WESTLAKES NEWS FOR SETPTEMBER 29TH 2013

Yesterday's meat tray. Who won? None other than Ted VK2UI... AGAIN... Enjoy Ted. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Next weekend is the Oceania DX contest and the Club is mounting an entry. Op’s are needed for a spot shift during the weekend. This is a 48 hour event so if you can help out please contact Alan VK2JED. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Maurie VK2CD was busy at the club finishing off the installation of the emergency exit doors. Only problem was that during the Field day weekend clean up, all the weatherboard pieces that Maurie had hidden for use on the wall were tossed out. A full clean up HI... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Barry VK2BZ and Dave VK2RD were busy installing the paper towel dispenser above the wash basin. Thanks to Jamie VK2YCJ for the donation of the unit. The fire extinguisher that was near the store has been relocated to the entry to the Toilets / was room area. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Echolink error. The Westlakes Echolink number shown in our monthly magazine has been wrong. In fact it's been wrong for years.If you have tried to access Echolink on the club's 146.775 repeater without success, now you know why. The correct number is 356838. A correction has been made in the October Monthly Magazine. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Speaking of the October Magazine, The paper black and white version has been posted early this morning at my local Post Office and should appear in letter boxes tomorrow morning. The electric, all-colour version of the magazine which most members receive, will be sent via the magic of the Internet later today. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Looking a little further ahead, there will be another Boot Sale held at Westlakes on Saturday 9 November. This is a free event to the sellers and also a free "sausage sizzle" will be provided for all who attend. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Please remember to check the "for sale" board when visiting Westlakes. It is in the common room. There are always bargains listed there which are often snapped up before they can be advertised in our magazine. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Coming events. October is going to be a busy month. The Monthly Meeting will be held on Saturday 12th which is a week later than usual because of the long weekend. Then on 19th October we have a demonstration and lecture by Norm VK2KNC. It is all about Software Defined Radios and it starts at 1pm in the library. Aso over that weekend, 19th and 20th October is JOTA and JOTI. It will be the 56th year for JOTA and the 17th year for JOTI. Finally on Saturday 26th October, Foundation and licence upgrade examinations will be be held at Westlakes and that will be an all-day affair. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Antenna matters. Did you know that your 40 meter dipole will work very well on 15 meters. By using the 3rd harmonic e.g. 21.250MHz divided by 3 = 7.083 MHz. So if your 40 meter dipole is resonant at 7.080 MHz then your antenna will work on 15 meters. Some of the other antennas on other bands also work in that manner. Try it out sometime. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Richard VK2FRKO advises that on the APRS.FI ( http://aprs.fi ) program you can see MARINE RESCUE vessels. So why not check it and follow the white vessels around. -------------------------------------------------------------------- A little news from VK6. VI6WA100 a special event callsign will be used to celebrate the centenary of organised Amateur Radio in Western Australia. In October 1913, the Perth Radio Club (name changed to WIA VK6 Division a few years later) held its first meeting. The call VI6WA100 will be on air from next Wednesday October 1st untill the end of the year. Yes, there is a Special Event QSL card on offer to all who make a contact. --------------------------------------------------------------------- ACMA proposes regulations changes. The Australian Communications and Media Authority has announced a set of changes to the Amateur Licence Condition Determinations (Regulations). Each are important but relatively minor in nature. As anticipated holders of the Advanced Licence have added to their available bands, 135.7 kHz to 137.8 kHz. That low frequency band was allocated by the World Radiocommunications Conference in 2007 but is not yet included in the LCD. Currently those wanting to use the band must apply for a licence variation and pay a fee. The amendment will enable Advanced category stations, under their amateur callsign, access to the LF band with a power of up to 1 watt pX EIRP and any emission mode with a bandwidth of no greater than 2.1 kHz. This will be on a Secondary basis that amateur stations do not cause interference to other radio services that have Primary status on that spectrum. The amendments also concern changes to the station identification arrangements for overseas radio amateurs in Australia for short-term holidays or business visits. Visiting radio amateurs will need to identify by putting VK in front of their home callsign, which is more consistent with the practice used overseas for visitor licensing arrangements.The use of an alternative repeater access control is proposed to better manage situations that may result in an amateur station accessing a repeater for which they are not authorised to transmit on the repeater output frequency.The ACMA is also to provide through the amendments some clarity on third part traffic messages. It will receive written comments on the changes up until 1 November 2010. