Category Archives: Meetings

Next Meeting Friday Oct 17th – Digital Amateur Television

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The next meeting of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group Inc will be held on Friday October 17th at 7.30pm. Doors will open at 7.00pm. The venue will be the Fulham Community Centre, Phelps Court, Fulham.

Introducing Digital Amateur Television

The topic this evening will be an introduction to 445 MHz (70 cm band) Digital Amateur Television, presented by Steve VK5SFA. Steve will present his journey to establishing an ATV transmission capability, including the various challenges encountered along the way.

Steve will also discuss how to get involved in receiving ATV on the 70cm band, and if you bring along your DVB-T set top box he will help you leave with it programmed ready to receive the local Adelaide ATV operators. The usual retailers are still selling the Laser STB-9000 for about $40.00 which will directly receive 70cm ATV if you want to get on board.

Update: a copy of the Youtube presentation is now available here:

Homework

Below is a list of terms used in DVB-t2 television broadcasting.  I will not be going into any great detail about how DVB-t2 actually works.  It is a mature technology and there is plenty of information on the Internet.
Feel free to conduct your own research if interested.
  • DVB-t (Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial)
  • Coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (COFDM)
  • QPSK (Quadrature Phase Shift Keying) 
  • QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation)
  • MER (Modulation Error Ratio)
  • FEC (Forward Error Correction)
  • Guard Interval
  • Carriers (2K & 8K)
  • PID (Packet Identifier)
  • LCN (Logical Channel Numbers)

Next Meeting Friday 19th September 7.30pm: Foxhunting at the National Championships

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The next meeting of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will be held on Friday 19th September 2025. The venue is the Fulham Community Centre, off Phelps Court, Fulham. Doors open at 6.30pm and the meeting starts at 7.30pm.

The presentation this month will be given by Mark, VK5QI and Grant VK5GR who will take everyone through what happens at the National Amateur Radio Foxhunting Championships, held in Mt Gambier over the June long weekend each year.

Tea/Coffee and refreshments will be available. After the presentation a short business meeting will be held.

We hope to see you there (at the ex Reedbeds Community Centre – now Fulham Community Centre).

Next AREG Meeting 15th August – Annual General Meeting – Presentation from Adrian KO8SCA on the 2026 Bouvet Island DXPedition!

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The next AREG meeting will be held on Friday the 15th of August at the Fulham Community Centre – Phelps Court, Fulham. This will be the AREG’s Annual General Meeting, which will include the election of the 2025-2026 committee.

3Y0K Logo

At this meeting we’ll have a presentation from Adrian KO8SCA on the plans for the February 2026 Bouvet Island DXpedition (3Y0K).
Bouvet Island is the most remote uninhabited island on earth, and is currently the #10 most wanted DXCC. It’s a serious challenge to even just get there, let alone get equipment onto the island, set up a station, and then work the many many stations expected to be calling. 
Adrian will be presenting via Zoom from the US (a very awkward time difference), so a big thanks to him for agreeing to present to us!

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

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 July 2025 Meeting – “Contest Station Planning and Design” by Grant VK5GR

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Grant’s talk was recorded and is available here:

The next AREG meeting will be held on Friday the 18th of July at the Fulham Community Centre – Phelps Court, Fulham. (Not at last month’s venue in St Peters – we’ll probably be back there at a future meeting!)

This month’s presentation is from Grant VK5GR, on considerations around setting up a station for a large worldwide amateur radio contest!
Grant will take you through various considerations when designing a HF contest station, starting with HF Propagation analysis and station location selection (and how to use the ARRL HF Terrain Analysis package). We will then take us through some station design ideas intended to maximise your ability to be heard at the right times and on the right bands to maximise your competitiveness. Ways of operating multiple HF transmitters from one location will also be discussed, as well as the types of gear to consider. Finally, he will take a look at contest logging systems and show how easy it is to record your QSOs. During the evening, Grant will specifically work through the planning that has so far taken place around the AREG effort to activate VL5X in this year’s 80th Oceania DX Contest during the October long weekend.

