Category Archives: LiveStream

Livestreamed Presentations available via YouTube

AREG Annual General Meeting 21st August

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Now for our next general meeting, members are firstly reminded that this meeting is our Annual General Meeting. We are looking for some new committee members to join the team as we say thank you to our president, Gerard VK5ZQV who is stepping down from the role after 3 years. If you feel you would like to become involved in steering AREG into the future, please consider nominating for the committee.

Introducing the Kestrel Project

At our AGM we will also have a special presentation from Derek VK5TCP.  He has been developing a community-provided distributed Receiver network for aviation, maritime and amateur radio traffic, built from an operator’s perspective, opened up so anyone with an SDR and an antenna can join it. Nicknamed Kestrel, it allows monitoring of all sorts of radio services. Derek is currently integrating ADSB, AIS, AM/FM/SSB, Meshtastic, Meshcore, scanners, remote switching, and more.

An example below is his integration of ATC Air traffic control receivers with ADSB aircraft tracking.

More advanced features and strategies will be discussed as part of the presentation. . He continues to develop and expand the platform and is looking for others to use it and contribute if you can. This will be a fascinating look at what can be done with SDR technology today and is one not to be missed.

AREG AGM Details

The AGM will be held on Friday August 21st at the Fulham Community Centre, Phelps Court, Fulham. Doors will open at 7.00.pm with the AGM being held at 7.30pm. The technical talk will be held on conclusion of the AGM, with tea and coffee served afterwards.

Visitors are welcome – 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

 

AREG November Meeting – SA Repeater Network and the VK5RSB Repeater Rebuild

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The next meeting of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will be held this coming Friday, November 21st . The presentation this month is by Dean VK5HQ who will take people through the work that the AREG Repeater sub-group has undertaken at Summertown to rebuild it and prepare it to become the SA Repeater network hub repeater. He will also take you though the rest of the linked repeater network sites to give you an understanding of the reach and operation of the central SA network.The meeting was held at the Fulham Community Centre.

A copy of the presentation is available here

 

 

 

 

December Meeting – An introduction to FDM 3D Printing by Bob VK5FO

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Update: The talk was recorded and is available below!

The next AREG meeting will be held on Friday the 20th of December 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!

This month’s presentation will be by Bob VK5FO, giving us an introduction to Fused Deposition Modelling (filament-based) 3D printing. Bob will cover some of the entry-level printers available, different filament types, and how to get started using designs you can find online.

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.

We won’t be holding a general business meeting this month – instead there’ll be time after the presentation for a catch-up before we break for the holiday season.

We’ll be back in January with a lightning talks session, on all of our holiday amateur radio projects!

73, Mark VK5QI