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- New Componets: Taiyo Yuden Co., Ltd. has released the 330 µF-capacitance EIA 1210 size as another addition to the company's high-end product group of high-capacity multilayer ceramic capacitors. The company has improved the capacitance by more than 50% in the same size capacitor. The large capacitance 330 µF super high-end product claims to be the first of its kind in the world. The product is used to smooth the output and ensure the stable operation in power supplies. The applications for these power supplies include industrial equipment such as surveillance cameras and broadcast equipment, as well as PCs and servers, and all-in-one printers. Production will commence from September 2013 onward at a production rate of one million units per month. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well that's all the news I have this week. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now to wind up. Westlakes Amateur Radio Club Inc. is located in York Street, TERALBA - and is open on Saturday from around 11:00 am. Also on a Tuesday evening from around 6:00pm. To make contact at other times, try dialling (02) 49 581588 where an answering service operates. Visitors are always welcome at the club. We have plenty of tea, coffee, long-life milk, a good Canteen and a dwindling, but interesting selection of biscuits. Thank you for listening. We hope that you can all join us again next Sunday.

WESTLAKES BROADCAST NEWS FOR SEPTEMBER 8TH 2013

Last weeks meat tray raffle winner Herb VK2ZVF was at the club yesterday to draw this weeks meat tray winner. Herb reached in and drew out the ticket belonging to Warren VK2UWP. Congratulations Warren and enjoy the meat tray. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Westlakes club is finally in the business of conducting amateur radio licence exams following the appointment of Geoff VK2GL and Steve VK2LW as approved WIA assessors. A list has been placed on the notice board in the common room for anyone who wishes to register for a Foundation, Standard, or Advanced Licence. For more details contact Steve VK2LW at the club. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Next Sunday is the clubs major field day at the club. EVERYONE is invited. The famous Westlakes BBQ will once again be lit and steak and sausage sandwiches along with fresh salad will be served. Tea and coffee as well as cold drinks will also be available. The field day will open at 0900 so don't be late. It is still not too late to register your boot sale spot so if you are interested please contact a club committee member. The long range forecaster has advised that its going to be a great day. See you there. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SOTA now active in VK2 Sunday 1st. September 10am local (UTC 00:00) saw the start of summits being activated in the Summits on the Air scheme in Australia's VK2 (New South Wales) area. This start coincided with Fathers Day in Australia and so there were less activators and chasers present than may have been but there were still enough stations active for several hours of interesting communication. The SOTA "activators" and "chasers" only got to know the previous week that VK2 may be accepted into the award scheme on September 1st. (having had its summits verified and accepted)and the final "green light" only came on Saturday evening at 23:30 local. Despite this those who have been preparing for some time for this day managed to get passes from their families to be away for a few hours and were rewarded with a beautiful first day of spring for their efforts. Activators in VK3 (Victoria) and VK5 (South Australia) also came on air either on mountain tops or at least out portable to take part in the party as well. The third already authorised state (VK1 - Australian Capital Territory) was almost empty of SOTA operators as they took the short trip over the border into VK2 to activate some of the new summits. The VK2 "association" adds 1100 new Summits to those available in this world wide award scheme. As well as VK2 (New South Wales, Australia), VK4 (Queensland, Australia), KH6 (Hawaii, USA), W5A (Alabama, USA) and K8O (Ohio, USA) also went "live" on September 1st. This could be the most new associations to join the scheme in one day, so far. Thanks to the UK based Management Team for making this happen so quickly. The data for New South Wales (VK2) association was only submitted one month ago. 73 Ed VK2JI Hunter region of VK2 SOTA regional manager. