coming Friday evening, everyone is most welcome.

After the formal events, a light supper of tea, coffee and cake will be available whilst you can mingle, review and discuss the topics of the day.

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Annual General Meeting – Friday August 18th @ 7.45pm

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The next meeting of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will be held on Friday August 18th, at the Reedbeds Community Hall, Fulham.

The doors will open at 7.45pm for an 8.00pm start.

To start the proceedings, the committee will recap the year’s events before moving into the reports and then the business of the meeting. All positions will be declared vacant and nominations will be sought.

The outgoing committee wishes to thank in particular Scott VK5TST and Ben VK5BB who have both indicated that they wish to step down in 2017/18. We look forward to new enthusiastic members joining the committee and continuing to drive the club forward as we enter the club’s 20th year!

A general meeting will follow the AGM, with a general coffee and cake discussion to be held afterwards. if you have a project you have been working on why not bring it along and show it off during the coffee discussions.

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July General Meeting: Introduction to Antenna Modelling

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The next AREG meeting will be held on Friday 21st July, starting at 7.45pm at the Reedbeds Community Centre, Fulham.

We are pleased to announce that the speaker for the July meeting will be Paul Lawson VK5SL. Paul will be introducing you to the basics of Antenna Modelling, and will demonstrate how to get started using the 4NEC2 program to examine antenna performance (4NEC2 is freely available on the Internet). He will take 3 of the antennas that Chris VK5SA described in his wire antennas for beginners talk a few months ago and show how you can visualize their radiation patterns and what their characteristics are on various frequencies.

In particular, Paul will show you how to model a basic dipole, a Windom (OCF Dipole) and an inverted V antenna, explaining how to define these in the software, what the components in the software do and how to set them to produce useful models of how the antenna is performing. This will be a great simple introduction to the topic of antenna modelling.

For those who then want to delve deeper, Paul has agreed later in the year to run a tech night where more complex antenna modelling will be examined for those who want to take it further.

We hope to see you at the club on Friday July 21st. Doors open at 7.45pm with the presentation getting underway at 8.00pm sharp.

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AREG Next Meeting: Introducing LF and MF by Doc VK5BUG – 16th June

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The next meeting of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group Inc will be held on Friday June 16th, starting from 7.45pm at the Reedbeds Community Hall, Phelps Crt, Fulham.

The topic for this evening will be introducing LF and MF communications techniques, presented by David (Doc) Wescombe-Downs, VK5BUG. Doc is a pre-eminant authority on everything LF and MF in Australia, and is one of the modern pioneering amateur experimenters of these bands today. If you have ever wondered how on earth you can start using the 630 and 2200m bands from home, then come on down and hear Doc talk about whats possible.

Doc will also have a limited number of his books available to purchase for those taken with enough interest in the subject.

LowBand Book Promotion Flyer

After the presentation, there will be a short business meeting plus time to socialize and hear more about what happened at this year’s River Paddling Marathon (being run over the June long weekend and being supported by AREG and RRC).

You will find the clubrooms at the following address! We hope to see you there!

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AREG Beginners Series: Introducing HF Wire Antennas – April 21st

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Next AREG Meeting: Friday April 21st – 7.45pm

Continuing with our beginners series presentations this year, this month we have Chris VK5SA who will talk us through the basics of the simple wire HF antenna. He will explain the characteristics of a set of simple to build yet effective HF antennas that anyone can make, often for less than $100 worth of materials. He will show you the merits and limitations of several of them, including:

  • Basic Dipoles
  • Offset Centre Fed Dipole
  • Inverted V
  • Fan Dipole
  • Terminated Folded Dipole

Samples of how to build many of these will also be on hand for people to take a look at.

Meeting Time & Location

The meeting will be held at the Reedbeds Community Centre, located off of Phelps Court, in Fulham. The clubrooms will open at 7.45pm with the meeting to commence at 8.00pm sharp.

Tea, coffee and cake will be available for a small donation after the presentation. Following that, the monthly business meeting will be held.

As always, AREG meetings are open to everyone, so if you are interested in starting out on HF, then this is a great opportunity to hear about some simple antennas to get you underway!

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Australian Contesting Technical College – Friday 19th May 3-5pm

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Have you ever wanted to learn about contesting but didn’t know where to start? Did you ever want to learn the secrets of how the big stations earn their scores? Well now is your chance!

In May, AREG will be hosting a special event immediately prior to the WIA AGM in Adelaide. On Friday 19th at 3:00pm, the club proudly invites you to attend the “Australian Contesting Technical College”, presented by Trent Sampson VK4TS. The venue will be the clubrooms, located at the Reedbeds Community Hall, in Fulham (5 minutes from the airport for those around Australia flying in who would like to attend). This once in a lifetime event is open to anyone with an interest in Amateur Radio Contesting.

Trent VK4TS with Alan VK4SN

Trent Sampson VK4TS is the Contest Columnist for AR magazine and a member of the Lambda Contest Group who operate under the Callsign VK4KW and holds many records in Multi Operator categories in SSB RTTY and CW.

During the 2 hour session, Trent will discuss setting up a modern contest station for SO2R (SIngle Operator 2 Radios) operation as well as Multi operator station considerations, including equipment selection, interfacing, and antenna selection.

The Antenna selection part will include a real life appraisal of a contest location (likely to be one of the AREG sites) and how well it will work using High-Frequency Terrain propagation analysis.

When considering software, Trent will discuss examples of how to use the most popular software and the lessons learned from it.

Topics Covered will include:

  • Multi Operator Stations,
  • SO2R Operation
  • Filtering; Bandpass and Coax Stub,
  • Antenna selection Software usage,
  • N1MM with examples of SSB RTTY and CW.

So organise your Rostered Day Off now, or arrange to get into Adelaide a little bit earlier that day if travelling from interstate and make your way to the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group clubrooms for this once off special event!

AREG Members note: this is in addition to the May Meeting, the hall will close between 5:30 and 7:30 then reopen for the normal monthly meeting. As always visitors are welcome.

Where to find AREG

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AREG March Meeting: Space Weather and Ionospheric Prediction

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The Amateur Radio Experimenters Group is proud to announce our guest lecturer for our March general meeting is David Neudegg, Principal Space & Radio Scientist, Space Weather Services (Australian Federal Govt). David formerly worked for the Ionospheric Prediction Service before that agency was reconstituted inside of the Bureau of Meteorology.

David brings a wealth of knowledge about the ionosphere and how it works and will provide a fascinating insight into how it’s behavioral predictions relate to people’s real world experiences when using HF radio communications.

Meeting Details

The meeting will be held on Friday March 17th at the Reedbeds Community Centre, off Phelps Court in Fulham. Doors will open at 7.45pm, with the presentation beginning at 8.00pm.

Visitors are most welcome! We hope to see you there!

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