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VK7AX > BCAST 12.06.21 04:25z 392 Lines 21344 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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VK7 Amateur Radio News 13Jun21
Text edition:
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VK7 AMATEUR RADIO NEWS BROADCAST
FOR SUNDAY 13TH JUNE 2021
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Welcome to the VK7 Amateur Radio News for the 13th of June 2021. At the mike of VK7WI this week is Mike, VK7FB.
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 also go out on medium and high frequency courtesy of the following rebroadcast stations:
On 1.865 MHz by Graham VK7GS
On 3.670 MHz by Peter, VK7TPE
On 7.140 MHz by Ross, VK7ALH
On 14.130 MHz by Garry, VK7JGD and
On 28.525 MHz by Dale, VK7DG
You can hear this broadcast again on Tuesday night at 8:00pm on repeaters VK7RAA in Northern VK7 and VK7RTC in Southern VK7.
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Interest Group News
Portable Radio RXing
Portable Radio RXing is an awards program for anybody interested in the radio hobby, which encourages portable operation in parks and similar areas.
Portable Radio RXing has been designed to make participation possible for anybody interested in the radio hobby. The rules are very simple, and the awards have been designed to be achievable. The purpose is to encourage portable operation in parks and other similar locations, making the radio hobby more public and allow radio hobbyists to enjoy the great outdoors.
For more details on the program take a look at the website available on the email edition of this broadcast. https://groups.io/g/PortableRadioRXing
73, PortableRadioRXing groups.io Moderator
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Contest News
2021 WIA Winter VHF and Above Winter Field Day
Well, the weather has begun to chill off, so that means it must be getting close to time for the Winter VHF/UHF field day. This year the field day will be held from 01:00 UTC on June 26th through to 00:59 UTC on June 27th. Plenty of categories to participate in, no need to go portable although it's a great opportunity to get out and about and play radio, but you can still operate from your home station. The field day is aimed at VHF and up to the best places to listen for activity would be 52.525, 146.500, 439.000 and 1296.150 on FM, and of course the usual SSB frequencies of 50.150, 144.150, 432.150 are always worth a listen or a call. Knowing your current grid square is a requirement for logging, so perhaps do some google earthing or use one of the many apps that will let you know your 6 digit grid square.
There are a couple of logging programs, VKCL and RD Contest Logger. Both will talk to your radio making logging easier.
Why not introduce a new licence holder to the world of field days, you never know where it may take them.
Hear you on the bands
https://www.wia.org.au/members/contests/vhfuhf/
73 Richard VK7ZBX
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NEWS FROM THE NORTH WEST
North West Tasmania Radio & TV Group
Meeting Report
The Clubs Bi-monthly meeting was held last Saturday 5th June.
Two new Club Members, Anthony and Michael, were welcomed into the club.
The members also voted on a new club name, and to accept the final draft of model rules, for the clubs incorporation, which will now be forwarded to the government for ratification.
Dave VK7DC and Roger VK7ARN were thanked for the many hours of work, in getting the clubs rules ready for members approval.
Dave VK7DC was nominated and accepted to be the Clubâ€Ös first Public Officer. The Club voted to continue upgradeâ€Ös at the Paton Park Scout camp, with the club allowing club funds to be used for this purpose.
Kirsty VK7KKK had brought along a lap-top, to assist members who needed to renew, or apply for their working with vulnerable peopleâ€Ös cards.
After a delicious afternoon tea and chat, the club was delighted to have Peter VK7PD who had travelled from Lonnie in atrocious weather, to conduct a presentation on his SOTA equipment and the 23cm gear he had brought along, thankyou Peter.
Members then enjoyed a social chat probably waiting for the rain to cease.
73, Eric VK7EV, News Officer
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CHAT & SHOW GROUP.
The group will be meeting on the 3rd of July at 2pm at the Ulverstone Sports Complex in Flora St. West Ulverstone. Come to the door marked Show Society Office and ring the phone number listed to cooperate with new regulations of the premises.
Tea and Coffee will be available all the afternoon, and a small snack to put on the table is appreciated.
Would you please use commercially produced items for afternoon tea to work with COVID issues, and make it a small package and take home your leftovers.
All COVID regulations still apply, and it would be very pleasing if you could carry out the regulations set out by the authorities. I'm sure you know by now all that there is to consider.
Sanitizer will be available and an attendance page to fill in as well.