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE N CONNECTOR PLUG: The N connector was invented by and named for Paul Neill of Bell Labs. It was the first connector capable of true microwave performance. N connectors have threaded coupling interfaces and are 50 ohms in impedance. There are also 75 ohm versions available, but they will not mate with the more common 50 ohm version. N connectors operate up to 11 GHz in the common 50 ohm impedance design. Although less common, there are also precision versions of the N connector available which operate up to 18 GHz. Applications for the N connector include Local Area Networks (LANs); test equipment; broadcast, satellite and military communication equipment. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Would you like to see regular Presentations and Demonstrations on various topics through-out the year at the club? These can take the format of Antenna design, various Digital modes, the inside details of Contesting, APRS and many other topics. If so, please contact a committee member to show your interest. The next lecture scheduled is on Saturday 19 October in the club library and it is a "show and tell" on SDR (Sotware Defined Radios" which will be conducted by Norm VK2KNC. Full details will be included in our October Magazine. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ WORLD NEWS: Summer 2013 edition of The 5 MHz Newsletter now available. Hi all, I'm pleased to announce the latest - Summer 2013 - edition of The 5MHz Newsletter is now available to freely download in pdf format. This is Edition No.7. This edition includes the latest news about 5 MHz Amateur Allocations, the latest update of the Worldwide Amateur 5 MHz Allocations Chart, stories on 5 MHz usage in South Africa, plus items on UK and German changes. Beacon Spot features the last in the UK chain, GB3ORK, in Orkney and G3ENI investigates the ground beneath him. It can be found at httpp://tinyurl.com/q87jbuj (Dropbox) or http://tinyurl.com/pt4nbry (Google Docs/Drive) and in the 5 MHz Section of The Southgate Ham Forum. Cheers, Paul Gaskell G4MWO Editor, The 5 MHz Newsletter. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Faraday transformed. The first electrical transformer was shown to the world by Michael Faraday on August 26, 1831, contributing greatly to our knowledge of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. Although Michael Faraday had little formal education he was one of the most influential scientists in history. His research on the magnetic field around a conductor carrying a direct current established the basis for the concept of the electromagnetic field in physics. Faraday found that magnetism could affect rays of light and the link between the two. He similarly discovered the principle of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism, and the laws of electrolysis. Faraday’s inventions of electromagnetic rotary devices formed the foundation of electric motor technology, and it was largely due to his efforts that electricity became practical for use in technology. The unit of capacitance, the farad, is named in his honour. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NZ Ham Radio Licence update The New Zealand regulator, MED, has recently updated the GURL for Amateur Radio Operators This specifies the terms, conditions and restrictions that amateur radio operators must comply with when operating their radio stations to reflect changes to visiting amateur callsign requirements. General User Radio Licence (GURL) for Radio Amateur Operators http://www.rsm.govt.nz/cms/licensees/types-of-licence/general-user-licences/amateur-radio-operators --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VOICE OF RUSSIA TO CEASE SHORTWAVE RADIO SERVICE TO GO QRT. It appears the Voice of Russia will cease shortwave radio service January 1st, 2014. The shortwave service is closing due to government mandated funding cuts. The Voice of Russia was known as Radio Moscow in the Cold War era but actually first took to the shortwave bands back in 1922 with a single transmitter located in Moscow. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Microsoft will buy Nokia's mobile phone business for 5.44 billion euros ($8 billion AU), and the Finnish firm's CEO, Stephen Elop, will join Microsoft when the transaction is closed. Finland's Nokia, once the undisputed leader in mobile phones, has been struggling to respond to the challenge from smartphone makers such as Apple and Samsung. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 from around 11:00 am. 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, a good Canteen and an interesting selection of biscuits.

WARC NEWS BROADCAST FOR SEPTEMBER 1ST 2013.

