Category Archives: Club News

Club News Summary

75th Oceania DX Contest: AREG on the air as VK5ARG

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Calling all contesters – help the Oceania DX Contest celebrate it’s 75th year!

First established in 1934 and earlier known as the VK/ZL contest, the Oceania DX Contest continues to grow. Please join us here in Oceania from all over the world for the 75th running of our international HF radio activity over the first two weekends of October.

PHONE: 06:00 UTC Saturday 3rd Oct to 06:00 UTC Sunday 4th Oct 2020
CW: 06:00 UTC Saturday 10th Oct to 06:00 UTC Sunday 11th Oct 2020

NOTE: New Start times!

See www.oceaniadxcontest.com for the latest version of the rules and list of plaques.

AREG Will be there as VK5ARG!

The Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will be running again this year as VK5ARG in a Multi-Multi entry in the PHONE contest this weekend. Our station is a large portable effort, constructed over the past 2 weeks at our remote contesting site (~100km north of Adelaide , the capital city of VK5). We would love to get you in our logs and will be looking for contacts on all bands from 160m to 10m.

ocdx18_IMG_5436 (Large)
IMG_7346 (Large)
ocdx18_IMG_5417 (Large)

Members who have never contested before and those that just like to come for the view and to socialize are asked to let the president know you are coming for catering purposes. We will then let you know the protocols for accessing the site (which is locked away on remote farmland). If you want to operate the station, please make sure you have registered with Matt VK5ZM who is coordinating the roster.

More Reasons to Join In!

Oceania DX Contest Plaque

The OCDX Committee have advised that there are a number of new plaques on offer this year thanks to their generous sponsors. Here are the new ones available for 2020:

  • Ron Wright ZL1AMO Memorial Award:
  • WORLD (non-Oceania) Phone + CW Single-Op Plaque
  • OCEANIA Phone MM (Multiple-Operators and Multiple-Transmitters) Plaque
  • OCEANIA SOUTHEAST ASIA Phone Single-Op Plaque (Philippines, East Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, and East Timor)
  • AUSTRALIA Phone Single-Op YL Plaque
  • AUSTRALIA CW Single-Op All Band QRP Plaque
  • INDONESIA Phone Single-Op 40M Plaque for Advanced and Extra Class licensees

Everyone is encouraged to have a go and submit a log, even if you only make one or two QSOs, so the contest organisers can verify these QSOs when calculating the final scores for all entrants. Upload your log via http://www.oceaniadxcontest.com/html/enter.html .

Oceania DX Contest Committee (ZL3GA, VK3GK, VK3MI/ZL1AZE, VK3TZ, VK4FH, VK4QS, VK7GN, YB0NDT)

VK5ARG: CQ WW RTTY Contest – Portable

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This year AREG has a keen sub-group of members who enjoy contesting. So much so we have named September 25 through October 26 Contesting Month! During this time the club is going to be active in three major contests, CQ WW RTTY, Oceania DX SSB and CW WW SSB.

This weekend is the RTTY contest and VK5ARG is on are calling CQ on all bands from 80 through 15m (and 10m if conditions work) . We operate on a farm about 100km north of Adelaide and build the station as a portable setup each year. (One day we hope to make it more permanent). The weather so far has severely hampered preparations this year, which meant that most of the antennas couldn’t be erected until the day of the contest (when we had the wind drop for the first time in 2 weeks). As of now, we are closing in on the half way mark of the contact target we set for the event.

The Station

We are running two Elecraft / Microham based stations, manned by VK5GR, VK5FR, VK5LA, VK5AKH, VK5ZQV, VK5ZM and VK5FJ. We had help from VK5SFA, VK5ANV, VK5FDEN, VK5JG, VK5KX, VK5XDX and VK5PH over 2 days to build the station as well!

It has been great to see the club members come together and work on a common project like this. I know we will also greatly appreciate not having to do the complete build for OCDX the day before the contest this year!

The Antennas

The antennas consist of a tri-band Spiderbeam for 20-10m, a 40m 4-square array (used last on the A35JT DXpedition) and an 80/160m Inverted L.

Keep watching for more news as we progress through the contest!

