WESTLAKES NEWS SUNDAY 23 January 2011

Good Morning and wecome to another local news broadcast for 2011. This is VK2ATZ, The official callsign of
Westlakes Amateur Radio Club,located at Teralba, Lake Macquarie. .There is also a simulcast being transmitted
on 3.565 MHz courtesy of Warren VK2UWP. Callbacks will be taken on both VHF and HF.
It's all repeated again at 7 pm this evening. Westlakes local news can be heard each Sunday on this repeater,
VK2RTZ, at 9am local. Following at 9.30am is a relay of the Australia-wide amateur radio news from the VK1WIA.

The first item today is about "Dare-Devil Ted." While most of us were sitting down to breakfast yesterday, Ted VK2UI
celebrated his 86th birthday by leaping leaping from an aeroplane at a height of 14,000 feet, somewhere over Rutherford.
It's Ted's second experience at this activity but not from this height. His flight (or is it fall) lasted five seconds longer than his
previous attempt.

Now two items from overseas. D-Star repeaters in Italy have been accused of causing interference to Amateur Radio satellites.
Both FM and D-Star repeaters in Italy are showing up in the Amateur Satellite segment 145.8 from 146.0 MHz. Although the
repeaters are said to be government approved by Italy's Communications Regulatory Authority, they are causing considerable
interference to amateur radio satellites and the International Space Station contacts. Italy's telecommunications regulator
permits repeaters anywhere within the 2 meter band on a provisional basis for 60 days. Authorization may become permanent if
no complaints are received. Amateur satellite users worldwide are asked to make sure that the Italian telecommunications
regulatory body is made aware of any interference problems they experience.
And on the subject of of satellites, Turkey plans to send its first ham radio communications satellite into orbit in September.
It is to be called 3USAT. A flying turkey - whatever next?

The first Westlakes Magazine for 2011 will be assembled and enveloped in the club library next Saturday from around midday.
Helpers would be appreciated. Included with this edition will be receipts for membership renewals for all who have paid by mail.
All memberships fall due on 1st February which is only about a week away. And remember, next saturday it will be pies and mushy
peas for lunch as Gloria takes her one day off a month.

In December 1941, the USS California was sunk after being struck by a torpedo and a 500lb bomb during the Japanese surprise
attack on Pearl Harbour.The man who alerted the world that Pearl Harbour was being bombed by the Japanese, has died at 88.
Former Navy radio man Ed Chlapowski died last Sunday at his home a few weeks after being diagnosed with cancer. In 2009,
Chlapowski recounted the December 7, 1941 attack that propelled the United States into World War II. He said he had worked
an early watch at the submarine base, had breakfast and had just sat down on his bunk when he looked out the window and saw
a hangar roof blown away. Then he saw the Japanese planes. Chlapowski says he ran to the radio room. A supervisor handed him
a message, and in Morse code, tapped out news that Pearl Harbour was under attack - perhaps that was the most significant
Morse message ever sent.

Yesterday's meat tray raffle was drawn by David VK2UDW in his inimitable style. The winner was Greg VK2CW.

It has just been announced that Commercial radio stations in VK2 will be recognised for emergency services information.
The Chief executive officer of Commercial Radio Australia, Joan Warner, has welcomed the signing of a memorandum of understanding
with the NSW Government, making commercial radio stations official providers of emergency services information. The industry has
argued for some time for commercial radio to be included and promoted as an official provider of information in emergencies,
along with the ABC. Some of the advantages could be ads for boats in time of floods or extinguishers in the bushfire season - but
that's being cynical.

On 22nd December last year the WIA advised that the ACMA had made amendments to the Amateur Licence Conditions Determination
and the Visiting Overseas Amateur Class Licence. The WIA has now placed the consolidated versions of these amendments, for easier
reading. Follow wia.org.au to Members/Legislation The WIA advises that All amateurs must make themselves aware of their licence
conditions to avoid that "knock" on the door from ACMA Inspectors. Are there any ACMA Inspectors left? There must be.

Here is a special Event Station for collectors of unusal QSL cards - the call sign is N6R and it will be on air from Saturday
5th February to Sunday 7th Febuary. The bizzare reason for activating N6R is to celebrate former President Reagan's 100th
birthday. And just in case anyone is remotely interested, N6R is a multi-club Field Day operation from the grounds of the
Ronald Reagan Presidential Museum which is located in Simi Valley, California.

And finally, another piece of useless information. A Japanese businessman using a home-built computer has taken calculations
of the mathematical concept of pi to the trillions of digits and won a world record for his labours. Shigeru Kondo, a systems
engineer, calculated pi - the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter - to five trillion digits, almost doubling the
accuracy of the previous world record. Last week the calculation was recognised by Guinness World Records. Using 20 external
hard drives and after 90 days of non-stop processing, he obtained a string of five trillion numbers that defined pi. The previous
record, set by a French software consultant only a month ago, was around 2.7 trillion digits. You think that would be enough,
but no - Mr Kondo is now trying to calculate pi to 10 trillion digits.



Well that's all the news I have this week.