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VK7AX > BCAST 28.01.24 12:07z 451 Lines 23748 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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VK7 Amateur Radio News 28Jan24
Text edition:
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VK7 AMATEUR RADIO NEWS BROADCAST
FOR SUNDAY 28th January 2024
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Welcome to the VK7 Amateur Radio News and this was first broadcast on Sunday the 28th January 2024. At the mike of VK7WI this week is Peter, VK7PD.
On Sunday this broadcast goes out on repeaters all over VK7 and on digital radio - DMR Talk Group 5 and D-Star Reflector 91C by Clayton, VK7ZCR.
We go out on medium and high frequency courtesy of the following rebroadcast stations:
On 1.862 MHz by Justin, VK7TW,
On 3.670 MHz by Dale, VK7DG,
On 7.140 MHz by Peter, VK7TPE,
On 14.130 MHz by Ross, VK7ALH,
On 28.525 MHz by Garry, VK7JGD.
UHF CB Channel 24 in the Hobart area - Mark VK7FMAC.
You can hear this broadcast again on Tuesday night at 8:00pm on repeaters VK7RAA in Northern VK7 and VK7RHT in Southern VK7.
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VK7ARNews Update
Groups.IO Email Reverification Process
Please note there is an email reverification process going on across the Groups.IO platform at the moment.
A small number (NOT ALL) VK7ARNews Groups.IO email group members will have received an email asking you to reverify your email address.
All you need to do is follow the simple reverification instructions contained in the email and it will ensure you continue to receive emails from this list.
Please note to determine if this is a valid request and not just a phishing email - the email will come from the groups.io domain.
For more detail about this, please visit the Reverification FAQ, at https://groups.io/static/reverifyfaq.
If you have received the email and not reverified then you will be removed from the distribution list today the 28th January 2024 and you have until 11 February 2024 to reverify before you are permanently removed.
73, VK7ARNews Team
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Contest news
WIA Summer VHF/UHF Field Day 2024.
If you participated in the Summer session of the VHF/UHF field day and you have not uploaded your log then it is now time to finalise and upload your logs.
For the benefit of Warren VK7WN logs are due by midnight EDST, TOMORROW - Monday 29 January 2024.
73 Richard VK7ZBX
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Contest news
Ross Hull Memorial VHF/UHF Contest.
This contest runs for the month of January and entrants may operate on every contest day, but the final score is based on the best seven days nominated by the entrant.
For amateurs with limited operating time, there is also a "Best 2 Days" section.
You can even use your Summer VHF and Above Field Day log for the Contest!
Logs are due for the benefit of VK7WN by 14th FEBRUARY 23:59 UTC. Logs can be emailed as an attachment to: rosshull@wia.org.au
https://www.wia.org.au/members/contests/rosshull/
73, VK7 News Team
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Statewide News
Thursday Night SSTV Nets
A very enthusiastic net night that saw the following participants, VK7s – ZBX, FGGT, DMH, EV, PD and OO, all sharing 37 photos.
The theme was “Towers”:
So obvious there would have to be some defective ones or should I say “Faulty Towers” Hi Hi
The two unexpected ones were the “Blackpool Tower” and “The Tower of Babel”
The one to forget, hopefully, is “Trump Tower”
Unfortunately two very well-known towers before they collapsed, now they are famous for the wrong reason
Plenty of repeater towers like 7RMD, 7RMM, 7RWC, 7RNW, 7RAC, 7RAL & Mt. Claude Fire Tower
Teslas “Wardenclyffe Tower” for the wireless transmission of power
Bureau of Meteorology radar towers
From England, a group of “Chain Home” RAF coastal early warning radar station towers from WW2
South East London Meccano Club Eiffel Tower model
Small antenna towers deployed on local field days
And of course our very own Shot Tower at Taroona Tasmania
Plus one for the grey matter, an historic building, probably in Tasmania and possibly a pub, any takers?
Remember Ken VK7KRJs and Steve VK7OOs fully automatic 24/7 monitoring sites that allows anyone who has sent an SSTV picture the ability to check them on their pages almost immediately, any time, both South and North Tasmania.
Also if you missed the net there are archives of all SSTV nights. These photos can be seen on Kens and Steves SSTV websites or on NTARCs website under blogs and arranged as weekly nets.
