Friday Foxhunts: Next Adelaide hunt 11th December 6.30pm

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On Friday 14th of November, three hunters set out to locate the two foxes that were hidden by Theo, VK5IR. The hunters were Mark, VK5QI, Louis, VK5FLY and Allan, VK5MAD. The first fox was hidden low in a tree at Victoria Park, south of the CBD and the second fox was stuck to the flying fox at a playground in St Clare, next to the St Clare Recreation Centre.

Both Mark and Louis were successful in locating the fox at St Clare and this was really a job well done as this fox only outputs 100mW so was very hard to hear. Mark was also successful in locating the other fox at Victoria Park which he found first before setting off for the low power fox. Unfortunately Allan had radio issues and called it a night early but has vowed to return for the next hunt.

The next hunt is planned for the evening of Friday the 11th of December and with hunters meeting at Lockleys Oval, Rutland Avenue Lockleys from 6.15pm and the hunt will commence at 6.30pm. Everyone is welcome to join in and we hope to see you there.

 

AREG November Meeting ONLINE: Thanks to Ham Radio DX!

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AREG would like to thank Hayden VK7HH for streaming our Friday night (20th November) presentation on FM Radio DXing by Andrew VK5LA to amateurs across the globe via the Ham Radio DX Channel. You can watch the stream here!

Times:

  • 7:45pm ACDT (South Australia)
  • 7:15pm QST (Queensland)
  • 8:15pm AEDT (New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania)
  • 6:45pm ACST (Northern Territory)
  • 5:15pm AWST (Western Australia)
  • 9:15hrs UTC

 

AREG Activating SES VK20HOME as VK5 enters hard lockdown

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COVID-19 has struck the Adelaide area hard and our state government’s response has been swift. The state of South Australia has entered what could only be described as a “CRASH STOP” lock-down for 6 days starting tonight. No one is allowed outside their property except to get food and other essentials as the authorities work to stop a COVID-19 cluster from getting out of control.

AREG members, who will be locked in their homes, will take to the airwaves and activate the WIA’s special event call sign VK20HOME to mark some of the harshest lockdown restrictions seen in Australia since the start of the pandemic.

Look for activity on multiple bands and modes from tonight until the 26th of November by AREG members across the state.

AREG November Meeting now exclusively online

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COVID-19 has made an unwelcome reappearance here in Adelaide. As a result, the state government has tonight mandated that all COVID-Safe events (which includes our in person meetings) have been cancelled for the next 2 weeks.

The AREG meeting will now take place exclusively online on Friday night. Members will have access via Zoom while Non-Members will be still able to view the livestream on Youtube.

Links and details will be made available shortly!

AREG Meeting 20th November: FM Broadcast DXing

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Often, during the summer months, it is often possible to hear FM broadcast stations from far and wide thanks to the Ionosphere and Troposphere bending signals over the horizon. There are a few tricks to getting the most out of tuning the broadcast band looking for that distant station however.

At the next AREG meeting on Friday the 20th of November, Andy, VK5LA will give a presentation on “DXing” the FM band. He will discuss, what gear is needed, what gear works best and how to identify stations you don’t normally hear and cover topics like locations, antenna polarisation, and explore the RDS station ID feature built in to most modern FM receivers.

Andy will also discuss using the ACMA database to determine if that exotic station you’ve just tuned in to is 70, 700 or 1700 km away and describe the various propagation modes that make this interesting activity possible. Finally he will take a look at how that information can be used to predict openings on the 6 metre (50MHz) band and above.

How can you take part in this meeting?

  • Due to the latest COVID-19 restrictions, the presentation will be via Zoom for members starting by 7.45pm South Australian Summer Time.
  • Visitors will be able to watch the lecture via Hayden VK7HH’s HamRadio DX Channel on YouTube.

We hope to see you there!