Bring along new and old toys to show, discuss, or talk to us about, and projects under way as well.
Anybody visiting in the area at the time is welcome to drop in for a radio rag chew and a drink.
Hope some have time to join us
73 Shirl VK7HSC
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NEWS FROM THE NORTH
SOTA/WWFF PARKS GROUP
The Summits On The Air/World Wide Flora and Fauna parks group is now meeting 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
As the news is prepared on Friday evening, we will be able to provide you all with an update on the June General meeting, held yesterday, in next weekâ€Ös news.
In the meantime, no news of greatness or non-greatness has reached your reporter so we will be again heavily reliant upon a rehash of coming events. If you are tired of hearing that information, then this might be an opportunity to paddle off to the kitchen, make yourself a cup of char and maybe a slice of toast, then sit down and enjoy. Just be sure to come back in time for the call-backs.
Final reminder 2021 Membership renewal fees – yes, that time is rapidly approaching for those few members that have not as yet renewed their 2021 membership. You only have until 30 June. If your subs have not been paid by then your name must be removed from the NTARC Membership register.
If you are in that boat and still wish to retain your membership then your payment may be made in cash or cheque at a Friday coffee morning, Wednesday technical session or by cheque to the club at PO Box 275 Launceston 7250. Alternatively you may pay by direct deposit. The NTARC bank account details are:
BSB: 633-000 Bendigo Bank, Account Number: 120432687
If paying by direct deposit, please quote your callsign or name as the payee identifier, so our Treasurer can link your payment to your membership and issue you with a receipt. If you have forgotten, the yearly subscription fee is $35.00 for a full voting member.
As there was no Tech night last Wednesday at the club room we head straight into coming events.
UPCOMING EVENTS
TECH NIGHT – Wednesday 16th June at the NTARC Club rooms, 19:30 hours until whenever. Highlight of the evening will be a presentation by an engine modeller of his build of a 9 cylinder rotary engine. Each piston is 25mm diameter, which gives an indication of scale. Not to be missed.
Continuous tea and coffee will be available, although again, a gold coin donation for the evening would be appreciated.
SLOW MORSE COURSE – Wednesday 16th June. Your host and teacher is Nic VK7WW. Frequencies and times are the same as were used by Nic for the previous TestNet and TechNet. And if you have forgotten what they were, here they are, 1900 hrs to 1930 hrs on 3.580 MHz and then at 1930hours through to about 2030 on 3.567MHz.
So why not tune in and give it a try. By the end of each week, between Morse Course Sessions, participants may have learned 12 characters. Then itâ€Ös time to practice them on air.
Nic will be explaining “how to have a contact” and the procedures and protocols. For those who may want some extra help, this website is reported as being very good. www.morsecodeclassnet.com
FUTURE EVENTS – Saturday 28 August, Equine Endurance ride, Santarena Park, Scottsdale. Plenty of warning to help out on this ride. Further information as it comes to hand.
COFFEE MORNINGS – currently held every Friday in the NTARC Club rooms. Catch up time is from 10.00 am to noon and we look forward to seeing you all.
These coffee events in the past have been normally a good opportunity to collect your QSL cards. We have a large quantity of QSL cards at the Clubrooms for several members, notably VK7BO.
Andrew VK7DW, our QSL manager will arrange to have them delivered if not collected soon. He can be contacted at qsl(at)ntarc.net for any queries.
Please demonstrate your appreciation of all the effort that goes into operating the club and its facilities and other services we provide by joining us at these sessions, enjoying the company, coffee and the cake and leaving a gold coin or two, or even a small bank note, in the jar to assist in our on-going operations. I donâ€Öt know of any other venue in Launceston where you can get endless coffee, tea and eats for a donation of this miniscule amount.
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 me at the following address ntarc.emails(at)gmail.com, all items to be received no later than 17:00 on the Friday prior to the Broadcast.
Your continued cooperation in this regard will be greatly appreciated.
We will bring you all such contributions next Sunday morning.
73, Yvonne VK7FYMX, 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/
July Presentation Night
Tasmanian Maritime Radio
Our July presentation night will be on the second Wednesday night - the 14th July from 7:30pm.
Barry McCann will be doing a presentation on the Tas Maritime Radio Network that now covers all of Tasmania.
Barry will then do a tour of the operations room and the museum which is in the building next to our clubrooms.