An idea for a theme for next weeks net is “Home radio shacks”
https://vk7oo.tasme.com/vhfsstv
https://sstv.vk7krj.com/scrolling%20web%20gallery.html
https://www.ntarc.net/blogs
73 from Andre VK7ZAB
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NEWS FROM THE NORTH WEST
North West Tasmania Amateur Radio Club
NWTARC Annual General meeting,
The Annual General Meeting of NWTARC will take place at 1330 hrs on Saturday 3rd February 2023, at our usual venue, the Scout hall, 73 Alexandra Road, Ulverstone.
The ordinary business of an annual general meeting will be to:
Confirm the minutes of the last preceding annual general meeting.
To receive from the committee, auditor, employees and other persons acting on behalf of the Association, reports on the transactions of the Association during the last preceding financial year of the Association.
To elect the officers of the Association and the ordinary committee members.
To appoint the auditor and determine his or her remuneration.
To determine the remuneration of employees and other persons acting on behalf of the Association.
To appoint the Public Officer either from the committee or general membership.
All current office holder, committee, auditor and the Public Officer positions fall vacant at the AGM.
Nominations for each office bearer and the Committee members are invited, and should be made in writing to the Secretary, and delivered to the Secretary, at least 10 days before the day on which the annual general meeting is to be held.
The nomination is to be on the NWTARC nomination form, along with the signatures of the Nominator, Seconder and that of the member nominated.
Appointments will also be required for the positions of Auditor and Public Officer.
Members will need to have paid their 2024 membership subscription before the meeting commences at 1.30pm to be able to vote at the Annual General meeting. they will need to have paid their 2024 membership before they can be nominated or nominate or second someone for office, as only financial members can nominate or be nominated.
February General meeting,
After the AGM afternoon tea will also be held, and members are encouraged to bring items for show & tell, and club rooms are open until 6pm for members to socialise.
A small plate of afternoon tea would be appreciated, and we have single packaged Tea, Coffee and Sugar and disposable cups for members and guests. Visitors are most welcome to attend.
If you have any cold or flu symptoms, or are unwell, or been in contact with a confirmed COVID case, then please do not attend the meeting.
73, Eric VK7EV, News Officer NWTARC
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NEWS FROM THE NORTH
SOTA/WWFF PARKS GROUP
The Summits On The Air/World Wide Flora and Fauna parks group meets twice weekly – Mondays and Fridays 10.30AM till 12.00 at the Glebe Gardens Cafe, Henry Street, Launceston.
For more information contact Al on 0417 354 410.
73, Al, VK7AN
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Northern Tasmanian Amateur Radio Club Incorporated
www.ntarc.net
Now for a leftover from the last Club Technical night, and it came about from a REAST DATV Experimenters Night a couple of weeks ago. Justin VK7TW unleashed a massive Nostalgia hit for quite a few of us. He covered the Zilog Z80, 8-bit microprocessor and the Micro-Professor which was a Z80 based teaching resource from the early 80s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ1kfxsvu60
After listening to Justins excellent presentation Andre VK7ZAB was reminded he also did Z80 programming while working at the ABC and participated in digital training sessions.
Andre was looking for a home project to compliment and reinforce this ABC digital training. The Z80 systems were quite expensive. However, in the Electronics Australia magazine, there was a more affordable “Mini Scamp” project. This came out in the May and June editions of 1977. This unit used the new National Semiconductor 8-bit microprocessor released in April 1976. It was called the SC/MP or as it was pronounced “scamp” and it stood for Simple, Cost-effective Micro Processor.
The completed kit design looked like the classic retro computer, the one that comes to mind when we think of computers from that time period. It had a flat vertical front panel with a row of eight LEDs for data byte display and a row of eight toggle switches immediately below for data byte entry. With another row of eight toggle switches lower down for the address byte. The use of LEDs and switches provided the “human” interface and at the time was a physical alternative to an expensive Terminal.
Andre ended up buying another version of the Scamp that had an option of a keyboard kit, which was reviewed in Electronics Australia July 1977. It was marketed by National Semiconductors and was known as the SCAMP Development Board and included a much needed and very useful prototyping area. To get things up and usable some of this area was used to add extra parts to interface the keyboard, which was a calculator case fitted with twenty buttons and a LED display. A ribbon cable connected the two together. The prototyping area also included nine extra IC sockets and 300 wire wrap joint points. All prototyping was done with wire wrap connections. Luckily the unit came with a small hand twist tool for the wire wrapping, as well as plenty of suitable wire.
