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VK7AX > NEWS 13.07.09 15:24l 472 Lines 21510 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
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Subj: VK7 Regional News Broadcast for 12 July 2009
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VK7 REGIONAL NEWS BROADCAST
FOR SUNDAY 12TH JULY 2009
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Clubs News
2009 WIA Clubs Grant Scheme
Ted Thrift VK2ARA who is the WIA clubs coordinator lets us know that there has been no applications yet received for the clubs grant scheme.
If your club does wish to apply for a grant but has not yet completed your application, please send in an Expression Of Interest.
Send a brief message to secretary(AT)wia.org.au giving your club name, a brief description of your project and an indication of when you expect to complete your application.
This may make it possible for applications to be left open, to include your club.
Regards
(Ted Thrift VK2ARA WIA Clubs Co-ordinator)
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VK7 EVENTS CALENDAR
A summary of the events across VK7 over the coming months:
EMDRC – July 10-12 - GIPPSTECH 2009 – Churchill Campus of Monash Uni – that's this weekend and there are a few VK7's at the weekend.
REAST – July 15, 22 & 29 – ATV Experimenter's Group Queen's Domain Clubroom Studios from 7:30pm
http://reast.asn.au/events.php#ATVnights
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Update for 2010 CallBook
As the VK7 representative on the WIA Technical Advisory Committee Rex, VK7MO, is seeking input to update the 2010 callbook for the:
Repeater Directory;
Beacon Directory and
Packet Radio Directory.
If you are the licensee of one of these facilities could you please check the current callbook and send any amendments or corrections to Rex by the 20th of July.
His email address is on the internet and email edition of this broadcast.
Amendments should also include advice that a facility is no longer operational and should be removed.
rmoncur(AT)bigpond.net.au
(73, Rex, VK7MO)
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Non-Commercial For Sale & Wanteds
Wanted
We have a wanted ad today from Brian VK7FAYE who is looking for a recent copy of the World Radio and Television Handbook. Up to two years old would be suitable.
If you have a copy please contact Brian VK7FAYE on 64251560, daytime only.
(73, Brian, VK7FAYE)
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Wanted
Edmund Abraham is looking a operating book or service manual for a Philips Radiogram – Model Number 2262. This is a circa 1950s radiogram.
If you happen to have information in relation to this radiogram please contact Edmund on phone 6231 4135.
(Edmund Abraham)
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NORTHERN NEWS
Northern Tasmanian Amateur Radio Club
It seems as if the recent cool and damp weather in Northern Tasmania has induced many amateur radio operators in the area to seek warmer climates on the big island to the North.
The repeaters are quieter than normal, and while there weren't quite as many members at the latest NTARC meeting as normal, what was lacking in numbers was made up for with enthusiasm.
A desire for more technical and project presentations at future meetings was expressed and a few ideas were floated. If you have any ideas on presentations that you'd like to see, or perhaps you have a project that you've been working on and would like to share with other members, don't be shy & let us know!
Gazing into the crystal ball, NTARC members can expect a dinner meeting in the near future, as well as a Special General Meeting.
Watch this space for more information.
Thanks from
(Jason VK7ZJA, NTARC Secretary)
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NORTH WEST News
North West Tasmania Amateur Television Group
http://www2.vk7ax.id.au/atvgroup
6M. Repeater VK7RTV now operational
The Club has much pleasure in announcing that as of midday Wednesday 8th. July, the Club's 6M repeater VK7RTV was commissioned on 53.775 MHz (with 1MHz offset receive freq on 52.775MHz).
Thanks to Graeme VK7AQ, the old diplexer cavities were re tuned to the new frequencies.
At the present time we are still utilizing the old Philips FM828. It was decided to persevere with the old unit for the time being pending the conversion of a Philips low band FM814 base station to 6M.
Two new repeater controllers (VK5DJ design) are being built for both the 2 & 6M Repeaters.
Progress with the 2m. Repeater is ongoing with Ivan VK7XL applying the mods to the cavities for better rejection and deeper notches required for the 600KHz. split. Once they are deemed satisfactory, the repeater is expected to be commissioned within a few days.
In the meantime, enjoy the 6m Repeater. Thanks again to Graeme VK7AQ for his assistance with the retuning, Ivan VK7XL, Neil VK7ZNX, Bob VK7MGW & Tony VK7AX for work on mounting and installing the new antennae at the repeater site.
IRLP Node Reactivated
IRLP Node 6616 / EchoIRLP Node 467772 on the simplex freq. of 147.425MHz. was re activated Saturday 4th. July.
Please note the change in the EchoIRLP Node number from 152357 to a new node number 467772 (VK7RTV-R).
The Node is again fully functional with all its additional facilities and is in parallel with EchoLink Node 100478 (VK7AX-L).
