Category Archives: Club News

Club News Summary

October Meeting – Working rare DX (and VK9CV!) with FT8 – Grant VK5GR

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The next AREG meeting will be held on Friday the 18th of October at the Fulham Community Centre – Phelps Court, Fulham, with doors opening at 7:00 PM, and the presentations kicking off at 7:30 PM. Everyone is welcome!

WSJT-X 2.7.0 RC-5: Revolutionizing DXpeditions with SuperFox Mode - Unicom RadioVK9CV – Cocos (Keeling) Islands

Grant will discuss what the different multi-stream FT8 systems are, and provide some tips on how to work out which mode a DX station is using. He will also introduce the new Superfox mode and explain what makes it tick.

Grant is also operating on the upcoming Cocos Island VK9CV DXpedition, and will give us a brief on what they will be doing on the island, and how to best find them on the bands, including some tips for alerting the VK9CV team when 6m opens to Cocos Island.

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

VK5RWN DMR Connectivity Failure – under investigation

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The VK5RWN DMR repeater has developed a fault and has lost connectivity with the Internet. A site visit this evening confirmed that the repeater unit was no longer getting access to the site router. We appear to have had an ethernet port failure but are still trying to prove where the problem lies.

Meanwhile VK5RWN DMR is still on the air, but is only operating in local mode until we can restore the internet connectivity. Apologies for this break in transmission and we will attempt to restore service as soon as we can.

 

September Meeting – Adam VK2YK/VK5GA – “The GreenGube (IO-117) Experience!”

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Adam’s presentation was recorded and is available here:

The next AREG meeting will be held on Friday the 20th of September at the Fulham Community Centre – Phelps Court, Fulham, with doors opening at 7:00 PM, and the presentation kicking off at 7:30 PM. Everyone is welcome!

Adam’s portable setup for working IO-117 and other satellites

This month’s presentation will be from Adam VK5GA/VK2YK on operating the GreenCube (IO-117) Medium-Earth-Orbit amateur satellite!

Adam will give a run down on his journey and experience so far with IO-117 (Greencube) Digipeater satellite, including info on his setup and issues encountered along the way. He will provide a brief update on health of the satellite at the moment.

If you’ve never come along to one of our meetings, we’d love to see you there, all guests are welcome at the hall. For our remote members, the meeting will be broadcast via Zoom, and will be recorded for upload after the evening.

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

August Meeting – Andrew VK5CV – “From Electric Eels to Human Treatments”

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The next AREG meeting will be held on Friday the 16th of August at the Fulham Community Centre – Phelps Court, Fulham, with doors opening at 7:00 PM, and the presentation kicking off at 7:30 PM. Everyone is welcome!

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This month’s presentation will be from Dr Andrew Russell, VK5CV, titled “From Electric Eels to Human Treatments” – A history from the earliest observations of physical and animal electricity to state-of-the-art cardiac therapies. Andrew is a cardiologist, and this sure to be an interesting talk, with a topic a bit different to our usual fare!

If you’ve never come along to one of our meetings, we’d love to see you there, all guests are welcome at the hall. For our remote members, the meeting will be broadcast via Zoom, and will be recorded for upload after the evening.

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

Next AREG Meeting: July AGM and Grant VK5GR: The Flinders Island DXPedition

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Update: This presentation is now available on Youtube (thanks Hayden!):

The next AREG meeting will be held on Friday the 19th of July at the Fulham Community Centre – Phelps Court, Fulham. This will be the AREG’s Annual General Meeting, which will include the election of the 2024-2025 committee.

This months presentation will be from Grant VK5GR, on the Flinders Island DXpedition, which occurred back in April 2024:

Grant will take you on the journey the team followed to bring the VK5FIL IOTA and WWFF project to life and tell the stories of the fun had along the way. VK5FIL was the first time IOTA OC-261 had been activated since 2013 and so it was in high demand. Whats more, the three parks that covered parts of the island had never been activated before adding even more interest for the WWFF community.

Doors open at 7.00pm and the presentation kicks 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 will also be recorded for release on the HamRadioDX Youtube channel!

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’s VK5RSA Adelaide CBD repeater – continuing support from KernWi-Fi

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One of the services that the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group provides is a network of repeater stations that cover the Adelaide metropolitan and surrounding areas. These systems operate on the 6m-23cm bands from 3 sites in and around Adelaide.

One of the first repeaters conceived by AREG was the Adelaide CBD repeater. Inspired in the 1990s by the original 438.025 VK3RCC repeater in Melbourne (which was located atop one of the hi-rise towers in Melbourne CBD), the intention was to reach the deep CBD buildings and the Adelaide foot hills shadowed by the existing repeaters atop the Mt Lofty ranges.

The AREG repeater in Adelaide was originally established on top of the original Angas Street police station building – then 11 stories high in Victoria Square. When that building was subsequently demolished, it was moved to another building off Flinders Street, where it ran for many years before finally developing a terminal fault and finally being removed in 2024.

Today, VK5RSA is back on what now is one of the best communications sites in the CBD. This is all thanks to the support AREG receives from KernWi-Fi, who are continuing to sponsor access to RAA House on King William Street in the heart of the Adelaide CBD.

VK5RSA operates on 438.025MHz TX -7.0MHz RX with 91.5Hz CTCSS

VK5 Linked Repeater Network

VK5 Linked Repeater Network Coverage Map

VK5RSA is also part of the new central SA linked repeater network. This network now includes 11 repeaters, stretching from the Adelaide area right across to the eastern border of SA, south to Victor Harbor, and into the mid-north from Lochiel.

AREG offers it’s sincere thanks to Phil Kern at KernWi-Fi for his support for the project to re-establish VK5RSA – it is fantastic to have been able to restore this service for the amateur radio community in Adelaide – and from such a fantastic site too!

About our Sponsor

KernWi-Fi supply Fibre, NBN, Fixed Wireless Internet, VoIP, Event Wi-Fi and Radio Communications to residential and businesses all over Adelaide.  They also specialise in servicing the black spots of Adelaide.  To learn more, visit their website!

They are 100% Adelaide based and owned Licensed Carrier and work with many local communities to provide high speed internet services. They also sponsor various community groups across the state.