Category Archives: Club News

Club News Summary

AREG AGM – New Executive 2015

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AGM

The AREG held it’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Friday the 17th of July. This was followed by a talk from Chris VK5CP about RTTY Contesting and a general members meeting.

As a result of the AGM there is a new executive and committee, with a few familiar faces.

This year Scott VK5TST moves into the position of club Secretary, with Mark stepping down back to the committee. We thank Mark for this hard work over the past three years in this role.   Grant VK5GR has stepped up from the committee to take on the role of club treasurer, welcome Grant to the exec team.  Ben VK5BB and Andy VK5AKH will carry on as committee members.   We’d also like to welcome Josh VK5JO who has volunteered to join the committee team.  I was more than happy to continue on as president.

So the AREG executive team for 2015/2016 can be found here (click)

Thanks again for your support and we look forward to planning a new technical talk and activities program for our members pleasure.

73, Matt VK5ZM

VI5MCP Update

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AREG Members have activated the VI5MCP callsign 3 times so far.  The members have braved the elements and been out to get the station on the air.

Saturday 11th, Bob, VK5FO and Ray VK5RR set up and operated on 20M and 40M logging 5 countries and 19 contacts with 5 DXCC entities.

Sunday 12th, Bob VK5FO, Ray, VK5RR and Andy, VK5AKH Operated on 40, 15, 30 and 20M  A further 21 contacts were logged and 1 more DXCC entity.

Wednesday 15th the 100 year anniversary day, Ben VK5BB operated 40M and 2M adding a further 15 contacts to the log.

Take a look at the VI5MCP QRZ page to see the last 50 Entries in the logs.

More activities are planned and all are pending wx

AREG Annual General Meeting: July 17th + Guest Speaker

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clip-art-meeting-700008Your AREG committee wishes to announce that the Annual General Meeting for 2015/2016 will be held on Friday July 17th starting 7.45pm. All committee positions will be declared vacant and elections for the coming year will be held.

Nominations are now open, so if you would like to become more involved in the running of your club then please notify the secretary.

RTTY Contesting

After the formal business part of the evening is over, we will then have a talk by Chris VK5CP on what he learned at the RTTY Contest University at the Dayton Hamvention. Hopefully Chris will also tell us some stories about what he saw at Dayton 2015.

The meeting will take place at our usual location of the Reedbeds Community Centre, 19 Fitch Rd Fulham. See you there!

Next Meeting: June 19th – RPM200 Show and Tell

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The next meeting of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will be held this coming Friday, June 19th at the Reedbeds Community Hall starting at 7.45pm.

The talk this evening will be a show and tell of all of the events leading up to and during the RPM200 from the communications network’s perspective. There is much that happens behind the scenes to make this event possible. We will talk about much of that as well as showing what the club has now assembled in terms of supporting equipment. The results from things like the APRS experiment will also be presented, and some early thoughts on what we might do in that space next year will be given.

There will also be an opportunity for those who participated to give the committee their feedback on what went right, and what can be improved for next year’s event. Your feedback is invaluable to us as part of our drive to continually improve the event so please come along and share your experiences too!

In addition, there will also be a short business meeting, as well as the usual coffee, cake and chat afterwards.

Visitors are always welcome so come on down! You can find the clubrooms at the address below:

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RPM200 Update: Operator Briefing Friday 29th May 7.45pm

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MCC Logo

All members who have signed up to participate in the RPM200 community event in the Riverland over the June long weekend need to book into their calendar the date of Friday May 29th for the pre-event operator briefing.

Attendance at the briefing, while not compulsory, is very strongly encouraged. The updated operator instructions and procedures for 2015 will be presented at this meeting.

The time will be 7.45pm and the location will be at the Reedbeds Community Centre. See you all there!

Free DV & the SM1000 – WebCast now live!

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The Amateur Radio Experimenters Group this month has produced a video of the presentation given by David Rowe VK5DGR on his new FreeDV digital voice codec and SM1000 stand alone encoder/decoder unit. The talk is well worth taking a look at if you have any interest in how digital voice modes can be delivered over HF radio.

David talks about his pioneering work and the open source ideals behind it as well as showing the newly released SM1000 Embedded FreeDV encoder/decoder unit that can be used to add digital voice using Codec2 to almost any current amateur tranceiver.

It’s our intention to film more of the club presentations in the future so stay tuned!

Next AREG Meeting: May 15th – FreeDV introducing the SM1000

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The next AREG Meeting on Friday May 15th will aregmapagain be held at the Reedbeds Community Hall, 19 Fitch Rd, Fulham SA 5024 starting at 7.45pm.

The presentation for the evening will be given by David Rowe, VK5DGR who will speak about the FreeDV project and the SM1000 digital interface unit that he has been involved with developing.

FreeDV – What’s it about?

vk5zm_testing_freeDV

Matt VK5ZM testing FreeDV on an IC706

The SM1000, is an embedded hardware product that allows you to run FreeDV without a PC. Just plug it into your SSB or FM radio, and you now have Digital Voice (DV).

It’s based on a STM32F4 micro-controller, has a built in microphone, speaker amplifier, and transformer isolated interfaces to your radio. It’s just 80 x 100mm, and can be held in you hand and used like a regular PTT microphone, or sit near your radio in a small box form factor.

In this presentation David will discuss the SM1000, and how it was developed by 2 Hams and a Chinese entrepreneur over the last 14 months.

David Rowe’s Background

David Rowe is a part time open source software and hardware developer and full time Dad.  He has worked on projects in VOIP, developing world communications, echo cancellation, speech compression, and digital voice over HF radio.

Prior to becoming an open source developer David worked as an engineering manager and has 25 years experience in the development of DSP-based telephony and sat-com hardware/software.   Somewhere along the way he picked up a wide mix of skills including software, hardware, project and business management, and a PhD in DSP theory.

David’s other interests include his popular blog (http://rowetel.com), bike riding, electric vehicles, energy efficiency, amateur radio (since 1981), and swanning around Adelaide drinking lattes.

AREG assists AHARS with VK5RAD 70cm Repeater Restoration

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repeater tower clipartIn the last week, AREG members have teamed up with the Adelaide Hills Amateur Radio Society (AHARS) to help bring the Crafers VK5RAD 70cm 439.925MHz repeater back to life. Temporary equipment has been loaned to the site while repairs continue on the original repeater.

VK5RAD 70cm Repeater Access Details:

  • Repeater Transmit: 439.925MHz
  • Repeater Receive: 434.925MHz (-5MHz offset)

Thanks to everyone at AHARS and AREG for restoring this valuable service to amateurs in the greater Adelaide area.

NOTE Regarding IRLP Node 6214

The 6214-IRLP node currently is still on  the VK5RSB 70cm repeater on 439.900 (contrary to what was broadcast on the WIA Sunday News this week). AREG is discussing the plans for its move currently with AHARS and the AREG membership. We will advise when the IRLP gateway does move.