WESTLAKES NEWS FOR MAY 27TH 2012. Well this is another good story item. The meat tray was carefully chosen out of the ticket tumbler by none other than Allan VK2JED. The lucky winner was yours truly - Barrie VK2BXD. I will enjoy the meat tray. The clubs Major Field Day will now be held on the 16th September – that’s 1 week later than previously advertised because of Fathers Day. So please note the new date and re write in in your diary. Please, we DO NOT WANT old VCR's, TV's,computer monitors( unless they are flat screens). Please contact the club if you are not sure if the club needs that item or not. VK9PN DXpedition to Lord Howe Island Patrick, VK2PN and Mira OK1NG are on Lord Howe Island for a week, to be joined later by Chris VK3FY. They will operate as much as they can until the morning of the 30th. of May. They will take part in the CQ WPX CW on the weekend. Operation will be on CW and SSB on the 20, 30, 40, 80 & 160m bands. Check the clusters for VK9PN to see where they are operating. The Foundation Licence that was set down for yesterday had to be postponed to another date. As soon as a date has been set all candidates will be notified. Do you know the difference between an iphone,ipad,tablet and an ipod? The iPhone is a smartphone made by Apple that combines an iPod, a tablet PC, a digital camera and a cellular phone. The device includes Internet browsing and networking capabilities. The ipad is a 9.7 inch touch screen tablet PC made by Apple. The iPad is basically a netbook without a keyboard, which allows it to be smaller and lighter without sacrificing much functionality. A tablet PC is a wireless personal computer (PC) that allows a user to take notes using natural handwriting with a stylus or digital pen on a touch screen. The iPod is a combination portable digital media player and hard drive from Apple Computer. The original version was about the size of a deck of playing cards, with a monochrome screen and a 5 gigabyte capacity. iPods can be now be purchased with up to 60 GB of hard drive capacity and color screens capable of playing television shows, videos or movies uploaded from a PC. WORLD NEWS. New Handheld on the market. Yaesu FT1D Digital Handheld One of the most eagerly awaited products at Dayton Hamvention was the new Yaesu FT1D digital and FM handheld. It has, for an Amateur Radio rig, a number of innovations: - A microphone that uses a mini-USB plug and has a built-in camera for low resolution (320x240) pictures, - An 80 character group short messaging facility - 9600 bps data transfer - Micro-SD card slot - E-GPS facility Although the optional extra microphone has a camera, there appears to be no way to display the pictures on the radio which some may see as reducing it's usefulness. The use of 9600 bps with 12.5 kHz channel spacing (is it 10 kHz in Japan?) was a surprise. Some had expected it to support 5 or 6.25 kHz channel spacing with a resultant data rate of 4800 bps (digital speech using an AMBE vocoder only requires a 3600 bps data rate). The modulation used is what Yaesu describes as C4FM otherwise known as 4 level FSK or 4-FSK and is the same as that used for Digital PMR-446 equipment. 4-FSK has advantages over other types of digital modulation such as GMSK. Both ICOM and Kenwood have been producing 4-FSK equipment for the PMR market since 2007 so in some ways it's surprising that Yaesu beat them both in releasing an amateur version of 4-FSK. As yet Yaesu hasn't announced any mobiles, base stations or repeaters so it appears that FT1D's can only talk to other FT1D's in digital mode. Check it out on the web. ARRL launch digital QST magazine The ARRL has launched an International Membership with a digital version of QST magazine for $39 US ($40 AU). QST is one of the world's leading amateur radio magazines and the digital version should have an appeal to English speaking radio amateurs around the world. It could be that in certain countries some amateurs may prefer the digital QST to locally produced publications. According to ARRL the new format offers several advantages including enhanced content, timely access, and a more interactive experience. The digital edition is easy to navigate; flip pages from cover-to-cover, zoom in/out, search (full text), print and share, and follow live hyperlinks. Each issue will include unique, digital-edition-only content—video, audio features and extra content. The ability to print the magazine means you can use free utilities, such as CutePDF Writer, that appear as a printer to create PDF's, however, the quality isn't that good. As well as the latest issue ARRL members can access the digital QST archive which starts with the January 2012 edition. Well that's all the news we have this week. Do you have a news items that you would like read out on a broadcast? Contact Richard VK2FRKO on email address vk2frko@tpg.com.au or give the item to Richard at the club. Now to wind up. Westlakes Amateur Radio Club Inc. is located in York Street, TERALBA - and is open on Saturday Afternoons from around 12 noon. Also on a Tuesday evening from around 6pm. To make contact at other times, try dialling (02) 49 581588 where an answering service operates. Visitors are alway welcome at the club. We have plenty of tea, coffee, long-life milk, and an interesting selection of biscuits.