All nodes and facilities will be transferred to the Club's 2M repeater VK7RTV (146.775MHz) as soon as the repeater becomes functional, hopefully in the next few days.
Nightly Broadcasts are again being aired automatically via the 6616 node commencing last Monday Night (6/7/09).
If you listen to the broadcasts it would be appreciated you checking in with your call sign during the automatic call back sessions following each broadcast. Broadcasts are still aired each weeknight at 8.00PM.
In the meantime please enjoy the services.
73's until next time
(Tony VK7AX, News Officer NWT-ATV Gp)
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Cradle Coast Amateur Radio Club (CCARC)
http://www.my-x15.net/ccarc
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Southern News
Reminder - 70cm repeater now operational in Huonville!
Hayden VK7HAY reminds us that VK7RCH 70cm repeater is up and going and covers the Huon Valley.
No tone is required and it is on 438.575 receive and 433.575 transmit.
It is currently running 20W and a future project will be to add Echolink facilities to it.
Just reminding listeners about the other 70cm repeater - VK7RTC 438.600 on Mt.Nelson in Hobart.
Brian VK7RR has spent much time and effort on this repeater over the years and it would be good to hear some increased activity on the 70cm band.
73 hope to hear you on 70.
(Hayden VK7HAY)
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Radio and Electronics Association of Southern Tasmania
REAST Education and Training
Congratulations and welcome to the bands to James Cooper who now has his callsign which is VK7FJLC. James passed his assessment along with Thom VK7FTOM and Robin VK7FRSA.
The next foundation training and practical assessment session will be in November please let Reg know if you are interested.
Contact Reg VK7KK for more information on mobile: 0417 391 607 or email: regemm(AT)ozemail.com.au
http://reast.asn.au/events.php#FoundationLicenceCourse
(Reg, VK7KK, REAST Education Officer and Assessor)
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REAST ATV Experimenters Night
Even though it was a little cold on the hill we had a fantastic roll-up last Wednesday night including a very special guest. Bill Devine who is VK2NWC and he came along with Ken VK7DY.
Bill will be known to many and went through the novice course run by Harvey VK7HK many years ago along with Ken.
Ken got the night off and going with a great on-air interview with Bill. Justin VK7TW then continued the interview and we found out that Bill loves the HF bands and has a great compact setup at his home QTH and is catching up with many around VK7.
Justin then took the watchers and listeners through re-winding low voltage high current transformers and how to get them apart, measure the core size and wire size and some hints about re-winding the transformer.
Justin then showed the Dave Sumner K1ZZ – President of ARRL and his presentation on what the FCC hid when making their BPL decisions.
We then showed the third and final hour of the three one hour presentations on the HPSDR project by Phil Harman VK6APH.
http://www.tapr.org/kits_merc.html
See you Wednesday night around 7:30pm for another great night of ATV and experimenting.
http://reast.asn.au/events.php#ATVnights
(73, Justin, VK7TW)
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Satellite News
SuitSat-2 Transforms Into a Satellite
Due to storage considerations on the International Space Station, the two surplus Orlan space suits in storage on the International Space Station were discarded via the Progress Cargo Vessel. One of these suits was to be used to house the electronics for the upcoming SuitSat-2 mission where the batteries were to be mounted inside the suit, solar panels attached to the extremities with the electronics, video cameras and antenna mounted on the helmet by the ISS crew prior to deployment during an EVA.
The Progress, with the suits included, was undocked from ISS this past week.
The ARISS International Team has been informed that there is still space available for shipment of the SuitSat-2 electronics on the projected cargo flight to the Space Station in January 2010 and the EVA scheduled for April 2010 still has a 'SuitSat-2' deployment scheduled.
Consequently, the AMSAT team developing SuitSat-2 electronics on behalf of ARISS International is focusing on completing development in anticipation that deployment will still take place in Spring 2010 using a new structure to house it. In addition, the experiment being developed by Russia's Kursk State University is still expected to be integrated into the electronics once the US produced equipment is delivered to Russia this fall. Discussions are currently taking place between Russian ARISS members and the AMSAT project managers concerning the design of the new structure and where it will be constructed with these decisions to be made in the next few weeks.
The AMSAT team building the electronics is meeting July 10-12 in Phoenix to initiate integration testing of all of the components built in the US with subsequent testing to continue through the remainder of the summer in anticipation of shipping equipment to Russia in the fall.
The removal of the Orlan space suits from ISS removes the 'Suit' component of this deployment and at some point a new project name will be used to reflect the change in configuration. However, the significant importance of this project to both ARISS and AMSAT is not diminished.
ARISS sees this mission as an important component of education outreach as it will provide an opportunity for students around the world to listen for recorded greetings from space as well as learn about tracking spacecraft in orbit.
