Good Morning and wecome to another local news broadcast for 2011. This is VK2ATZ, The official callsign of
Westlakes Amateur Radio Club founded at Booragul in 1964 and now located at Teralba, Lake Macquarie.
There is a chace that an HF simulcast being transmitted today on 3.565 MHz and if there is, it is by courtesy of Warren VK2UWP.
Callbacks follow at the conclusion of this news and 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 monthly meeting for 2011 was held in the air conditioned club's library yesterday where the air conditioner
struggled to hold its own. A test thermometer placed under the the rear awning, recorded 43 degrees mid-afternoon.
There were two new membership applications approved being: Edward Herivel VK2ZVF of Edgeworth,and Fred Mirande VK2FEDC
ex Wollongng but now living locally. Welcome to Westlakes.
During the meeting, it was decided to hold a lawn mowing and trimming working bee for the club grounds next Tuesday.
That has been cancelled after an inspection of the browned-off grass and the 43 degree thermometer. Just repeating that,
the lawn mowing planned for next Tuesday has been cancelled.
Two new toys were at the meeting yesterday. Steve displayed his Icom Quad-bander hand-held radio (wonder if was one of
those fake ones?) and Geoff VK2EO demonstrated the latest of iPhones. He caught a fish with the iPhone and never left
chair. It's getting hard to tell what's real or not these days.
Old technology (that's us) has found a role in the current protests in Egypt. On 27 January, Egypt fell off the internet
as virtually all international connections were cut following an order from the government. But Protesters circulated
information about how to avoid communication controls inside Egypt. The suggestions included Dial-up modems,Twitter messages
tagged with hashes related to the protests such as #egypt and #jan25, and good old ham radio by voice or Morse code. Who knows,
a whole new Q-code could develop ........ QMR send more rocks.
A total of 73 tickets were sold in yesterday's meat tray. Last weeks winner, Diane VK2FDNE drew the winner. And selected her
own ticket. That's two in a row.
Last week, amateur radio operators kept in touch via HF radio and keeping a vital link alive during the passage of one of the
more fierce and expansive severe tropical cyclones to hit the North East coast of Australia. Severe Tropical Cyclone Yasi,
named by the Regional Specialist Meteorological Centre at Nadi, Fiji, tracked from its breeding ground east of Vanuatu to make
landfall on the Far North Queensland Coast, last Wednesday. The system was so vast that it affected communities along a
900km stretch of coast from Cooktown to Mackay and 500km inland to Croydon, Richmond, Charters Towers and Clermont. Whilst making
sure that their families and houses were safe, radio amateurs within the warning area and across the country kept in touch via
HF Radio with a listening watch on Queensland WICEN frequency 7075kHz and regular contact via the morning Gnarly Net on 3600kHz
and the afternoon Friendly Net on 7115kHz. This regular contact has kept the communication lines open just in case the cyclone
rated commercial telecommunication networks failed. Operators also maintained operations on VHF and UHF during the phenomenal
weather conditions. A number of Radio Amateurs who are members of the Australian Defence Force have been involved with flood relief
operations during the previous weeks and are now assisting with the relief effort following the passage of the cyclone.
Yet another warning from Microsoft has been released. In a security advisory, the company warned of a loophole that could be used
by malicious hackers to steal private information or hijack computers. The bug potentially affects every user of the Internet Explorer
web browser - around 900 million people worldwide. But help is at hand. Microsoft has issued a software patch to defend against attacks,
and said it was working to develop a long-term fix.The security advisory, which was published last Friday, details how the vulnerability
can be used to manipulate users and take over their machines. Although the flaw is actually inside Windows itself, it only appears to
affect the way that Internet Explorer handles some web pages and documents. Microsoft admitted that the problem meant users could easily
be fooled into downloading malicious files by doing something as simple as clicking on a web link. When the user clicked that link,
the malicious script would run on the user's computer for the rest of the current Internet Explorer session. All Windows users -
particularly those who use Internet Explorer - are being urged to download the fix while the company's security team develop a way to
plug the hole permanently.
Westlakes members are reminded that nomination forms for club executive and committee positions for 2011/2012 are now available from
the secretary. The deadline for nominations is Saturday 9 April. Also, the March monthly meeting will be held on the second Saturday
of that month which will be Saturday 12 March. A final also, there is one club cap left - cost is $20. Contact the secretary.
Well that's all the news I have this week And remember, Wyong Field Day is on three weeks today.
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