Programming was done in HEX for both data and address with the displaying of address location and its data also in HEX. Needless to say it required a lot of button presses to load a programme.
Two major differences between the Scamp and the Intel 8080 type architecture were:
The use of Static RAM, as it did not need refresh circuitry included in the processor
The use of 8-bit serial input-output register to communicate with the Arithmetic Logic Units etc, with its saving in parallel bus routing and circuitry in the processor
These two architectural approaches simplified the chip “die” and saved space within the central processor.
This allowed for the inclusion of circuitry for read, write and address-ready data strobes, negating the need for quite a bit of external logic interfacing components around the microprocessor chip. This allowed for direct interfacing with a wide variety of standard memory circuits including ROMs, RAMs and PROMs. The overall result made it cheaper to manufacture and kept the overall cost down to us.
The use of static RAM also allowed for the ability of retaining data in the registers and memory by battery back-up, as opposed to dynamically refreshed memory that lost its stored data once it was turned off.
One trade off was the overall loss of speed,….. however the intended applications generally involved the low-speed man-machine interfaces found in industry and lets face it, as humans we are slow, with some of us slower than others, in relative comparison. Hi
Just for interest sake Andre also brought in a pristine copy of Rodnay Zaks “programming the Z80”, Edition 3……. Refer to the REAST video for explanation. However just like Justins, the Scamp processor and programming manuals are very well warn and annotations abound.
Thank you Andre for taking the time to locate something from forty five years ago and bringing it into the club to show us, it was quite incredible to once again play with this piece of nostalgic history.
I wonder if there are any commercial Amateur rigs available nowadays that dont incorporate this type of technological advancement.
P.S. I hear that Nic VK7WW and Keiran VK3BTV had a successful QRP contact on 80 metres CW both only running 100mW transmit power. Before you ask, yes they were in different Australian states, well done fellows!
As always equipment pictures are available on the NTARC Web site under “Blogs” for this broadcast.
https://www.ntarc.net/blogs
Annual General Meeting of NTARC is imminent - Its getting closer so please give serious consideration to any nominations you would like to make for the new 2024 committee. Nomination forms are available on the NTARC web site and at the club rooms, they must be received by close of business Friday the 9th February. Club members are reminded that they will need to be 2024 financially current to be able to nominate, be nominated, or vote at the Annual General Meeting.
UPCOMING EVENTS
TestNet and TechNet session - Every Wednesday, TestNet/CW course on 3.580MHz from 7pm till 7.30pm…. and a TechNet on 3.567MHz from 7.30pm till about 8.30pm. Your host for the evening will be Nic VK7WW.
Coffee Morning - held every Friday in the NTARC Club rooms. Time is from 10am to noon and we look forward to seeing you all there. So why not pop in and join us for a cuppa, there is endless tea and coffee along with biscuits available for a donation.
Club Room Technical night session - The next session will be on Wednesday the 31st of January and will commence at the usual time of 6.30 pm, running through to about 10 pm, at the Club room Archer Street, Rocherlea.
Annual General Meeting & General Meeting - Wednesday the 14th February 2024 at the NTARC Club Rooms, Rocherlea Scout Hall, Archer Street Rocherlea commencing at 19:30 hours (7.30 pm).
Finally - A reminder to all members that if you have any items of news you would like added to our weekly roundup, no matter how trivial, then please email them to the Secretary at the following address news(at)ntarc.net all items to be received no later than 5pm on the Friday prior to the Broadcast.
Thats all folks,
73 from Stefan, VK7ZSB, Secretary NTARC Inc.
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NEWS FROM THE SOUTH
Radio and Electronics Association of Southern Tasmania
https://www.reast.asn.au/
https://www.facebook.com/reasttas/
https://www.youtube.com/reasthobart/
February Presentation Night
Tas Surf Life Saving Radio Network
In a few weeks time, Greg Bird from Surf Life Saving Tasmania has agreed to give us a presentation on the Surf Life Saving Tasmania radio network.
This should be a fascinating presentation about the extensive statewide radio network used by Surf Life Savers in Tasmania.