Meanwhile, the deployment of SDX (Software Defined Transponder), the associated receiver and transmitter modules, and control electronics is a critical milestone for AMSAT as this upcoming flight provides an opportunity to flight test the next generation of spacecraft hardware. Lessons learned from this deployment will be applied to future flight opportunities as AMSAT moves towards a 'modularization approach' to spacecraft development with the expectation the future spacecraft missions will utilize a derivative of SDX and the associated hardware.
www.amsat.org
(AMSAT VP-Manned Spaceflight Will Marchant, KC6ROL via the AMSAT News Service)
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Award News
Rutherford Trophy awarded to Fred Johnson ZL2AMJ
Fred Johnson, ZL2AMJ, has won The New Zealand Institute of Physics Rutherford Trophy for 2008 for his work in developing the radio wave demonstration kits for schools.
Fred's kits and documentation are shown on the weblink on the email and internet editions of this broadcast.
http://www.nzart.org.nz/waves/radiowaves.html
The Rutherford Trophy was established in 1973 by the Mathematics and Physics section of the RSNZ Christchurch Branch to "stimulate the development and improvement of simple lecture and laboratory demonstrations".
The keynotes are simplicity and "the string and tape approach". The trophy is so named because of Rutherford's emphasis on simple and clear demonstrations.
Development of the kit was supported by The NZART Radioscience Education Trust.
(http://www.nzart.org.nz/nz/trustweb.html).
(Sourced from the NZART Mailing List)
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Satellite News
AO-51 Engineering Team Continues to Monitor Power Levels
Due to the increasing time AO-51 is spending in eclipse AMSAT Vice-President of Operations, Drew KO4MA reports that transmitter power levels have needed to be reduced. This way the batteries will provide enough power to keep the satellite operational when the solar cells are not providing charging current. AO-51 users have already noted the weaker signals on the downlinks.
See the AO-51 Control Team Web Page for latest operating information will carry the latest status of the satellite.
http://www.amsat.org/amsat-new/echo/CTNews.php
AMSAT now has a Twitter account at http://twitter.com/AMSAT where the AO-51 Operations Team will try to tweet things too small for ANS bulletins or email, but of interest to the general AMSAT community.
The most recent tweet reported, "AO-51 is in "normal" mode, telemetry on 435.150 (AT) 240mw, V/u repeater on 435.300 (AT) 290mw."
Gould, WA4SXM, AO-51 Ground Control Station said, "The eclipse time should start to decrease over the next few days hopefully allowing improvement in the transmitter power settings."
Gould continues with the news, "The AO-51 telemetry archive is up to date as of last night. AO-51 telemetry data is available in raw format, CSA (comma separated variable) format that has the channel data converted by the configuration equations and there are some Excel files (most with graphs).
There are a number of Excel files with graphs for June 2009 as that was a very interesting month for AO-51 operation. I encourage exploration of the data and any insights gleaned."
The telemetry archive can be found at the website that can be found on the email and internet editions of this boradcast:
http://www.amsat.org/amsat/ftp/telemetry/ao51/
(Sourced from the AMSAT News Service)
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DX News
Oceania DX Activities
TIMOR-LESTE, which is 4W. Chris, 4W6FR, is QRV as time permits. Look for him on 20 and 17 meters using PSK. Most of his activity takes place between 0900 and 1300z. QSL via VK4FW, or via website on the email and internet editions at:
http://www.odxg.org
TOGO, which is 5V. Franco, I1FQH, will be active as 5V7PRF between July 22 and 30. This will be a very light DXpedition with activity on 80 through 10 meters using mostly CW and some SSB. QSL via I1FQH, LoTW, eQSL or the bureau.
INDONESIA which is YC0. Hotang, YC0IEM, will be active as YC0IEM/9 from Bali (OC-022) until July 27. QSL via IZ8CCW.
(ARRL DX Mailing List)
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Technology News
Coolest Spacecraft Ever In Orbit …HIHI
The Science Daily website on July 2nd reports that the detectors of Planck's High Frequency Instrument reached their amazingly low operational temperature of -273°C, making them the coldest known objects in space.
The spacecraft has also just entered its final orbit around the second Lagrange point of the Sun-Earth system, L2. Planck is equipped with a passive cooling system that brings its temperature down to about
-230°C by radiating heat into space. Three active coolers take over from there, and bring the temperature down further to an amazing low of -273.05°C, only 0.1°C above absolute zero which is the coldest temperature theoretically possible in our Universe.
Such low temperatures are necessary for Planck's detectors to study the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the first light released by the universe only 380 000 yrs after the Big Bang, by measuring its temperature across the sky.
