Category Archives: Club News

Club News Summary

River Paddling Marathon – Community Volunteer Event – 2026 Registrations Open

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Are you interested in sitting by the banks of the mighty Murray River for three days over the Kings Birthday weekend, playing radio with old or new Friends ?

Do you enjoy being outside and doing something different or the magic or radio ?

Have you ever tried to count kayaks silently going past in the early morning fog, without falling back asleep ?

If so, then I’d encourage you to read on !

The AREG are once again seeking expressions of interest from volunteers to participate in providing radio communication for the Marathon Canoe Clubs (MCC) premier event the Riverland Paddling Marathon (RPM), to be held over the Kings Birthday long weekend from the 6th to the 8th of June 2026. Where intrepid adventurers paddle their kayaks and canoes from Berri to Morgan over three days, a distance of just over 200 kilometers.

Over the June long weekend, the AREG require a number of volunteers to assist with manning checkpoints, operating radios on various VHF and UHF frequencies, counting paddlers and capturing their numbers, while transferring this information to Net Control over a controlled net, who ensures no paddlers are left behind.

The AREG have secured accommodation locally just outside of Waikerie, which gives us access to a formal club room to socialise at each night, both Kitchenette and BBQ facilities along with a number of comfortable rooms including single, double, dorm and family rooms with shared or separate bathrooms. There is also powered sites for caravans and tents. To assist with volunteer costs the AREG and MCC provide generous subsidies to offset the cost if fuel and accommodation during the event, details are provided separately.

The AREG is seeking between 22-25 volunteers for each day of the event and has already extended invitations to all past volunteers. For new volunteers we do not require any previous experience, an amateur license, a vehicle or radio gear, we prefer to pair new volunteers with other more experienced volunteers that have done the event previously to allow experience to be gained while actively participating.

There will be further updates and emails sent to everyone who registers their interest in the coming weeks. So thanks again for reading this far, if we have piqued your interest then we would love to hear from you using the URL below.

AREG RPM Volunteer Registration 2026

73’s

AREG RPM Organising Committee

AREG’s Entry into the John Moyle Field Day Contest 2026

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During the 2010’s AREG used to regularly enter the John Moyle Field Day contest hosted by the WIA. For various reasons that activity waned in the last 4-5 years. So this year, we felt it was  time to re-enter the event and introduce the next generation of AREG members to domestic field day contesting.

VL5X Portable Hindmarsh Island – Multi-Op SSB Portable

Given this is a “Field Day”, it really needed to be a in the field club activity. That is what puts the “field” into the event after all. This year we were fortunate, through a friend of one of our members, to gain access to a 10 acre plot on Hindmarsh Island, about 90 minutes out of Adelaide. The site, which had a 10-15m hill at the back of the property and a couple of sheds in the middle was perfect and allowed us to spread the antennas out so we could operate a multi-operator station without causing interference between the bands.

Station Antenna Farm

Unique “Quick Deploy” Station experiment

One of the unique tricks used in this contest was Andy VK5AKH’s quick deployment station. He hired a van for the weekend, rolled his portable operating desk inside, loaded it up with gear and away he went. He was on air within an hour of arriving on site supporting our full 40m station.

Powering The Station

We set up three 400W portable contest stations on the site and then proceeded to power them as follows:

We had 3x Honda EU20i generators on site, originally planning that as our base load generation, given this contest did not permit us to use the mains to run the station. However, we also had something new that we had never tried before.

One of our members owns a Geely EX5 electric car. This car was unique in that it came equipped with a 3kW 240 Volt AC inverter, which we could use to draw power from the car’s 61kWh battery! Before the event, we were pretty trepidatious – concerned that the car would generate a lot of RFI and interference across HF. To our very happy surprise, however, the car was as quiet as a church mouse. In the end, we ran 2 of the three stations on the car inverter for the whole event. In the process, we invented a new unit of electrical consumption – “equivalent kilometres”. The two stations connected to the car, each with their respective 400W linear amplifiers, used a total of 65km worth of electricity. Not bad given the car has 410km of road range. This really does open up a whole new world for field day contesting into the future!