Last week VK2RTZ went off the air unexpectedly and the Westlakes Club would like to thank WICEN for the use of their repeater to do our broadcast on. Peter VK2ZTV was notified and by the middle of the WIA news VK2RTZ was back on the air. I guess a little gremlin had crept into the system somewhere. At the club yesterday it was all antennas full steam ahead. Richard VK2FRKO was outside showing a few operators the Multiband Tilted Folded dipole. On hand to see how it performed was Norm VK2KNC, Dave VK2RD ( already knows how well this antenna performs ) along with a number of other members. Norm had his FT-817 and using the battery from my car we checked all the bands and VSWR and on every band the VSWR was less than 1:5 to 1 . The 80 meter Morse Beacon on 3.699khz was an S9 at 11:30 am. When we pulled the antenna down out came the measuring tape and all measurements were taken, checked and then photo copied. I'd say this antenna will be a club project very soon. Listen out on these broadcasts for further information on this up and coming project. In the library Morrie VK2CD gave an excellent talk on his screwdriver antenna and showed everyone how it went together. Morrie is no longer producing this antenna and was going to sell off his stock to anyone that wanted a screwdriver antenna. The talk went for an hour with about 26 people listening and asking questions. Thanks Morrie for the great lecture. The club is always looking for members or even non members to give lectures on various topics. Know someone? please contact a committee member or write to the club address with details. Last weeks meat tray winner Alan, was at the club to select this weeks lucky winner. Alan reached in and selected a home made ticket ( made by Greg VK2CW ) and the winner was Herb VK2ZVF ( another regular winner of the meat tray ). Enjoy Herb. A club SHOW and Tell Day at the club is in the planning and the show and tell topic and demonstrations will be SDR radios whether on the PC on a Flex Radio etc. The date has not been set yet so if you are using a SDR transmitter/receiver we would like to see you at the club. Once again listen here for the date of this event. Michael was once again cooking hamburgers in the kitchen as well as serving pies and sausage rolls. From Richard - absolutely delicious. Ice creams were once again selling pretty fast too. The Westlakes bikers were once again ( Greg VK2CW and Robert VK2MF ) at the club showing each other there fancy features etc. There was only one thing missing from the bikes and that was that they had no antennas on them. Is this going to be a future project for the club to design and produce efficient antenna for them? Two weeks tomorrow will be our clubs Field Day which will be held on the 15th September ( this is a Sunday ) and the club is looking for donations of equipment for the auction table. Remember no TVs, computer monitors, VCRs. Why not come and have your stall. If you are interested please contact Barrie VK2ABD to book your spot and remember to bring your own table for your goods. The famous Westlakes BBQ will be cooking steak and sausages and serving fresh salad for sandwiches. The guessing competition for the number of jelly beans in the jar will once again be there as a fund raising venture. Andrews Communications WILL NOT BE HERE THIS YEAR, THIS IS DUE TO OTHER COMMITTMENTS. Do we know of another vendor who would like to attend the club and sell there products? Please let a committee member know. kEN VK2KJ advisers that the store still has a quantity of power supplies/battery chargers,they are ex-government supply using quality transformers & rugged construction. They cover 0 - 16 volt & have been marked down from $15 to $10. These power supplies will be available on the day. WORLD NEWS: A Ham Radio AX.25 Open Source Soundcard Modem. Alejandro Santos LU4EXT is developing extmodem an open source APRS compatible AX.25 amateur radio packet modem. It is currently capable of both sending and receive packets. The main feature of the software is that it is currently running three different demodulators in parallel, increasing the quality of reception. The first modem is Thomas Sailer HB9JNX / AE4WA's multimon, the other two are described by Sivan Toledo 4X6IZ in an article in the July/August 2012 issue of QEX. Download extmodem for Windows from http://extradio.sourceforge.net/extmodem.html Electronic News. Wireless nodes take power from ambient TV broadcast signals 04 September: 13 Ambient Researchers at the University of Washington have communicated wirelessly using only ambient energy harvested from broadcast TV transmissions. The technology demonstrators communicated over around 50cm at 1kbit/s using a packet protocol. Communication is bi-directional and includes reception acknowledge as well as a simple anti-collision technique which allows point-to-point communication in an environment where multiple nodes operating. Like passive RFID, the nodes ‘transmit’ by changing the reflectance of their antenna – in this case by briefly shorting (making it reflect) the two electrodes of a 258mm dipole tuned to a 50MHz band of UHF TV signals around 539MHz. Changing reflectance effectively amplitude-modulates the field around the dipole, radiating an AM signal. The dipole is busy as it is not only the transmit antenna, it is also the receive antenna and the source of power for the on-board microcontroller and receiver. UHF power it extracted straight from the dipole through a four-stage passive diode-capacitor charge pump, the result of a previous University of Washington research project that was done on conjunction with Intel. In the original case, connected to a TV-top log-periodic antenna, the circuit delivered 60µW of dc 4km from the TV transmitter. The receiver relies on the huge difference in modulation frequency between the ambient TV signal (6MHz) and the bit rates of the nodes (1kbit/s). It is simply a crystal set – a diode and capacitor connected across the antenna (see diagram) followed by a self-adjusting comparator (a TS881) acting as a detector. The resistors of the comparator act to load the demodulator capacitor, and the various time constants are set to reject any AM from the TV modulation while allowing through AM at the desired data rate. In practice the circuit can extract a signal that is invisibly buried in the TV signal. The squared comparator sends its output to a MSP430 microcontroller for preamble correlation, header decode, data decode, and packet cyclic redundancy checking (CRC). The modulation scheme chosen – at least one transition per bit and two transitions if the bit is a ’1' – gives a fairly even stream of 1s and 0s during transmission. The anti-collision scheme involves listening before transmission until the comparator output is largely 1s, or largely 0s, which means no nearby node is transmitting. This is not computationally intensive and needs little power. Sending the message involves transmitting a 10101010 sequence before the traditional pre-amble to give receivers a good chance of synchronising. Then the 64bit pre-amble, address, and 96bit data are sent. A range of 45cm was demonstrated indoors and 65cm outdoors, and at up to 10km from the TV transmitter. Power consumption of the comparator and microcontroller is under 1µW most of the time. The scheme is described in a paper: “Ambient backscatter: Wireless communication out of thin air“. The prototype nodes also include three touch pads and an LED (flashing only briefly) for interactivity, and were limited by the microcontrollers need for 1.8V. In a proposed smartcard application, the team suggest power would be shared: transmit modulator <1%, demodulator 1%, power management 8%, LEDs and touch sensors 26%. HackRF is a radio for all frequencies. Michael Ossmann, co-founder of Great Scott Gadgets, is developing HackRF, a software-defined radio (SDR) that lets you switch between radio frequencies on the fly. Most wireless gadgets, like the 3G antenna in a phone, operate using a fixed radio frequency band. But HackRF could potentially receive and transmit any radio frequency from 100 megahertz to 6 gigahertz – a range that includes broadcast and amateur radio, GSM, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and remote garage-door openers. Ossmann presented the device at ToorCon in San Diego, California, last weekend. There are other SDRs out there, but HackRF is intended to hit the sweet spot between versatility and cost – around the size of a USB hard drive and with a $300 price tag, the device could sit squarely in the consumer electronics bracket. Ossmann suggests SDR technology will bring about a revolution in the radio communications industry similar to the one that digital audio brought to the music industry. For now, HackRF remains a work-in-progress and isn’t yet being pitched at the mainstream market. “HackRF is designed to meet the needs of wireless communication security professionals, researchers and hobbyists,” says Ossmann. “It is for hackers, in the widest sense of the term.” Early applications range from identifying vulnerabilities in proprietary wireless control systems to listening in on police radio. Indeed, wireless security protocols that rely on obscure frequencies could be in danger. US military research instituation DARPA was interested enough to invest $200,000 in Ossmann’s use of HackRF for research into wireless communication security. But since the project is open source, hackers and researchers are free to take the device where they like. Ossmann thinks people will come up with uses he hasn’t yet thought of. 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 from around 11:00 am. Also on a Tuesday evening from around 6:00pm. 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, a good Canteen and an interesting selection of biscuits.