WESTLAKES NEWS FOR THE MAY 20TH 2012. At the club yesterday was a small group of members who all bought tickets in the meat tray raffle. John, who had won the last 2 meat trays was there again to try his luck. Well John spun the ticket tumbler and he reached in a selected a ticket. Well well what a surprise when someone else was selected. VK2JED was this weeks lucky winner. Enjoy the your tray this week Allan and congratulations. Allan ( VK2JED ) advises that a new JAYCAR store will be opening tomorrow at Tuggerah Shopping centre. I believe that there may be lucky door prizes. The contest logs have been sent away for last Saturday nights VK TRANS TASMAN 80 Contest. A total of 1143 points was scored. Not too bad as the atmospheric noise was very strong. Thanks to all the members who assisted on the night. Well done. Next contest that the club will be taking part in will be the RD contest in August. Also in August is the Lighthouse weekend at Norah Head. It is always a good weekend away. Out in the yard yesterday was Geoff (VK2GL ) who was making and showing our latest Foundation Licence students all about antennas etc We wish them good luck in there examinations. Westlakes 2012 Field Day has been set down for Sunday 2nd September so please mark your calenders with this date. Please we DO NOT WANT old VCR's, TV's,computer monitors( unless they are flat screens). Please contact the club if you are not sure if the club needs that item or not. Have you forgotten about the Whafflers net every Wednesday night commencing at 1930 hrs on 2 meters - 146.575 MHz. Listen out for Robert VK2MF who is Whaffler Controller. WORLD NEWS: Two New Lighthouse Activations: TC1ILH and TC6KLH. This Fri-Sun May 18-20, 2012, TCSWAT & GITRAD, in collaboration with Coastal Safety Administration, will be operating from some Black Sea coast lighthouses for the first time. TC1ILH Igneada Lighthouse, the most North Western Turkish lighthouse, will be activated by TA1ED, TA1FR, TA1PB, TA1HZ and TB1CIG; while TC6KLH Kerempe Lighthouse will be activated by TA2RX, TA7EA, TA7EB, TA7EM and TA7BB. Activity will be on HF bands, 80m to 10m, and 2m over the Black Sea contacts will be tried as well. QSL via TA1HZ; but please read the QSL info on the website before QSLing direct. Milestone for wi-fi with 'T-rays' BBC News report that researchers in Japan have smashed the record for wireless data transmission in the terahertz band, an uncharted part of the electro-magnetic spectrum. The data rate is 20 times higher than the best commonly used wi-fi standard. As consumers become ever more hungry for high data rates, standard lower-frequency bands have become crowded. The research, published in Electronics Letters, adds to the idea that this "T-ray" band could offer huge swathes of bandwidth for data transmission. The band lies between the microwave and far-infrared regions of the spectrum, and is currently completely unregulated by telecommunications agencies. Despite the name, the band informally makes use of frequencies from about 300 gigahertz (300GHz or about 60 times higher than the current highest wi-fi standard) to about 3THz, 10 times higher again. From... The Ohio/Penn DX Packet Cluster DX Special Bulletin No. 1062.2 VK0H, HEARD ISLAND. Dated May 15th: "After 5 months of planning, Cordell Expeditions is pleased to announce a DXpedition to Heard Island, Territory of Australia, in early 2014.We have assembled a core team, arranged for the vessel, and are awaiting the landing permit and radio callsign. Initial team members, collaborating organizations, and other resources will be announced in the near future. The expedition will be multi-disciplinary, with three major activities: Communications, Environmental Science, and Documentation. We will be active on all bands and all modes, implement a variety of innovative real-time communications technologies, and field a variety of scientific projects that are designed to observe and document some of the unique resources on this extraordinary island. We will use the latest version of DXA (www.cordell.org/DXA) for real-time online presentation of log data, images, and video from Heard Island. This project follows the very successful expedition to Heard Island carried out by this group in 1997. Details of that operation can be seen at www.cordell.org/HI. The website for the 2014 DXpedition is www.cordell.org/HD. We invite your participation in this project, as a potential team member, supporter, or eventually as a callsign in our radio log! If you have a particular interest in Heard Island or may be interested in joining the expedition, we invite you to contact us. For information, please contact the Expedition Leader, Dr. Robert Schmieder at schmieder@cordell.org." NOTE FROM EDITOR: Here at the Dayton HamVention, I learned that a second group is also planning an operation to Heard Island. Hopefully, more details will be forthcoming..... Well that's all the news I have this week. Do you have a news items that you would like read out on a broadcast? Contact Richard VK2FRKO on email address vk2frko@tpg.com.au or give the item to Richard at the club. Now to wind up. Westlakes Amateur Radio Club Inc. is located in York Street, TERALBA - and is open on Saturday Afternoons from around 12 noon. Also on a Tuesday evening from around 6pm. To make contact at other times, try dialling (02) 49 581588 where an answering service operates. Visitors are alway welcome at the club. We have plenty of tea, coffee, long-life milk, and an interesting selection of biscuits.