AREG Sept. General Meeting: Single Operator 2 Radios Contesting (SO2R) – Back at the Hall!

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The AREG committe is pleased to announce that the first face to face AREG meeting since the COVID-19 outbreak started in March will be  held this coming Friday, September 18th 2020! We will be returning to the hall, at the Fulham Community Centre, Phelps Court, Fulham at 7.30pm.
We will be following all of the government COVIDsafe guidelines including sign in sheets, COVID marshalls, special handling for food and beverages and will be observing social distancing. Members and visitors are most welcome to join us. You are required to bring your own cup if you wish a coffee or tea and will be responsible for taking it home and cleaning it yourself afterwards.
For those members still not willing to go out in public, we will also continue to Zoomcast our meetings online for members. This is intended to be a permanent fixture of our club into the future, especially given we currently have members in 4 states.

Single Operator 2 Radio (SO2R) Contesting

I’m sure that many AREG members will be familiar with contests and operating a single transceiver QRO station a in a pile up. But what happens if you introduce a second QRO station on the same desk, where your attention is now split across two transceivers and two bands are open at once ?
Welcome to the world of single operator two radio stations or SO2R for short.
Over the past two years some AREG members have been experimenting with SO2R at contests with mixed results.   Come along Friday to hear about what is an SO2R station, why they are fraught with danger for new operators and what steps have AREG members taken to reduce the chances of damaging equipment in the heat of battle, especially our prized AREG contesting filters.

QSL Bureau News

AREG Members are also advised that QSL cards will be available for collection on this evening. If there are non WIA members who would like to collect cards, please email vk5qslbureau@areg.org.au with your request and we will see if you have cards waiting that you can also collect in person.

Conclusion

We look forward to finally being able to meet in person again. It is not going to quite be as it was before, but it is a long way from where we have come! See you all on Friday Night!

AREG AGM 2020 – Tomorrow night August 21st 2020

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Folks, as a final reminder for members, the AREG Annual General Meeting, as notified on the members mailing list in June, will be held tomorrow night, Friday August 21st starting at 7.30pm.

While we had hoped to be ready to meet in person, given current conditions the committee has recommended we delay a little longer before re-opening the club rooms. As a result, the AGM will be held on-line via Zoom.

Members are also reminded that it is a members lightning talk night – so if you have a lockdown project you wish to share, put your hand up and give us a 5 minute run down on what you have been up to these past few months.

See all our members online tomorrow night!

July AREG Meeting: HF Pedestrian Mobile with Peter VK3YE

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AREG is pleased to announce that our next guest speaker will be Peter VK3YE who will talk about operating on HF Pedestrian Mobile!

The date: Friday July 17th – 7.30pm ACST

For members, the meeting will again be held via Zoom streaming on the internet. We will again bring a visitors live stream  via YouTube as well. (YouTube Link Here).

AREG June Meeting: 21cm Amateur Radio Astronomy

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The next meeting of the Amateur Radio Experimenter’s Group will be held on Friday June 19th at 7.30pm ACST (1000 UTC). It will be held online due to the COVID-19 large gathering restrictions, which are still in force here in VK5.

AREG Members will be able to participate via Zoom while visitors will be able to watch the stream via Hayden VK7HH’s Ham Radio DX YouTube channel.

21cm Radio Astronomy
by Phil Lock and Bill Cowley

This month, we have as our guest speakers Phil Lock and Bill Cowley, talking about amateur radio astronomy.

Cheaper electronics has created great possibilities for amateur Radio Astronomy.   This talk will describe a local project to receive and map the distribution of 21cm signals from neutral Hydrogen in our galaxy.   We briefly describe the history of  21cm RA and why it’s still of great interest to astronomers.  We outline some challenges over the last few years in assembling a 2m dish with custom feed, electronics and signal processing, then show recent results from our project.

The image above shows recent signals (May 17th) recorded over a 24 hour period for dish elevation of 53 degrees. The signal changes as the antenna points to different parts of the Milky Way.

The AREG committee is also looking to the future and is hoping as the situation continues to improve that we may be able to return to meeting in person by August (our AGM).