VL5X On The Air

As for operating the contest, we had a great turnout of operators, with VK5AKH, VK5QI, VK5FLY, VK5DUG, VK5VC, VK5FJ, VK5IR, VK5GR, VK5MN, VK5CIA. We also had a great roster of volunteers who helped construct and support the station including VK5ZM, VK5BX, VK5AG, VK5ZQV, VK5SAW, VK5KX, VK5AOK and others plus we had visits from Sue VK5AYL and David VK5ZL who were also interested to see what we were up to here at AREG.

We had operators as young as 10 yrs old (Douglas VK5DUG supported by dad Louis VK5FLY) right through to some in their mid 70s who remembered the John Moyle field day from a decade ago and wanted to come back and have another go. It was great to see them all getting into the spirit of the contest.

The crew was well looked after as well with support from Michael VK5MN who managed the catering and Jeremy VK5CIA who provided the bathroom facilities from his holiday home nearby. All the little things that become big issues when you are out in the field!

Thanks to Theo VK5IR, we also have a short film showing the setup including a few more details about the car we used to power the station and showing some of the on air activity including young Douglas VK5DUG who operated for us on several bands.

So how did we go?

Results are not out yet, but we were pretty happy with our score. We had the station manned for 22 of the 24hrs of the contest, and due to the lack of contestants during the night spent at least 2 hours calling with no answers. None the less, a great time was had by everyone. We look forward now to seeing the results and discussing what we might try next year!

Foxhunting today! 2pm Victoria Park Wetlands

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A reminder that the next foxhunt run by the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will be run at 2pm today, starting with a foot based hunt around the Victoria Park Wetlands in the south park lands in the City, off Beaumont Road via South Terrace.

A vehicle based hunt will follow starting from ~3pm on both the 146 and 438 MHz amateur bands.

Fox hunts are now run monthly on the 1st Saturday of the month and are open to everyone to participate in. We hope to see you there!

 

AREG April 17th Meeting – Software Defined Radio for Radio Amateurs

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Modern amateur radio is changing rapidly, and Software Defined Radio (SDR) is at the centre of that change. Many amateurs already own an SDR — or use one indirectly — but few have had the chance to understand how it actually works or why it feels so different from traditional radios.

This upcoming lecture will provide a plain‑language introduction to SDR, aimed specifically at amateur radio operators, not engineers or programmers.

Rather than focusing on mathematics or theory, the talk will explain SDR concepts using familiar radio ideas: receivers, mixers, filters, IF stages, and transmitters — and show how these functions are now being done in software instead of hardware.

Topics will include:

  • What “software defined” really means in a radio
  • Why SDRs can see so much spectrum at once
  • The role of analogue‑to‑digital converters and why bit‑depth matters
  • Why some SDRs are better at weak‑signal work than others
  • How modern SDRs replace IF strips with digital processing
  • What limits SDR transmit power and why filtering still matters
  • How SDRs are used by amateurs, researchers, and modern networks

The lecture will also touch on GNU Radio, the most widely used SDR software framework, explaining what it does and why it has become so important — without requiring any programming knowledge.

Whether you are:

  • Curious about SDR but unsure where to start
  • Using an SDR “black box” and want to understand what’s inside
  • Interested in digital modes, weak‑signal work, or experimentation
  • Wondering how modern radios differ from classic superhets

…this session is designed to demystify SDR and connect it back to the radio principles amateurs already know.

No prior SDR experience is required — just an interest in radio.

So when are where is this event? AREG meets at the Fulham Community Centre, off Phelps Court, in Fulham, Adelaide. Doors open at 7.00pm, Friday 17th April.

This month the meeting will begin with a short Special General Meeting to address a minor change to the group’s constitution, followed by the presentation which will likely start around 7.45pm.

For our regional members, the meeting will, as usual, also be interactively streamed via Zoom. If you are a regional amateur and are interested in finding out a little more about AREG, guest passes are available to our Zoom meetings on request. Please contact our secretary – via vk5arg@areg.org.au