This will be a fascinating presentation and tour and demystify our close neighbours and show the vast radio network that Tas Maritime is responsible for monitoring.
https://www.facebook.com/events/780741719283986/
73, REAST Committee
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August Presentation Night
Contesting on HF, VHF and above
REAST's August presentation night is all about contesting on HF and VHF and above.
With the Remembrance Day contest just around the corner (14/15 August 2021) we want to equip everyone with contesting skills to ensure they get the most out of their RD Contest experience.
Martin VK7GN will be giving us the High Frequency (HF) contesting low down and Richard VK7ZBX will be covering contesting on VHF and above frequencies.
A huge thank you to Martin and Richard.
See you there.
https://www.facebook.com/events/329823411883355/
73, REAST Committee
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Training and Assessments
REASTâ€Ös next Foundation Licence course and all licence assessment day is on Saturday the 31st July 2021 from 9am to 3pm.
If you are thinking of coming along then please let Reg Emmett VK7KK REAST Learning Organiser know ASAP that you will be coming along by phoning 0417 391 607 or email assessor(at)reast.asn.au.
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
Checkout the REAST Facebook page events for further details.
https://www.facebook.com/events/718404075716863/
73, Reg, VK7KK
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DATV Experimenter's Night
Last Wednesday night we started the night with a look at the Iroda PRO-25LK - USB Battery Rechargable Soldering Iron. It includes a case that holds everything, is USB chargeable with LED indicator, a safety interlock, LED light to tell you when it is heating, a cover, safety stand and brass cleaning pad.
https://www.altronics.com.au/p/t2694a-iroda-solderpro-30w-lithium-soldering-usb-iron/
We then reminded people that the ISS is transmitting SSTV from RS0ISS. Russian cosmonauts on the International Space Station (ISS) plan to transmit slow-scan TV (SSTV) images on 145.800 MHz FM June 9 and 10. The transmissions, which will use SSTV mode PD120, are part of the Moscow Aviation Institute SSTV experiment (MAI-75) and will be made from RS0ISS in the Russian Service Module of the ISS using a Kenwood TM-D710 transceiver.
https://www.spaceflightsoftware.com/ARISS_SSTV/index.php
This week we will be showing some images and certificates received from this event.
We then did an update on the Digirig interface from Denis Grisak K0TX which includes USB C Type computer side connector and option to switch serial interface to two hardware lines such as PTT and/or CW using solder jumpers - CAT Function Selector pads on the back of the PCB clearly labelled
The GNU Radio Session Workshop Four started with a recap of what we learned last workshop.
We then moved to the exercises which included showing the low pass, high pass and band pass filter blocks with a reminder of keeping track of sample rates throughout the flowchart - otherwise bad things happen!
In a flowgraph once you isolate the frequency of interest you frequency shift to zero hertz, then decimate. Decimation reduces the sample rate by a factor of N - remember Nyquist Law - sample at least 2 x the frequency being sampled.
We then showed Exercise #4 SSB decoding using an audio recording to show how to tune, control volume and change the passband to resolve an SSB signal.
We then moved to a real world example using an RTL-SDR dongle as a source. We explained how to use ZADIG to ensure we had the driver installed for the RTL-SDR.
https://zadig.akeo.ie/
The RTL-SDR example was then explained block by block. It is a FM broadcast receiver with controls for the RF gain, Tuning and volume.
We did a reminder of future presentation nights and finished with an outline of the videos for our RF viewers.
This Wednesday night we have a look at the SSTV images from the ISS, a review of the latest LowKey Magazine and continue the GNU Radio Companion workshops with some more RTL-SDR examples.
We get underway from 7:30pm in the Queenâ€Ös Domain clubrooms.
Keep an eye on the REAST Facebook Events for more details. Why not come up to the Queens Domain COVID-safe clubrooms and see what we get up to.
And a reminder that we go out on RF on 445.5MHz DVB-T 7MHz Standard Definition. 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. We also stream 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/
73, Justin, VK7TW
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Space News
International Space Station to be in Cross-Band Repeater Mode for US Field Day
The Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS)
cross-band repeater will be available for US ARRL Field Day, June 26 - 27. Contacts will count toward Field Day bonus points as satellite contacts and Field Day contacts.
Field Day rules limit stations to one contact on any single-channel
FM satellite. Note that contacts made during Field Day by ISS crew would only count for contact credit, but not for satellite bonus points. ISS cross-band repeater contacts are also valid AMSAT Field Day satellite contacts.
