Category Archives: Club News

Club News Summary

Getting Started on 630m (476kHz) – 7.45pm February 15th

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The next meeting of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will be held on Friday 15th of February. This month we have Andrew VK5CV as guest presenter who will introduce the world of the 630m band on 476kHz. Andrew has been an active experimenter on this band for some time in Adelaide and is a fountain of knowledge on how to put a signal on air on this band, even from a suburban block.

www.qsl.net/dl4yhf/mf/mf.html

Example of an MF transmitter setup

Meeting Location and NEW TIME!

The meeting will be held at the Fulham Community Centre, Phelps Court, Fulham. From this month, AREG meetings will be starting earlier and will have some format changes. The hall will now open at 7.15pm and the meeting will start at 7.45pm on the dot. The restructured and shortened business meeting will be first with the guest presenter starting by 8.15pm.

After the formal part of the meeting, refreshments will be available (tea, coffee and cake) and you will have the chance to discuss what you have heard with the presenters each month! We hope this new format is a positive development for those attending AREG meetings!

Visitors are most welcome!

Advanced Notice – March & April Meetings – New Dates!

The Amateur Radio Experimenters Group also wishes to advice that we have changed the dates for our March and April meetings.

  • The March meeting will now be held on the 8th of March (2nd Friday) so as to avoid clashes with the team setting up for the John Moyle Field Day. The topic for this meeting should be confirmed shortly.
  • The April meeting will now be held on the 12th of April (again the 2nd Friday) so as to avoid clashing with Easter Good Friday. This meeting will hear from David VK5DGR on his work to develop FreeDV2020 – a new high quality audio version of his FreeDV HF digital voice transmission mode that uses roughly the same bandwidth as FreeDV 1600

Stay tuned for other special events that are also planned in the coming months! More information will be published on these as they are confirmed!

HNY 2019: January Meeting – HF Remote SDRs & AREG’s Remote Site Project

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Firstly, Happy New Year 2019 to everyone. This year promises to be yet another action packed fun filled series of events brought to you by the members of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group.

Next Meeting – Friday January 18th – 7.45pm

The next meeting of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group Inc will be held on Friday the 18th of this month. The topic of the evening will start with a short introduction to the world of remote HF SDR receivers and how to access them.

It will then be followed by a workshop event looking at the original AREG project intended to setup and host one of these systems here in Adelaide. The original project was plagued with problems, most notably getting an internet link out to the site some 40km away from VK5RWN. In the end we weren’t successful in getting the microwave link to be stable. The secondary issue of local site noise at the receive site was never even addressed because the internet feed couldn’t be resolved.

Now that 2019 is here, and the opportunity of a new site has presented itself (that solves the internet access issue), the club is looking for members to form a new team to try and complete the project. The second half of the meeting this month will explore what tasks need to be done to make this a reality and we will be looking for volunteers to put their hands up to help

Visitors are always welcome! The club meets at the Fulham Community Centre, Phelps Crt, Fulham from 7.45pm. The presentation starts at 8.00pm and will be followed by coffee and cake before a formal business meeting.

We look forward to seeing you all there!

Amateur Radio Fox Hunting by Bryan Ackerly VK3YNG – Special November 9th Meeting date

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The next meeting of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group Inc will be held ONE WEEK EARLY in November on the 2nd Friday of the month to accommodate a visit from Bryan Ackerly VK3YNG who is going to talk to us about getting started in Radio Direction Finding (or commonly known as Fox Hunting in VK). The meeting will be held at the usual venue in the Fulham Community Centre, Phelps Court, Fulham starting at 7.45pm

Photo by Adrian VK5ZBR – Mt Gamber National Championships

Bryan is the creator of the VK3YNG Sniffer receivers which have received wide acclaim and is full of information on how to get started and participate in this fun filled and action packed aspect of Amateur Radio.

Rod VK5UDX teaching Adrian VK5ZBRs daughter how to DF

Following the meeting, a come and try Fox Hunting event will be held the following day (Saturday November 10th) at 1pm in the South East corner of the Adelaide Parklands, off Beaumont Rd near the Greenhill Road end. The come and try day will allow those without gear to come and see how to get started and to try their hands at some pedestrian direction finding using equipment such as Bryan’s sniffer receivers.

Visitors are most welcome at both events. If you have ever been curious or just want to come for a day in the park on Saturday then drop on by – we would love to see you and introduce you to the fascinating world of radio direction finding!

Location of this event

AREG IRLP & DSTAR Gateways Back in time for JOTA

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After several months of disruptions due to lightning and HDD failures at both the VK5RSB IRLP node and the VK5RWN DSTAR Gateway AREG is pleased to announce that we have been able to restore both services in time for this weekend’s Jamboree on the Air for the Scouting and Guiding communities.