For interstate viewers the times are:

  • 8.15pm AEDT (Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania, Canberra)
  • 7:15pm QST (Brisbane)
  • 6.45pm CST (Darwin)
  • 5:15pm WST (Perth)
  • 09:15 UTC

AREG 2m Fox Hunt Fridays

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Have you ever heard of Fox Hunting? Do you remember the days when teams of people chased 2m hidden transmitters all over town? Would you like to join in the fun? The Amateur Radio Experimenters Group is commencing a new series of “Hidden Transmitter hunts” or “Fox hunts” as they are known on the 2m band over the summer daylight savings season this year.

The first event will be held on Friday the 13th of November. This will be a cross-town hunt with a two metre fox being hidden somewhere within the Adelaide metropolitan area. Anyone and everyone is welcome to join in.

The hunt will commence from the car park of the Lockleys Oval, Rutland Avenue Lockleys. Hounds are encouraged to gather at the start from 6.15pm. The fox will begin transmitting at 6.30pm. The fox’s frequency will be announced via the VK5RSB 70cm Summertown repeater on 439.900 MHz just before the hunt begins. Hunters are welcome to liaise via VK5RSB during the event (note that a 91.5 Hz CTCSS tone is required to access the repeater).

This will the first of many monthly fox hunts hosted by AREG over the coming months which will be announced on our website and via our Facebook page as well as the local VK5 WIA news.

So dust off your ARDF gear, we look forward to seeing you there!

VK5RWN D-Star update

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For information of all VK5RWN D-Star users, remote connectivity has been re-established late Wednesday evening, 21 October.

So users of Hot Spots, Dongles, DVAPs, you can again log onto the VK5RWN C or B modules.

If you have connection problems, you may need to update your hot spot Host Files. If the problem persists, email Ben VK5BB, and he will see what he can do to provide help.

You can also check the VK5RWN dash board to see connections and the Last Heard list,

vk5rwn.areg.org.au

For those interested in the technicalities, the problem was that when we reconfigured the local router that serves the VK5RWN D-Star computer, we missed setting some ports within the router to allow throughput.

The missing port numbers were not listed within the Icom manual for the setting up the D-Star system. However with some advice from a couple D-Star administrators, we identified the missing port numbers and I also then found them in older set up documents that were not checked in our search for answers. Isn’t that always the way of it?

It turns out that these ports are not needed by the main Icom D-Star system, which was working well without them, but are used by third party software that has been added to the D-Star operating system that allows additional services within the D-Star networks.

Have fun exploring and playing with D-Star.

VK5RWN DSTAR – We’re Back!

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We are pleased to report that thanks to the hard work of our dedicated volunteers, in this case Matt VK5ZM, Ben VK5BB and Bob VK5FO, we have completed the cut-over to our new Internet link!

The VK5RWN D*STAR repeater has been reconnected to the internet as has the Weather Sonde receive station. The VK5RWN D*STAR Gateway is active and hotspot users should also be able to connect again to our host server.

(Note: Hot spot users may have to wait a few days to allow the Host Files to update VK5RWN’s IP address. It is also recommended that hot spot users log into their hot spots and force an update to the Host Files).

AREG has now moved to a new internet provider. We would like to thank Phil and Christine at Kern Internet for their help in re-configuring the on site router!

Other Dash Boards associated with VK5RWN are also back online, including the registration page and user access to their accounts.

(You may need to allow a security exception to access the pages the first time you log in via the vk5rwn.areg.org.au.)

Adelaide D*STAR users who are not already members of AREG are encouraged to join our group or make a yearly donation to our running costs, to support the D*STAR system here in Adelaide.

We hope you enjoy our return to service!

  • VK5RWN 2m 147.0375 +600kHz
  • VK5RWN 70cm 438.400 -5.4MHz

Note if there are users in Adelaide that want to experiment with the 1.2GHz ports, please contact us and AREG can look at re-activating them. They were disabled originally after they sat idle for 2 years consuming power for no reason. If interest in D*STAR on 1.2GHz returns we can turn them on again.