The detectors will look for variations in the temperature of the CMB that are about a million times smaller than one degree – this is comparable to measuring from Earth the heat produced by a rabbit sitting on the Moon. This is why the detectors must be cooled to temperatures close to absolute zero (–273.15°C, or zero Kelvin, 0K).
All commissioning activities are on schedule, and this phase of the mission is practically complete. Over the next few weeks, the operation of the instruments will be fine-tuned for best performance.
Planck will begin to survey the sky in mid-August.
More info can be found at the link on the email and internet editions of this broadcast.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090703142158.htm
(Sourced from the ScienceDaily website)
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Humour to Finish
Fire Extinguished By Remote Control
An elderly woman in Zurich, Switzerland calls emergency services to report that her TV is burning. Police and firefighters rush to her home but don't see any smoke. A closer look at the TV reveals it is tuned to a station that shows a fire in a fireplace during the early morning hours.
They turned off the "fire" with the TV's remote control.
There were no damages or injuries…HIHI.
http://tinyurl.com/TVfire
(Sourced to CG Communicator)
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Web & Email Edition Extra Bits!!
WES Semi & Valve Listing (Courtesy of John VK5DJ)
http://www.wagner.net.au/catalogue/01_Semiconductors.pdf
Microwave Journal Webinars and other useful resources are available via a FREE subscription to Microwave Journal? Click here to subscribe: http://www.omeda.com/mwj (Link courtesy of VK7AW)
Inflatable Space Tower
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/07/02/space-tower.html
Jet Truck
http://www.geek.com/articles/news/michigan-man-creates-jet-truck-to-jet-about-town-2009072/
From Sand to Hand:
http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/from-sand-to-hand-how-a-cpu-is-made-2009079
Moores Law and Storage
http://gigaom.com/2009/07/01/bringing-moores-law-to-the-data-storage-market/
Phil VK7JJ travels in pictures (thanks to VK7ARN)
http://www.perite.com/newsite/trip-5.htm
The following sourced from the NZART News:
IARU HF World Championship 11/12-JUL-2009
Rules: http://www.arrl.org/contests/rules/2008/iaru.html
Waitakere Sprints 25-July and 01-August-2009
Rules http://www.qsl.net/zl1vk
IARU R3 Conference 12-16 October 2009
http://www.zl6iaru.org/
Following links Courtesy of CG Communicator:
This granny would make a great engineer (video): http://tinyurl.com/GrannyEngineer
An excellent ARRL Field Day 2009 (ham radio) video: http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=y3gRWG-EUGU
More on the reactivation of the High Point Lookout Tower on Palomar Mountain: http://tinyurl.com/qgsees
A little Boogie Woogie to rev your engine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHmmid1pLi8
Do you have some interesting amateur related sites you have some across in the last week – send them in to justingc(AT)ozemail.com.au
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VK7 Regional News Group Email Addresses
Post message: vk7regionalnews(AT)yahoogroups.com
Subscribe: vk7regionalnews-subscribe(AT)yahoogroups.com
Unsubscribe: vk7regionalnews-unsubscribe(AT)yahoogroups.com
List owner: vk7regionalnews-owner(AT)yahoogroups.com
VK7 Virtual BPL Tours Update
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdcY0Eetvsw - Mt Nelson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gsxpya3CnQ - North Hobart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7DfdxjRkpU - RU ready for BPL?
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If you are interested in becoming an amateur radio operator or upgrading your licence then we suggest you contact your local club for details and/or take a look at what the Radio and Electronics School has to offer. They have a range of courses that can be delivered through a variety of methods.
They can be found at: www.radioelectronicschool.com
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Finally today, a reminder to those people rostered for next week's broadcasts:
Newsreader: VK7TW
160m: VK7DM
80m: VK7ZK
40m: VK7RO
20m: VK7IL
10m: VK7ZGK
UHF CB: VK7HGO
HF CB: VK7TED
Thanks to all people and organisations who assisted with this broadcast.
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THAT CONCLUDES OUR VK7 REGIONAL NEWS BROADCAST FOR THIS WEEK.
YOU HAVE BEEN LISTENING TO OR JUST MISSED VK7WI. NEXT WEEK THE NATIONAL WIA NEWS CAN BE HEARD AT 0900 FOLLOWED BY THE VK7 REGIONAL NEWS AT 0930 HOURS.
DETAILS TO SEND NEWS FOR THIS BROADCAST CAN BE FOUND AT REAST.ASN.AU AND THE DEADLINE FOR ITEMS IS 21:00 ON FRIDAY PRIOR TO THE SUNDAY OF THE BROADCAST.
VK7 Regional Broadcast & News Coordinator
Justin Giles-Clark, VK7TW
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- NEWS POSTING TO PACKET -
Courtesy Tony VK7AX VK7AX(AT)VK7AX.#ULV.TAS.AUS.OC
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