Doors open at 7.00pm and the presentations kick 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 the talk will be recorded for later viewing on Youtube.

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 June 2025 Meeting – “ESP32 – A magic microcontroller that can do anything!” by Adam Jenkins – NOTE DIFFERENT MEETING VENUE!

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This month’s presentation was recorded and is now available on Youtube here:

The next AREG meeting will be held on Friday the 20th of June at a new meeting venue we are trialing – the St Peters Youth Centre, on Cornish Road, Stepney, within Linde Reserve.

This month’s presentation topic will be from Adam Jenkins, on ESP32 Microcontrollers!

ESP32 Development Boards Review and Comparison - Maker Advisor

Adam will discuss the possibilities inherent in the ESP32 microcontroller for communications. With built-in Bluetooth, WiFi, and a dual-core CPU, the ESP32 is changing the maker world and opening up new possibilities that will enhance radio projects—from remote station control and APRS beacons to digital mode interfaces and portable logging tools. Adam will discuss the capabilities of the ESP32, programming basics, and how it can interface with RF hardware.

Doors open at 7.00pm and the presentations kick 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 the talk will be recorded for later viewing on Youtube. After the presentation we will be holding a Special General Meeting to vote on a special resolution for updates to the AREG constitution. AREG members please check your emails for information on this!

After the talk and meeting we’ll all be given an opportunity to have an eyeball QSO among ourselves whilst enjoying a tea or coffee and a biscuit.

How to find us this month!

The St Peters Youth Centre building is located at the end of Cornish Road, Stepney, with the main entrance off Cornish Road. You can find

Parking is available at:

  • Cornish Road, Stepney
  • The Linde Reserve Carpark, off Nelson Street, Stepney (including a Jolt EV charger!)
  • Even more parking in the other Linde Reserve carpark, off Stepney Street; and
  • Parking across Nelson Street, in The Avenues Shopping Centre.

73, Mark VK5QI

May AREG Meeting – “The Four Sides of a Triangle” by Graeme VK5RE

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The next AREG meeting will be held on Friday the 16th of May at the Fulham Community Centre – Phelps Court, Fulham.

The Four Sides of a Triangle, by Graeme Wilson VK5RE, is a guest lecture on how he drove 521,000 km around Australia in six and a half years checking mobile phone coverage, and how he developed driving techniques to do “Efficient Driving” and  seeing and photographing many interesting “things” along the way.

Doors open at 7.00pm and the presentations kick 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 the talk will be recorded for later viewing on Youtube.

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 April Meeting – Good Friday Park Picnic / Foxhunt / HF Activation

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For April’s meeting (on Friday the 18th of April, the Good Friday public holiday), AREG will not be holding a meeting at the Fulham Community Centre. Instead, we’ll be trying something a bit different and meeting up in a park for a BBQ lunch, HF activation, and some fox-hunting!

We’ll be meeting at the lower section of the Morialta Conservation Park from around 11AM with parking available off Moritalta Falls Road. We’ll be near one of the BBQ areas, so look out for a red AREG flag!

We’ll have a HF station going to activate the Morialta Conservation Park (VKFF-0783) so listen out for VK5ARG on the bands! There will also be a fox-hunting (amateur radio direction finding) course set up around the park, with plenty of equipment available to borrow and give fox-hunting a go.

If you’re coming along, we suggest you bring a chair, drinks, and food for lunch (the club will provide some basic BBQ fare too).

Hope to see you there!

AREG March 2025 Presentation: RADE – Machine Learning for Speech over HF Radio

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At our March meeting we had an excellent presentation from David Rowe, VK5DGR, on the new Radio Autoencoder digital voice mode! Thanks very much to David for giving the presentation, and pushing the state of the art in Amateur Radio!

This presentation was recorded, and is now available for viewing on Youtube: