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.