AGM – July 15th – Topic: Road Traffic Control Systems

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AGMThe committee wishes to formally advise members that the Annual General Meeting for 2016 will be held on Friday 15th of July starting at 8.00pm.

The location will  be the Reedbeds Community Hall, Phelps Court, Fulham.

After the formal part of the AGM meeting, there will be a guest presentation by Rod Baker, VK5ZTV. Rod will speak about the technologies used to manage Adelaide’s road transport system. This will provide a fascinating insight into this very complex system.

Visitors are most welcome. Doors open at 7.45pm and there will be a light supper after the presentations. If you need help finding your way to the venue, give VK5ARG a call on 439.900 via the Summertown repeater.

Major Community Communications Exercise: River Paddling Marathon 2016 Underway

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The AREG is again providing the safety 11150467_978562678823296_1590281837710590802_ncommunications network covering the River Paddling Marathon 200 event from Berri to Morgan in South Australia’s Riverland district over the June long weekend. Run in conjunction with the Riverland Radio Club on behalf of the Marathon Canoe Club of SA, this event provides emergency and safety communications coverage for over 100 paddlers participating in the event.

Updates as the event unfolds will be posted to our website!

Next Meeting: Parks ‘n’ Peaks Operations with Paul VK5PAS

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AREG is always looking for avenues to encourage amateurs out into the field to operate their stations. One of the unique ways to do this is to go and operate from a conservation park. Several awards systems have been established to promote this type of portable operation. These have been very effective in stimulating activity on the HF bands domestically particularly during daylight hours on 20 and 40m.

There are various forms of these awards including Summits On The Air, World Wide Flora and Fauna and other National Parks awards both in Australia and abroad. Paul VK5PAS has been a major champion of this type of operation and in particular is the founder of the VK5 National & Conservation Parks Award.

http://www.vk5parks.com/about-the-award.html

Sample VK5 Parks Award Certificate

At AREG’s next meeting on Friday June 17th, Paul VK5PAS will give a presentation on the Parks ‘N’ Peaks movement and the VK5 award in particular.

Everyone is most welcome to attend. The meeting will be held at:

Reedbeds Community Hall
Phelps Crt, Fulham

The doors will open at 7.45pm and the presentation will get underway at 8.00pm sharp.

After the meeting a short debrief will be given on the outcomes from the River Paddling Marathon that many AREG members are involved with this weekend.

Log Book Of The World

In addition to Parks n Peaks, Paul is now able to assist with the certification process for LogBook of the World. We hope to hear more about how to become registered for LOTW from Paul during the meeting as well.

River Paddling Marathon 2016: Operator Briefing 8pm Thursday 2nd June

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Matt VK5ZM running the 164MHz commercial net

Matt VK5ZM running the 162MHz commercial net

The River Paddling Marathon 200 is about to be held again in 2016 over the June long weekend. The Amateur Radio Experimenters Group in conjunction with the Riverland Radio Club is pleased to again be offering communications support to the Marathon Canoe Club of South Australia. Preparations are almost complete and it is now time to have the final operator briefing.

This year the briefing will be held on Thursday evening, June 2nd, at the Reedbeds Community Hall in Fulham (Adelaide). The start time will be 8.00pm (due to prior hall bookings). All operators are asked to attend if at all possible.

There are changes to some of the procedures for this year’s event that you need to learn about. We will also be distributing your checkpoint information and logging packs and will discuss the communications protocols for this year (including the trial 6m packet AX.25 score collection system).

Martin Finn - Race Director

Martin Finn – Race Director

We will have representatives from the Marathon Canoe Club present and time permitting there will also be a controlled net communications exercise held across the hall (bring a handheld).

If you have any questions, please contact either Grant Willis VK5GR (logistics) or Matthew Cook VK5ZM (Safety Officer).

Next Meeting: Transmitting Magnetic Loop Antennas for 160-40m

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The AREG is pleased to announce that our guest speakers for our next regular monthly meeting will be Steve Adler VK5SFA, Leigh Turner VK5KLT and Paul Lawson VK5SL. They will be talking about their work on Transmitting Magnetic Loop Antennas for the lower HF bands including both the theory and practical aspects of their operation and construction.

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VK5SFA 160-75m Transmitting Magnetic Loop Antenna

Steve has been using one very successfully on 160m and was kind enough to loan the AREG SPDX RTTY contest team his 40m one for use up at Morialta this past weekend.

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VK5SFA 40m TMLA (used by AREG in the SPDX RTTY Contest)

These are fascinating antennas in the way they work and in the way they perform. Their noise immunity is something in particular to consider in urban environments where amateurs are space and electrically environmentally challenged.

Full details of how to build these antennas and the theory behind them are available via Steve VK5SFA’s website.

