Category Archives: Meetings

16th October Meeting: D*STAR for Beginners

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wncdstar_logoHave you ever wondered how to navigate the myriad of ways to access a D*STAR repeater and make contacts either locally or via the gateways? The come along to the next meeting of the Amateur Radio Experimenters’ Group on Friday October 16th where Ben, VK5BB,  will take you through how to get the most from your D*STAR radio when using VK5RWN. He will include information on how to access gateways, reflectors etc and will give you clues on how to set up your D*STAR radio to make the best use of the available network that sits behind the AREG D*STAR repeater.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Zuzu

ICOM IC-91AD D-STAR handheld (CC BY-SA 3.0)

So if you are new to D-STAR or would like to know a bit more about how to use D-STAR, here is an opportunity to find out and meet with some D-STAR users.

The meeting will be held at AREG’s club rooms at the Reedbeds Community Hall, Fitch Road, Fulham. The doors will be open at 1930 hours for a meeting start at 2000 hours local summer time.

As well as the formal presentation there will be ample time to meet with AREG members and talk about any and all things Amateur Radio. Visitors are most welcome, so please come along all and say hello! If you need help finding the hall, call on the 439.900 repeater (91.5Hz CTCSS).

Coffee, tea and cake will be on for a light supper, over which guests and members may ragchew on topics of the evening. Put it in your diary, AREG meeting this Friday the 16th October, 7:30 pm!

 

Next Meeting FRIDAY 18th Sept – Starting out with Arduino Micros

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Arduino, Teensy 2, the TI MSP430, Arduino_Uno_-_R3
the Picaxe, Raspberry Pi’s, Banana Pi’s, Beagle Bone Black, Cubie Boards, PC Arduino’s, these are some of the myriad of micro controller or micro computer boards.

Confusing? Are you interested in learning to use or play with micro controllers and don’t know where to start?

Well, come along to the next AREG general meeting this coming Friday evening, the 18th of September and Matt, VK5ZM, will give an introductory talk on micro controllers with an emphasis on,  “Getting started in Arduino”!

The evening starts at 7:45 pm at the Reed Beds hall, Fitch Road Fulham.

The invitation is open to all persons with an interest in amateur radio and for this evening, Arduino! So come along all,  join in with AREG members and learn a bit about the Arduino, meet members of AREG and enjoy the evening with a dynamic group of like minded amateur radio enthusiasts.

Coffee, tea and cake will be on for a light supper whilst everyone has the opportunity to mix, mingle and discuss your interests of the evening.

AREG General Business Meeting: August 21st + Guest Speakers !

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The next meeting of the Amateur Radio Experimenters group will be held on Friday 21st August. The venue as always will be the Reedbeds Community Hall, 19 Fitch Rd, Fulham SA 5024.

This month there will be two guest speakers giving short presentations interrupted by a short business meeting.  Doors open 7:45pm, first talk starts at 8pm sharp !

Everything 6m!

The first speaker will be Ben VK5BB P1020591who will give a 10 minute  talk on the Amateur 6m band and what it has to offer in the summer time months.  With summertime on the horizon (finally) it’s a good time to dust off the low band VHF 6m gear and get it ready for the upcoming summer months !!!

This will be followed by a short general business meeting.

FreeDV – getting it working!

The second  short technical presentation will be by David VK5DGR on the practical aspects of  alignment, use and getting a FreeDV signal to air.  With the AREG FreeDV QSO Party (click) just around the corner, now is perhaps a good time to get that SM1000 or PC Interface at the ready !   As is typical with all of David’s talks it certainly should be a good time to sit back and watch or hear Digital HF Voice first hand.

This of course will bearegmap interspersed with coffee, cake and opportunities for technical chats around the kitchen bench.  Should be a good night to get out of the house and come and play radio.

Look forward to seeing you there

73, Matthew VK5ZM

AREG AGM – New Executive 2015

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AGM

The AREG held it’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Friday the 17th of July. This was followed by a talk from Chris VK5CP about RTTY Contesting and a general members meeting.

As a result of the AGM there is a new executive and committee, with a few familiar faces.

This year Scott VK5TST moves into the position of club Secretary, with Mark stepping down back to the committee. We thank Mark for this hard work over the past three years in this role.   Grant VK5GR has stepped up from the committee to take on the role of club treasurer, welcome Grant to the exec team.  Ben VK5BB and Andy VK5AKH will carry on as committee members.   We’d also like to welcome Josh VK5JO who has volunteered to join the committee team.  I was more than happy to continue on as president.

