| |
VK7AX > BCAST 14.01.24 10:09z 401 Lines 20404 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 21647_VK7AX
Read: GUEST
Subj: VK7 Amateur Radio News 14Jan24
Path: HB9ON<IW8PGT<I3XTY<I0OJJ<EA2RCF<CX2SA<VK7AX
Sent: 240114/1000Z @:VK7AX.#ULV.TAS.AUS.OC #:21647 [Ulverstone] $:21647_VK7AX
From: VK7AX@VK7AX.#ULV.TAS.AUS.OC
To : BCAST@WW
VK7 Amateur Radio News 14Jan24
Text edition:
--------------------------------
VK7 AMATEUR RADIO NEWS BROADCAST
FOR SUNDAY 14th January 2024
--------------------------------
Welcome to the VK7 Amateur Radio News and this was first broadcast on Sunday the 14th January 2024. At the mike of VK7WI this week is Justin, VK7TW.
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 Any Takers,
On 3.670 MHz by Ross, VK7ALH,
On 7.140 MHz by Garry, VK7JGD,
On 14.130 MHz by Dale, VK7DG,
On 28.525 MHz by Tony, VK7VKT.
UHF CB Channel 24 in the Hobart area - Any Takers.
You can hear this broadcast again on Tuesday night at 8:00pm on repeaters VK7RAA in Northern VK7 and VK7RHT in Southern VK7.
--------------------------------
Statewide Repeater News
VK7RHF 10m Repeater on the air!
As heard on the WIA national news VK7RHF 10 metre repeater has now been recommissioned and is back on the air.
Many hours have been slaved over a hot soldering iron rebuilding the entire system from scratch to run over the VKLink VOTER system. The repeater will incorporate 3 diversity voted receivers, including a “DX” receiver at a remote quiet location. There is currently a receiver on trial running at the REAST clubrooms on the Domain and another on VK7HHs workbench.
The transmitter operates from Mount Nelson running 50W into a 5/8 wave vertical antenna. A huge thanks goes to Richard VK7ZBX and Murray VK7ZMS who have been instrumental in getting this project up and running.
Already in the past few weeks whilst it has been on test, there has been VK2s, 3s and 4s heard using it whilst the summer Sporadic E season rolls around.
Hayden would appreciate any signal reports to be sent through and for those in the Hobart area to add it to their radios and/or scan groups so that when DX stations call, they have someone local to reply.
The repeater details are as follows:
TX: 29.680 MHz
RX: 29.580 MHz
Tone: 91.5 Hz
73, Hayden VK7HH
--------------------------------
Contest news
WIA Summer VHF/UHF Field Day 2024.
This weekend is the Summer session of the VHF/UHF field day. It started yesterday Saturday 13 0100 UTC through to 0059 UTC on Sunday 14 January (0400 / 0359 in VK6). The weather is going to be excellent and conditions have been improving!
Many will be out and about giving out contact on VHF and above.
There are as always many different categories that you can participate in. There is the single band section that allows use of any one band, the popular 4 band section that covers the relatively popular bands of 6M, 2M, 70cm and 23cm. Then there is the open section that covers all the bands above 6M up to 133 GHz. There are the sections for portable stations to operate for either 8 hours or 24 hours, sections for home stations to operate for 8 hours or 24 hours, or become a rover for either 8 hours or 24. There is also a section for portable multi operators.
Usual frequencies to listen on are 52.525 MHz, 146.500MHz, 439.000 MHz and 1296.150 MHz all on FM, and also for the SSB brigade listen on 50.150 MHz, 144.150 MHz, 432.150 MHz
You will need to discover your 6 digit maidenhead locator to exchange with other stations. This is how the distances are calculated which in turn determine the score for each contact. You can obtain your grid square using one of the many apps such as HamGPS, or by visiting the following site https://www.levinecentral.com/ham/grid_square.php
Logging is best performed by which ever program makes you happy, VKCL is probably one of the popular ones along with N1MM. Please be mindful that although the logging programs make things easy, it also makes it easy to perpetuate errors and this can cost you dearly, so please be diligent when entering contact details for simple typos, then before you upload your log have a look over it for obvious errors.
For the benefit of Warren VK7WN logs are due by midnight EDST, Monday 29 January 2024.
Good luck in the contest.
73 Richard VK7ZBX
--------------------------------
Contest news
Ross Hull Memorial VHF/UHF Contest.
The contest was established in 1950 to honour the memory of the late Ross A. Hull and his pioneering achievements in the study of tropospheric propagation and the development of new equipment techniques for the higher bands.
It 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.
Each contact scores one point for each 100 km of distance worked. This score is then multiplied by the band multiplier. The total score is the sum of the scores on all bands.
The distance calculation is based on your maidenhead 6 digit locator.
VKCL 4.15 still works for logging this contest and for the benefit of VK7WN - logs are due in by 14th FEBRUARY 23:59 UTC. Logs can be emailed as an attachment to: rosshull(at)wia.org.au
I am sure we will have some logging sessions as part of the various 23cm QSO parties that go on after the broadcast.
https://www.wia.org.au/members/contests/rosshull/
73, VK7 News Team
-------------------------------
Statewide News
Thursday Night SSTV Nets
A very enthusiastic net night that saw the following participants, VK7s – ZGK, EV, DMH, TW, FGGT, ZAB, ZMS, OO and PD all sharing over fifty photos. There were a few transmission doublings which resulted in some different photos north and south.