VK5RSB Internet Relay Linking Project Node #6214

The IRLP Node 6214 will be available for use by users supporting JOTA this weekend, 20, 21 October. The node can be accessed via the VK5RSB 70cm repeater on 439.900 (-5MHz) using a 91.5Hz CTCSS access tone.

In the support for JOTA, the prefix access code has been removed for this weekend, thus allowing free access to the node.

Therefore to access remote IRLP nodes,

  • dial in the 4 digit DTMF node address of the remote node.
  • to disconnect the IRLP connection, just dial “73” a the end of the QSO.

AREG wishes the JOTA teams and other users, to have fun with contacts via the IRLP Node 6214.

VK5RWN DSTAR Gateway Restored for the 2m/70cm repeaters

The VK5RWN D-Star repeater and gateway is also now fully functional after its computer rebuild. It’s new computer has been installed and the gateway configuration is now complete using the new ICOM G3 software.

Currently the configuration is;

  • Port C, the 2m port, is unlinked and available for general use or user linking to reflectors and gateways etc (147.0375 +600kHz)
  • Port B, the 70cm port, is permanently linked to Reflector REF023C and will output any activity on this reflector and will repeat local RF activity on the 70cm channel into the reflector network. (438.400 -5.4MHz)

NOTE: Port B may be disconnected from the link to REF023C with the unlink command, “^^^^^^^U” , (the ^ represents spaces)  then it may be connected by the user to another address.

VK5RWN activity is now being reported to various Dashboards,

D-Star network access seems to fully functional. Ben VK5BB reports that he has tested linking to several reflectors through the local gateway as well as connecting directly to VK5RWN via his JumboSpot hot spot successfully.

So, any members or DSTAR users in Adelaide who have an interest in D-Star, have D-star capable radios and are registered on the D-Star system, please give VK5RWN a try out and feedback will be appreciated please?

73 from Ben VK5BB

AREG Meeting THIS FRIDAY – Member Lightning Talks Round 2

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The next meeting of AREG will be held on Friday October 19th starting 7.45pm. The topic for the evening is another round of Lightning Talks presented by you the members. The task is simple, you have 5 minutes to introduce or talk about your latest experiment, amateur related activity or idea. We have 6 slots so don’t be bashful, come along and tell us what has made you tick in Amateur Radio.

One of the talks will be a quick intro on how to decode SSTV using a 2m handheld and a phone – something that might be helpful for Horus 50!

A screen will be available provided you can deliver your talk via MS Powerpoint. Bring props or whatever you wish while the time keeper will keep proceedings lively by holding everyone to their 5 minute time limit.

The general meeting will be held after the talks so come along and meet your fellow AREG members face to face.

Visitors are always welcome too!

The meeting is held at the Fulham Community Centre, Phelps Court, Fulham.

AREG September Meeting: Bends & Hitches not Knots!

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Have you ever tried to put up a mast but struggled to tie things up so they stay in the air? Have you tried to sling antennas from trees but had them fall down faster than you could get them up? Have you struggled with rope craft in general but never had anyone to show you the right way?

As amateur radio operators, this is an important skill that will allow you to safely tie off ropes and guys so that your antennas and masts stay erect! So, why not come along to the next AREG meeting on Friday 21 September and learn from our resident rope expert how to do it right the first time.

After the presentation, there will be a break for a light supper of tea, coffee and cake where you can mingle and rag chew on the current events. This break will then be followed by an AREG club business meeting.

So remember folks, this coming Friday, the 21 September for the next AREG general meeting, everyone is invited.

Meeting time & Place: Friday, the 21 September at the Fulham Community Centre, off Phelps Court Fulham. The doors opening at 7:45 pm with the presentation starting at 8:00 pm.

AREG to host an Amateur Radio exam session – Saturday Sept 8th

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The Amateur Radio Experimenters Group is arranging for a round of Amateur Radio license examinations to be held at the Fulham Community Centre, Phelps Court, Fulham on Saturday 8th September starting at 9.00am.

For those members (and non members) wishing to upgrade their current Standard or Advanced license, or you wish to sit one of these licenses directly (no need to have passed a lower grade – you can directly sit for any license level in Australia)  we need to know by COB Thursday 16th (this week!) so we can arrange for exam papers to be ordered and have them arrive on time.

Foundation License training and exams will also be held. Registrations also need to be completed before Thursday 16th August. Those wishing to sit the foundation license should obtain a copy of the foundation license manual beforehand if they haven’t already done so, and start studying. Come along to the AREG club meeting this Friday (7.45pm) to discuss how to prepare for the exam with the organizers.

Places are limited (unfortunately) for the Foundation license due to the nature of the training so get in quick. If the course fills up, AREG will plan another exam day later in the year.

Costs to sit the exam will be advised later this week (pending the committee meeting). We look forward to seeing new faces join this amazing hobby.

You can email us to register your interest to vk5arg (at) areg.org.au