The ARISS cross-band repeater uplink is 145.990 MHz (67 Hz tone), with a downlink of 437.800 MHz.
ARISS suggests that those unfamiliar with the ISS repeater may want to practice with it prior to Field Day. ARISS had planned to switch modes to the Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS) during the second week of June, but this won't happen until after the first ARISS school contact following ARRL Field Day.
The ARISS ham station will be off-air during spacewalks on June 16 and June 20.
Sourced from the ARRL News
Please note this activation overlaps with the WIA VHF and above Field Day Contest in VK and contacts via the ISS will not be counted for this contest.
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Product News
Two international contracts awarded to Barrett Communications
Australian company Barrett Communications has secured multiple new contracts for high frequency (HF) and very high frequency (VHF) communications systems to defence, peacekeeping and government customers in Chile and India. It will supply HF and VHF tactical radio communications systems in support of a multi-million-dollar contract for international peacekeeping operations.
The Chilean Navy is further expanding its existing Barrett HF high-power systems. These systems provide monitoring and supervision services protecting the vast Chilean coastline and waters. This contract comprises liquid-cooled Barrett 4075 1 kW high-power systems and Barrett 4050 HF SDR base stations, augmenting existing Barrett radio installations for the navy.
Additionally, Barrett is completing manufacture and delivery of 541 commercial HF base station systems to the Indian Government. The HF systems are an integral part in developing a resilient HF communications network, connecting government agencies across the country ensuring emergency communications infrastructure resilience.
https://www.criticalcomms.com.au/content/industry/news/two-international-contracts-awarded-to-barrett-communications-184661720
Sourced from the Critical Comms Web E-zine
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Regular VK7 gatherings and events over the coming months:
Regular gatherings:
SOTA/WWFF Group – Meeting Mondays and Fridays 10.30-12.00 midday at Glebe Gardens Cafe, Henry St, Launceston.
NTARC – Friday coffee session – Rocherlea clubrooms Launceston from 10:00am
NTARC - Tech Night sessions Wednesday 16th June - Rocherlea clubrooms Launceston
NTARC - Slow Morse Training Wednesday 16th June on Tech Net Frequencies
NW VK7 – Wednesday from 2000 local – NW Tassie Amateur Repeater Group Net on VK7RMD
NW VK7 - Thursday commencing at 10:30 UTC (20:30 local) - N.W. Tassie 2m DX Net 144.190 USB (upper sideband).
REAST – MICROWAVE QSO Party – following after the Sunday broadcast on 1296.15 MHz FM.
REAST – WAGS – Wednesday Afternoon Group meet in the Queens Domain Clubrooms from 12 noon.
REAST – DATV Experimenterâ€Ös Nights from 7:30pm live in the club rooms also on DVBT RF and YouTube Streaming
Sewing Circle Net – Daily on 3.640 MHz commences at 5:00pm.
Events:
NWTR&TVG - 5 June - Club meeting from 2pm at Scout Hall, 73 Alexander Road, Ulverstone.
NTARC - 12 June - Meeting from 2:00 pm
WIA - 26 June - WIA Virtual Annual General Meeting commencing at 11.00 am
WIA - 26-27 June - WIA VHF and above Field Day 0100-0059 UTC
NW VK7 - 3 July - Chat and Show Gathering from 2pm at the Ulverstone Sports Complex in Flora St. West Ulverstone.
REAST - 14 July - Tas Maritime Radio Presentation and Tour of Facilities with Barry McCann from 7:30pm in Queens Domain clubrooms
REAST - 4 August - Contesting HF & VHF with VK7GN & VK7ZBX - Queens Domain clubrooms from 7:30pm
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A reminder to those people rostered for next weekâ€Ös broadcast:
Newsreader: VK7PD
Repeaters: REAST, NTARC and in the NW thanks to NWTR&TVG, West Coast Radio Group, Cradle Coast Radio Amateur Radio Club, VK7AX, and VK7DC
160m: VK7GS
80m: VK7ALH
40m: VK7JGD
20m: VK7DG
10m: VK7VKT
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 VK7RTC in Southern VK7.
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.
VK7WI is now closing but will reopen shortly for callbacks and relay reports. 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 itâ€Ös 73 from Mike, VK7FB.
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(Posted to the packet network courtesy Tony VK7AX)
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