The highlight was: a “trains and railways” theme featuring -
The Ghan
Steam trains on the Wilderness railway
A new looking Tasrail No 2101 diesel electric loco
A close encounter on the London Underground
Cafes at the “Turnham Green” station on the London Underground
The Longford railway bridge
Peddle power rail bikes from Maydena at Lilydale
Ride-on trains at the miniature railway at Evandale
Aerial track view of the New Zealand Raurimu Spiral
Model displays of urban railway trains and a rural station
Two dioramas, one of a railway bridge and the other of a steam loco
There were also many cars, planes, helicopters and hybrid planes with rotors
Large sea creatures on the beach at Burnie
A nasty looking insect
Using a 10kw generator to power a charger for a 5Ah battery pack
A “photo shopped” image of an unusual alignment of some celestial bodies
And Cafe kissing booths in VK3
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 “aircraft and flight”
https://vk7oo.tasme.com/vhfsstv
https://sstv.vk7krj.com/scrolling%20web%20gallery.html
https://www.ntarc.net/blogs
73 from Andre VK7ZAB
--------------------------------
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
--------------------------------
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
--------------------------------
Northern Tasmanian Amateur Radio Club Incorporated
www.ntarc.net
Well it looks like things are almost back to normal, with the remaining club activities resuming this week. Nic VK7WW was back at the helm of the TestNet and TechNet session last Wednesday night, almost as if the net hadnt even taken a break over the Christmas New Year period. HiHi
It is excellent to hear all the local and mainland call signs fronting up to the radio net as well as the discussions, images and circuit diagrams happily flowing on the Discord channel. Thank you Paul VK7KPA for providing the much needed Discord audio stream of the net, especially for those call signs you just cant quite pick up. Thanks to Phil VK7ZPD and Paul as they have also been providing a live audio stream of the state-wide Sunday morning broadcast on the NTARC Discord channel. Apart from locals it is also receiving logins from a few mainland amateurs and is providing another avenue to listen to the broadcast.
UPCOMING EVENTS
The Club Technical night session - The first session for the year will be on Wednesday the 17th of January and will commence at 6.30 pm through to about 10.00 pm, at the Club room Archer Street, Rocherlea.
The 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 - The first for the year will be this 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.
Australia Day - The club rooms will be closed on Friday the 26th January.
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.
--------------------------------
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/
Member Wellbeing Report
Cedic VK7CL has let us know that after a couple of stents in hospital he and Janet will be moving into a nursing home. This will possibly curtail some of Cedrics radio adventures however, this is yet to be worked through.
Cedric thanks everyone who made contact and he and Janet are looking forward to the next chapter of their life adventure.
73, Penswiper, Blue Sky Mines.
--------------------------------
DATV Experimenter's Night
https://youtube.com/live/CWTur-Il48w
Last Wednesday night was a blast from the past - we took a look at a Z80 Central Processor Unit Architecture. We started with Rodney Zaks - Chips to Systems Book - Introduction to Microprocessors book and then moved to a brief outline of the Z80 Architecture - 8 bit processor running at 4MHz with 16bit address bus introduced in July 1976 from the 8080 architecture
http://www.z80.info/z80arki.htm
It had a novel (at the time) overlapping fetch and execute cycles - was fetching next whilst executing the last. Justin went through the registers and that the Z80 was a CISC processor or a Complex Instruction Set Computer with greater than 100 instructions versus a RISC processor which is a Reduced Instruction Set Computer with around 30-80 instructions.
We took a look at the Programmers Reference Manual and a sample load instruction, then went through the associated peripheral chip-sets with the Counter Timer Circuit - CTC - 4 independent circuits, the Parallel I/O - Dual 8 bit ports controller, the Serial I/O - Dual channel Synchronous and Asynchronous controller and the Direct Memory Access (DMA) controller and finished with the difference between Dynamic and Static memory.
The Z80 was the most popular but there were others namely the Z8, Z80, Z800, Z8000, Z80,000.
Justin VK7TW showed one of his well thumbed data books from 1985 and the Z80 Assembly Language Programming Manual.
We then took a look at the MicroProfessor a Z80 based teaching resource - showed the chipset used along with a brief introduction
We showed the Glass Typewriter prototype boards that included the WDC display and FD controllers. And finished with the Zilog Z8 Microcontroller - everything was on board all peripherals - multiplexed out for external EPROM containing the program or onboard eprom.
Justin VK7TW showed his "K9" - motorised platform from the mid 1980s upgraded from 8748 to Z8 developer board - self guided platform.
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. 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
--------------------------------
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 next year please let Reg Emmett VK7KK REAST Learning Organiser know ASAP 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
--------------------------------
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 session in recess until January 2024.
NTARC Coffee Morning - in recess until 19 January 2024.
NTARC - Club Technical nights - in recess until 17 January 2024.
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 followed by a free sausage sizzle - Starts 11am at Queens Domain Clubrooms
--------------------------------
A reminder to those people rostered for next weeks broadcast:
Newsreader: VK7ZIR
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: VK7JGD
40m: VK7DG
20m: VK7TPE
10m: VK7VKT
UHFCB24: VK7FMAC
DMR: Talk Group 5 and D-Star: Reflector 91C VK7ZCR
--------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------
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 Justin, VK7TW.
--------------------------------------------------------------
(Posted to the packet network courtesy Tony VK7AX)
Read previous mail | Read next mail
| |
