AREG Car Boot Sale: Saturday 3rd Sept – UPDATE

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Preparations have been proceeding well for the Inaugural AREG Radio & Electronics Car Boot Sale on Saturday 3rd September. We are pleased to announce that we will have a number of commercial vendors represented, including Connect VK, QSL Communications (from Brisbane) and DX Radio Systems (from Perth). (DX Radio systems is the Flex Radio dealer in VK).

How to take part?

Buyers will be allowed onto the site from 9:00am to purchase entry tickets. Tickets are $5.00 (cash only on the day). The early check in time will give you a chance to avail yourselves of the sausage sizzle and coffee van prior to the buying frenzy getting under way.

The gates to the buying area will

open promptly at 10:00am. 

I want to sell something at the event – how do I book?

Amateur interest in the event is very high too with over 2/3rds of the seller spaces already allocated. If you want to book a car park, do not delay! Email: vk5arg@areg.org.au with your request ($10/car or $15/car+trailer).

Sellers can arrive from 8:30am and will be directed to the sellers car park on arrival. Sellers will this weekend receive further details about the event.

Door Prizes on offer!

We have also received support from TET-Emtron, Altronics and Skope-IT with donations of door prizes for the event.

tet emtron
Skope IT Logo_f_TAG Full Colour
altronics logo

This is shaping up as a great event on the SA Amateur Radio calendar – we look forward to seeing everyone on Saturday September 3rd!

Where is it being held?

AREG AGM 19th August: 3Y0J Expedition – Preparing to visit the most remote place on earth

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AREG will be hosting a Zoom presentation by Adrian KO8SCA on the plans for the 3Y0J DXpedition to Bouvet Island planned for January 2023 as part of our Annual General Meeting. The presentation will be held at 8:00pm ACST (1030z) Friday August 19th and will be Simulcast live-streamed via the HRDX Youtube channel. We hope to see you there!

REMINDER: Next Adelaide 2m/70cm Foxhunt TONIGHT @ 6:30pm

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The next AREG Adelaide 2m and 70cm Fox-hunt event will be held on Friday August 12th. It will once again commence from  the car-park of the Adelaide Aquatic Centre, off Jeffcott Road, North Adelaide. Hounds can assemble from 6.00pm with departure at 6.30pm. Three fox transmitters will again be active on 144.390 MHz, 145.300 MHz, and 439.4 MHz.

The event is open to anyone to enter. Inter-team liaison occurs via the VK5RSB 439.900MHz  (-5MHz with 91.5Hz CTCSS tone access) Adelaide Metro area repeater. Hounds are asked to announce their presence on the repeater if they are late and are joining from other locations.

We hope to see you there!

AREG August 19th AGM Meeting: 3Y0J Bouvet Island Expedition

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The next meeting of the Amateur Radio Experimenter’s Group will be the our Annual General Meeting, to be held on Friday August 19th. Proceedings will start at 8:00pm ACST (8:30pm AEST, 6:30pm AWST, 1030UTC).

Our guest speaker for the evening is Adrian KO8SCA, one of the team members of the 3Y0J Bouvet Island DXpedition, who will join us via Zoom from his home in New York. Adrian will take us through the challenges facing the 3Y0J team and preparatory work that has been completed so far for this epic adventure.

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AREG July Meeting – Lightning Talks: AREG members in the VHF/UHF Field Day

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Hopefully you have noticed by now that AREG is currently heavily promoting VHF and UHF activity within the Amateur Service. Many of our members took the hint and got up on the air for the WIA’s Winter VHF/UHF field day this year!

Now that the event is over, we thought it would be great to review the events of the day and have each of those who participated give a short 5 minute summary of their experiences on VHF/UHF in the contest this year. So the next meeting will be a series of member “Lightning Talks” – 5 minutes each on how you went, what you did, what worked and what didn’t – so that we can share the experiences and learning ready for the next event in Spring.

To hear how everyone went, come along to the AREG meeting this Friday night, starting at 7.30pm. AREG meets at the Fulham Community Centre, off Phelps Court, Fulham. Visitors are most welcome.

For those members interstate or locally who cant attend in person, the meeting will as usual also be conducted in parallel online via Zoom. Visitors who would like to attend our meeting via Zoom can email our secretary – Mark via secretary@areg.org.au to request guest access to the Zoom conference for the night.

After the presentations, there will be a short business meeting. This is our last business meeting for 2021/22 as the AREG Annual General Meeting will take place next month, on the 19th of August.

We also hope to have a special guest speaker at the AGM – stay tuned for more details!

VK5RWN D*STAR Site July 2nd – Service RESTORED

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AREG Services from the VK5RWN D*STAR repeater site  on 147.0375MHz & 438.400MHz will be offline for much of the afternoon while we undertake maintenance and preparation works for a planned upgrade.

UPDATE: July 2nd 5:45pm – The work has now been completed and the DSTAR repeaters have been returned to service.

DMR repeater preparations now well advanced

Today the works included preparing the site for the commissioning of the new AREG DMR repeater. VK5RWN DMR will soon be operating on 438.900MHz -7.0MHz, in parallel with the DSTAR repeater on 438.400 -5.4MHz.

The work today included preparing the VK5RWN antennas for the new combining arrangements. The antennas were taken down, refurbished, rearranged and re-installed on the tower and the DMR repeater was installed in the rack. There are, however, a few more things still to do on site to complete its commissioning. Those activities are planned for later this month. Stay tuned for more updates!

Winter VHF-UHF Contest – AREG members will be there!

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Are you into contesting? Have you tried contesting on VHF & UHF? This is a reminder that the Wireless Institute of Australia is running their annual Winter VHF/UHF field day contest next weekend, June 25-26th starting at 0100 UTC (10.30am Australian Central time)

AREG members are planning on being out an about with at least two portable stations and possibly one rover station. If you have a VHF/UHF station at home or are out and about yourselves, why not take a listen and put out some calls on or near the VHF/UHF call frequencies of 52.525, 146.500, 439.000 and 1296MHz for FM (or the equivalents for SSB – see the WIA band plan) and see just how far you can communicate on the VHF and UHF bands!

The rules are available here and further information is available from the WIA Website in the contesting section.

VK5ZM’s portable VHF/UHF Field Day Station

From the WIA Website:

The Field Days provide VHF-UHF operators with the opportunity to “head for the hills” and see how far distant and how many stations they can work.

The Field Days have separate sections for single and multiple operator stations. The duration of the Field Day is 24 hours, but there are also 8-hour sections for operators who may not be able to camp overnight. Most club stations prefer to operate for the full 24 hours.

The Field Days also generate plenty of activity from home stations, so there is also a separate Home Station section.

All contacts must be simplex: contacts through repeaters or satellites are not allowed. There is plenty of FM activity, but one feature of the Field Days is a high level of SSB activity.

It is possible to do very well with only modest antennas if you pick a good hilltop. Another option, if your station is easily transportable, is to operate from more than one location during the contest period.

Aim Of The Contest

The overriding aim is to get away for the weekend and have fun! But next after that, the aims are:
   to encourage more activity on VHF and microwave bands;
   to encourage people to work greater distances than usual by operating portable, and
   to provide opportunities for people to activate or work into new grid squares.