When and Where?

You can meet Steve and the team who designed and built them in person at our next meeting on Friday May 20th, starting at 7.45pm (for an 8.00pm start). You can find details of where the AREG meet on the contacts page.

Visitors are most welcome to come along! A short business meeting will be held after the presentation.

AREG Member Training Day for the RPM200 Comms Event – This Saturday!

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The Radio operator training day for the River Paddling Marathon 200 event which AREG supports in June, will be held on the eastern banks of the Murray River, just north of the Swanport Bridge by the boat ramp on Saturday April 30th 2016! This training will coincide with the running the Marathon Canoe Club’s Back-To-Back event held along this part of the river each year.

The operator training day will pitch checkpoint team against checkpoint team to see who can spot the most valid number of canoes.

Operators will need to get to the river by 12.00pm. The first paddlers are due around 1.00pm . (It is typically only an hour’s drive up the freeway).

BacktoBacktrainingDay-finished

Everyone will be broken into teams of two. You will need to bring “optical magnification” apparatus, pens and something hard to write on (folding table and chairs recommended). You will be presented with paddlers from the Marathon Canoe Club’s Back to Back paddling event and will be asked to track paddlers, numbers, descriptions and will be graded in friendly competition with your fellow spotters spread out over the boat ramp park.

Bring a picnic lunch and enjoy a day by the river watching (intently) the world float by! It is recommended that participants bring binoculars, chairs, snacks and insect repellent.  There is not much shade, so umbrellas, hats or marquees  will make the day more pleasant.

Just Visiting?

For those who don’t want to spotting canoe’s but want to come for the social day, there is room to also set up HF portable by the river!

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Evening BBQ at Swanport Sailing Club

At the end of the event, we will adjourn back to the Swanport Sailing Club for a BYO BBQ dinner and a chat/de-brief with the Marathon Canoe Club. It is just a short drive back over the Swanport bridge.BBQ After the event

Please note:  No dogs allowed at Swanport Sailing Club, so please leave the hounds at home!

Conclusion

If you are participating in the RPM200 in June, we would very much encourage you to come along on the 30th of April as well! Accurate canoe spotting is an important aspect of providing the safety net at the RPM200 so this training/practice is vital to improve the way AREG supports the main event in June. Hope to see you all there!

AREG Participation in the SPDX RTTY Contest: Report

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CQ SPDX TEST DE VK5ARG VK5ARG KK

The AREG team tried something new on Sunday April 24th 2016, operating portable from the Morialta Conservation Park just east of Adelaide hexbeamin the Polish Radiovideography Club’s SPDX RTTY contest . A lot of fun was had by those members who operated and visited us during the activation. 29 valid contacts were made including 5 out of 17 Polish provinces. Andy VK5AKH provided the bulk of the station equipment and was assisted by Grant VK5GR, Dennis VK5FDEN, Gary VK5FGRY and Mark VK5QI in setting up the station in the early afternoon.

By the time we were ready to go, long path Europe was already open, and the first station we called answered on the first try. We were running an IC7600 at about 90W FSK power with the HexBeam and the Fl-Digi software for RTTY. We also experimented with the GRITTY software which has some advanced decoding capabilities.

vk5akh-working rttydx

40m Loop Antenna

40m-loop-vk5sfaSteve VK5SFA also brought along his new 40m magnetic loop antenna for us to experiment with. We were very impressed with it’s noise performance and efficiency for such a small antenna. While we were working 20m RTTY long path EU, Matt VK5ZM, Gary VK5FGRY and Mark VK5QI experimented with the loop. Contacts on it were had across SE Australia, including 10W to 10W to Chris VK5CP who was portable in Parachilna in the Flinders Ranges.

(Stay tuned – a talk is planned at the next AREG meeting on these very unique antennas).

Contest Progressed

As the RTTY contest progressed, the team attempted 15m as well with limited success before returning to 20m to close out the EU LP opening.

We were then treated to the “AREG Catering Service” in the form of Sharon VK5FSAW who brought up baked potatoes and condiments, which were very welcome considering it was getting quite cold as the sun went down.

Finally we dropped down to 40m and put the loop to use on RTTY. We picked up a contact with the USA – after spending a while learning how to tune it! (It is only ~3-4kHz wide).

40m-rtty-cq

Who we worked

While we were not competitive we had a lot of fun working RTTY stations in Europe, and we are sure we helped a few polish stations with a continental multiplier. The stations we worked were:

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This has certainly whetted our appetite to try another attempt at RTTY later in the year (perhaps the CQ WW or CQ WPX RTTY contests).

A big thank you to everyone who participated and in particular to Andy VK5AKH who brought his portable HF station.