It will be held on Wednesday night the 7th February 2024 from 7:30pm in the Queens Domain Clubrooms and it will also go out on DVB/T RF and via the REAST YouTube Channel streaming service.
See you there.
73, REAST Committee
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REAST AGM & SGM
Annual General and Special General Meetings
Will be held in the Queens Domain clubrooms from 1pm and will be preceded by a free sausage sizzle from 12 noon.
Emails are currently being sent to all members with details of the meetings.
If you do not receive an email then please contact the secretary on secretary@reast.asn.au.
Nomination forms for all committee positions are also attached to the member emails currently being sent.
73, REAST Committee
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SAVE THE DATE
Space Junk and Amateur Radio
REASTs March presentation night will be a fascinating presentation from Mars Buttfield-Addison who is a pHd candidate with UTAS and CSIRO.
Mars speciality is tracking Space Junk and Tasmania has a special role in this endeavour and amateur radio can play a part in this too.
This should be a great night, see you there.
73, REAST Committee
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SAVE THE DATE
Tassie Ham Conference
The REAST Committee is currently planning the next Tassie Ham Conference and it will most likely be on the first weekend in November 2024.
This will again take place in fantastic UTAS facilities.
Tentatively mark out your diary and start thinking about coming down to the best ham convention in VK!
Details are currently being worked through and will be made public on the Conference Web Pages.
73, REAST Committee
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DATV Experimenter's Night
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0te_uQ-WJJE&t=3033s
We started the DATV Experimenters Night with a reference to the 2024 VHF/UHF Summer Field Day and a contact made between VK7TW and VK2ASB on 6m SSB. This was Arthurs first contact on 6m SSB and he sent a QSL card which Justin showed.
Thanks to Ben VK7BEN who shared a link to HackADay where Brian Cockfield has built a simulated WWVB Simulator time signal using an arduino, GPS receiver and PSU to generate a 60kHz time signal that can be picked up about a metre from the project. https://hackaday.com/2024/01/14/simulating-a-time-keeping-radio-signal/
Thanks to Andrew VK7HPC who shared some sad news abotu the creator of NTP who now Silent Key.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/inventor-of-ntp-protocol-that-keeps-time-on-billions-of-devices-dies-at-age-85/
Dr. David L. Mills, the inventor of Network Time Protocol (NTP), died peacefully at age 85 on January 17, 2024
Dr. Mills created the Network Time Protocol (NTP) in 1985 to address a crucial challenge in the online world: the synchronization of time across different computer systems and networks. In a digital environment where computers and servers are located all over the world, each with its own internal clock, there's a significant need for a standardized and accurate timekeeping system.
Justin then went into his recent SOTA Activation of Mt Claude VK7/NC-005 and Mt Vandyke VK7/NC-028 showing the elevation profile and many pictures of the activations.
https://vk7tw.wordpress.com/2024/01/22/vk7-nc-005-and-nc-028-mt-claude-and-mt-vandyke-20-january-2024/
Justin then finished with a RaspberryPi combined heatsink and case.
This week's show will be another block-buster blow your head off blast from the past show-case of all things amateur radio and much more. We have a very special piece of precision test equipment to show and calculate Ohms Law to a high precision. See you there or on the stream.
We are holding the DATV Experimenters nights through the holiday period and therefore we will be streaming the nights on the REAST YouTube channel.
https://www.reast.asn.au/news-events/live-stream/
https://www.reast.asn.au/special-interest-groups/amateur-tv/
https://www.youtube.com/c/ReastHobart/
We also go out on RF - DVB-T 7MHz Standard Definition on 445.5MHz. So, if you have a TV, Set-top box or USB DTV Dongle that you can tune and scan 445.5MHz and you can see the Queens Domain, then you have a good chance of receiving the DATV Experimenter's Night Signal. Look out for VK7OTC.
73, Justin, VK7TW
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Training and Assessments
Our next REAST training and assessment day will be on the 24th February 2024.
The training schedule for 2024 has been set and so foundation licence training and all licence assessment days will be held on the following Saturdays:
24th February, 27th April, 29 June, 24 August and 26 October.
Other sessions can be organised if there is enough interest and people wanting assessments and training.
