As you can see, the VK5RSB 6m repeater antenna is not looking too good! A combination of recent lightning strikes and high winds has caused the radome to fail, and the antenna to effectively snap in two. As a result, the 6m repeater is offline until a new antenna can be sourced.
VK5RSB 6m is in a prime location on the Summertown ridge line, and is the best coverage 6m repeater in VK5. Donations to help fund the new antenna would be greatly appreciated – use the donation button to the left of this post, and use a reference of “RSB6M” and your callsign. Any amount will help!
On Sunday the 9th of November the AREG members assisted Project Horus and Launchbox with a double balloon launch from Mt Barker.
Filling 2kg Balloon with 5.5m^3 of Helium
These two Balloon launches contained nine High School science experiments along with an experimental satellite payload from the University of South Australia. They also carried the usual Project Horus cutdown and telemetry payloads to ensure recovery.
Thankfully the first payload was recovered from near Harogate and was relatively intact, after a freefall from 33kms sans chute.
The second payload made a miraculous landing into a farmers field just outside of Palmer, thanks to Andy VK5AKH for sharing the footage.
More specific details about the flights, altitudes and flight paths can be found on the Project Horus website.
Telemetry & Cutdown ready to go
First Balloon Train ready for Launch !
A big thanks has to go to our volunteer ground crew Gary VK5FGRY, Dennis VK5FDEN and his wife Irene, for cooking us a brilliant breakfast. They also put up and took down the Marquee and made sure the oval was nice and clean while we’d all taken off to go and chase the Balloons… Gary also made sure we had plenty of photos of the event, so it stands to reason why we’ve no photo of him to put on the blog (*grin*).
Breakfast of Legends !
I’m confident that everyone enjoyed the day and can’t wait for the next adventure in the coming months !
The next AREG General Meeting is on Friday the 21st of November, at the Reedbeds Community Hall doors open 7:45pm.
This month there will be a short 30 minute business meeting held starting at 8:00pm sharp. This month we will try a new format for the meeting in an effort to streamline proceedings.
This month we have arranged Mark VK5QI to present a technical talk entitled “<Insert Radio Name Here> – A open source teaching SDR for Linux Conf 2015”, starting at 8:45pm.
In this talk Mark will discuss the Softrock-based SDR he is developing for the Open Radio Mini conference, to be held at “Linux Conf 2015” in Auckland, New Zealand. Some basic SDR theory will be covered, along with some demo’s of the prototype kit.
We’re certainly fingers crossed that by the time our meeting comes around that this radio has a project name !
After the presentation there will be the usual “rag chew” over coffee, tea and cake until stumps.
On October 18th the AREG installed a new 5.8GHz wireless link into the VK5RWN repeater system.
The system is on test for the next couple of weeks, the results have been very promising with the link providing in excess of 30Mbit throughput (full duplex). Certainly many times faster than the current 512kbit symmetrical ADSL connection.
Once the wireless link has been finally commissioned and cut over the AREG will be able to close the current ADSL and Telephone internet connection which will significantly reduce the on-going running costs of this site.
I’d like to thank Bob VK5FO, Ray VK5RR, Andy VK5AKH and Mark VK5QI for assisting me with the installation and setup of both ends of the link.
The next General Meeting is this Friday, 17th October, at the Reedbeds Community Hall, 7:45 pm.
There are no formal planned activities for this month other than a short sharp and shiny General Meeting.
During the general meeting we will be covering club business, upcoming technical talk discussions, which will then be followed by a general “rag chew” over coffee, tea and cake. With luck a few members might even bring their new Elecraft toys, you know who you are !
Members of the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group (AREG) will be activating the club call VK5ARG this weekend (4-5th October) for the Oceania DX SSB Contest. We will be operating from Younghusband, approx. 80km east of Adelaide, SA.
AREG will be entering the contest as a MULTI-ONE team, and the main operators will be Matt VK5ZM, Mark VK5QI, Josh VK5JO and Theo VK5MTM. We will mainly be focusing on the 20m band, but hope to work a few VKs on 40m also.
The next General Meeting is this Friday, 19th September, at the Reedbeds Community Hall, 7:30 pm.
There are no formal planned activities for this month other than a short sharp and shiny General Meeting.
During the general meeting we will also be covering club business, further discussion after the AGM, and the general “rag chewing” over coffee, tea and cake.
The next General Meeting is this Friday, 15th August, at the Reedbeds Community Hall, 8:30 pm.
There are no formal planned activities for this month other than a short sharp and shiny General Meeting. Prior to the General meeting will be the Annual General Meeting.
During the general meeting we will also be covering club business, further discussion after the AGM, and the general “rag chewing” over coffee, tea and cake.
If any members have winter time projects that they would like to share with the group, then we’d love you to bring them along and discuss over a coffee.
This month we have arranged Mark VK5QI to present a technical talk entitled “<Insert Radio Name Here> – A 