Category Archives: Meetings

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?

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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.

Next Meeting 17th April: Using Pan-adapters in your HF Station

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The next meeting of the Amateur aregmapRadio Experimenters group will be held on Friday 17th April. The venue as always will be the Reedbeds Community Hall, 19 Fitch Rd, Fulham SA 5024.

The meeting will start at 7.45pm with a short business meeting, and will be followed by a technical presentation by Andy VK5AKH on installing and using SDR radios as pan-adapters on your HF station. Andy will also give some insight on the benefits of using this technology when working HF.

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HF Pan-adapter display captured from the 20m HF band

After the meeting there will be cake and coffee available as well as many members ready for a chat.

If you want directions to get to the meeting give VK5ARG a call on the Summertown 439.900MHz repeater (91.5Hz CTCSS).

Next AREG Meeting now 13th March!

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The Amateur Radio Experimenter’s Group is going to hold it’s monthly meeting a week early in March on Friday March 13th. This is to avoid clashing with preparations for the John Moyle Field Day. The main topic for the evening will be discussing the arrangements for the John Moyle Field Day contest.

The venue will be the Reedbeds Community Centre, Fulham Gardens.

See you there from 7.45pm!

AREG February Meeting

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The next meeting of the AREG will be held on Friday DCP_6746 - CopyFebruary 20th at the Reedbeds Community Centre, Henley Beach South, starting at 7.45pm (location details are available via the contact us page).

The topic this evening will be “Cellular Communications Systems” presented by Grant Willis, VK5GR, and will take a look at the history and evolution of cellular networks in Australia from the early VHF party line system through to today’s modern 4G LTE 300Mbit/s networks. Both the history and technology will be discussed. Hope to see you there!

AREG January 2015 General Meeting

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Happy new year and welcome to 2015.

This post is just a reminder to members and visitors that the next AREG general meeting will be this coming Friday the 16th of January starting at 7:45pm.   Details of where the AREG meet can be found in the “contact us” section of the website.

This month we have the first business meeting of 2015.   As is usual of this time of year at the first meeting we will have a lot to discuss and plan for the coming months, especially since there was no December meeting.

The business meeting will be followed by coffee and cake.

We hope to see you there.

73, Matthew VK5ZM

AREG November General Meeting 2014

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UPDATE: The slides from Mark VK5QI’s talk can be found here.

Just a reminder that the next AREG general meeting will be this coming Friday the 21st of November starting at 7:45pm.

This month we have a short business meeting, guest speaker followed by coffee and cake.

You can find out more details here

Hope to see you there.

73, Matthew VK5ZM

AREG November 2014 General Meeting

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The next AREG General Meeting is on Friday the 21st of November, at the Reedbeds Community Hall doors open 7:45pm.

This month there will be a short 30 minute business meeting held starting at 8:00pm sharp.  This month we will try a new format for the meeting in an effort to streamline proceedings.

MarkPrototypeThis month we have arranged Mark VK5QI to present a technical talk entitled “<Insert Radio Name Here> – A open source teaching SDR for Linux Conf 2015”, starting at 8:45pm.

In this talk Mark will discuss the Softrock-based SDR he is developing for the Open Radio Mini conference, to be held at “Linux Conf 2015” in Auckland, New Zealand. Some basic SDR theory will be covered, along with some demo’s of the prototype kit.

We’re certainly fingers crossed that by the time our meeting comes around that this radio has a project name !

After the presentation there will be the usual  “rag chew” over coffee, tea and cake until stumps.

We look forward to seeing you there.

73, Matt VK5ZM