If you are thinking of booking for training or assessment this year please let Reg Emmett VK7KK REAST Learning Organiser know by phoning 0417 391 607 or via the REAST Website Contact Form.
https://www.reast.asn.au/contact/online-contact-form/
Check out the REAST Foundation Licence Training Videos that can be found on the REAST YouTube Training and Assessment playlist.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsnsP_zjw831mdC6sY4XqavRUY-53ZWUn
73, Reg, VK7KK
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Regular VK7 gatherings and events over the coming months:
Regular gatherings:
Sewing Circle Net – Daily on 3.640MHz commences at 6:30pm ADST.
Statewide SSTV Net - held every Thursday night via the North/South Link on VK7RAF/VK7RJG from 7:30pm. In the North and North West - VK7RJG on 438.55 -7MHz and in the South - VK7RAF (146.650 -600kHz) CTCSS tone 141.3Hz to link RAF North-South.
State-wide – MICROWAVE QSO Party – following the Sunday broadcast call-back on 1296.15 MHz FM. One group in the greater Hobart area and another in the greater Launceston area.
Then North-south digital contacts on 1296.2MHz using Q65-60B.
Stations in the Launceston area transmitting on the odd minute. Southern stations on the even minute.
SOTA/WWFF Group – Meeting Mondays and Fridays 10.30-12.00 midday at Glebe Gardens Cafe, Henry St, Launceston.
NTARC - TestNet and TechNet sessions every Wednesday night. TestNet/CW course on 3.580MHz from 7pm till 7.30pm…. and a TechNet on 3.567MHz from 7.30pm till about 8.30pm
NTARC Coffee Mornings held every Friday in the NTARC Club rooms. Time is from 10am to noon in the Rocherlea Clubrooms.
NTARC - Club Technical nights - Wednesday the 31st of January and will commence at 6.30 pm through to about 10.00 pm, at the Club room Archer Street, Rocherlea.
NW VK7 – Wednesday from 8:00pm local – NW Tassie Amateur Repeater Group Net on VK7RMD
NW VK7 - Thursday commencing at 8:30pm local - N.W. Tassie 2m DX Net 144.190 USB
NW SSTV Nights - Monday 22nd of January 2024 - hosted by Eric VK7EV from 7:30pm using VK7RMD 70cm repeater on Mt Duncan on the 4th Monday in the Month.
Events:
NWTARC - February 3, 2024 - Annual General Meeting from 1:30pm at Scout hall, 73 Alexandra Road, Ulverstone followed by afternoon tea and show and tell.
REAST - February 7, 2024 - Presentation on the Surf Life Saving Tasmania Radio Network with Greg Bird - 7:30pm Queens Domain Clubrooms
NTARC - February 14, 2024 - Annual General Meeting - NTARC Club Rooms, Rocherlea Scout Hall, Archer Street Rocherlea from 7.30 pm.
REAST - February 18, 2024 - Annual General and Special General Meeting preceded with a free sausage sizzle from noon and meetings start 1pm at Queens Domain Clubrooms
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A reminder to those people rostered for next weeks broadcast:
Newsreader: VK7FB
Repeaters: REAST, NTARC and in the NW thanks to N W T A R C, West Coast Radio Group, Cradle Coast Radio Amateur Radio Club, VK7AX, VK7JH and VK7DC
160m: Any Takers
80m: VK7TPE
40m: VK7ALH
20m: VK7JGD
10m: VK7DG
UHFCB24: VK7FMAC
DMR: Talk Group 5 and D-Star: Reflector 91C VK7ZCR
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You can hear this broadcast again on Tuesday night at 8:00pm on repeaters VK7RAA in Northern VK7 and VK7RHT in the South.
A huge thank you to all people and organisations that assisted with this broadcast.
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That concludes our VK7 Amateur Radio News Broadcast for this week.
You have been listening to or have just missed VK7WI. Next week the National WIA news can be heard at 0900 followed by the VK7 Amateur Radio News around 0930 hours.
Items for the broadcast can be emailed to vk7arnews(at)gmail.com
Further information about the broadcast can be found at the VK7 Amateur Radio News Groups.IO Group.
https://groups.io/g/vk7arnews
The deadline for items is 21:00 on Friday prior to the Sunday of the broadcast.
Callbacks will be taken on the frequency to which you are listening. Relay stations will use their own callsigns during the callback.
On behalf of the VK7 Amateur Radio News Team, 73, seasons greetings and stay safe from Peter, VK7PD.
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(Posted to the packet network courtesy Tony VK7AX)
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