So the AREG executive team for 2015/2016 can be found here (click)

Thanks again for your support and we look forward to planning a new technical talk and activities program for our members pleasure.

73, Matt VK5ZM

AREG Annual General Meeting: July 17th + Guest Speaker

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clip-art-meeting-700008Your AREG committee wishes to announce that the Annual General Meeting for 2015/2016 will be held on Friday July 17th starting 7.45pm. All committee positions will be declared vacant and elections for the coming year will be held.

Nominations are now open, so if you would like to become more involved in the running of your club then please notify the secretary.

RTTY Contesting

After the formal business part of the evening is over, we will then have a talk by Chris VK5CP on what he learned at the RTTY Contest University at the Dayton Hamvention. Hopefully Chris will also tell us some stories about what he saw at Dayton 2015.

The meeting will take place at our usual location of the Reedbeds Community Centre, 19 Fitch Rd Fulham. See you there!

Next Meeting: June 19th – RPM200 Show and Tell

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00120.MTS_1

The next meeting of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will be held this coming Friday, June 19th at the Reedbeds Community Hall starting at 7.45pm.

The talk this evening will be a show and tell of all of the events leading up to and during the RPM200 from the communications network’s perspective. There is much that happens behind the scenes to make this event possible. We will talk about much of that as well as showing what the club has now assembled in terms of supporting equipment. The results from things like the APRS experiment will also be presented, and some early thoughts on what we might do in that space next year will be given.

There will also be an opportunity for those who participated to give the committee their feedback on what went right, and what can be improved for next year’s event. Your feedback is invaluable to us as part of our drive to continually improve the event so please come along and share your experiences too!

In addition, there will also be a short business meeting, as well as the usual coffee, cake and chat afterwards.

Visitors are always welcome so come on down! You can find the clubrooms at the address below:

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Free DV & the SM1000 – WebCast now live!

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The Amateur Radio Experimenters Group this month has produced a video of the presentation given by David Rowe VK5DGR on his new FreeDV digital voice codec and SM1000 stand alone encoder/decoder unit. The talk is well worth taking a look at if you have any interest in how digital voice modes can be delivered over HF radio.

David talks about his pioneering work and the open source ideals behind it as well as showing the newly released SM1000 Embedded FreeDV encoder/decoder unit that can be used to add digital voice using Codec2 to almost any current amateur tranceiver.

It’s our intention to film more of the club presentations in the future so stay tuned!

Next AREG Meeting: May 15th – FreeDV introducing the SM1000

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The next AREG Meeting on Friday May 15th will aregmapagain be held at the Reedbeds Community Hall, 19 Fitch Rd, Fulham SA 5024 starting at 7.45pm.

The presentation for the evening will be given by David Rowe, VK5DGR who will speak about the FreeDV project and the SM1000 digital interface unit that he has been involved with developing.

FreeDV – What’s it about?

vk5zm_testing_freeDV

Matt VK5ZM testing FreeDV on an IC706

The SM1000, is an embedded hardware product that allows you to run FreeDV without a PC. Just plug it into your SSB or FM radio, and you now have Digital Voice (DV).

It’s based on a STM32F4 micro-controller, has a built in microphone, speaker amplifier, and transformer isolated interfaces to your radio. It’s just 80 x 100mm, and can be held in you hand and used like a regular PTT microphone, or sit near your radio in a small box form factor.

In this presentation David will discuss the SM1000, and how it was developed by 2 Hams and a Chinese entrepreneur over the last 14 months.

David Rowe’s Background

David Rowe is a part time open source software and hardware developer and full time Dad.  He has worked on projects in VOIP, developing world communications, echo cancellation, speech compression, and digital voice over HF radio.

Prior to becoming an open source developer David worked as an engineering manager and has 25 years experience in the development of DSP-based telephony and sat-com hardware/software.   Somewhere along the way he picked up a wide mix of skills including software, hardware, project and business management, and a PhD in DSP theory.

David’s other interests include his popular blog (http://rowetel.com), bike riding, electric vehicles, energy efficiency, amateur radio (since 1981), and swanning around Adelaide drinking lattes.