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WICEN Weekly News

WICEN NSW Inc News for Sunday the 7th of June 2015

WICEN is supporting a search and Rescue Exercise, or “SAREX” in southern New South Wales over the weekend of the 13th and 14th of June.

WICEN will be providing communications support for the True Grit event at Dargyl Farm in Lower Portland, near Windsor over this weekend.

WICEN Northern Rivers Region will be holding a meeting and training on Sunday June 14, at the clubrooms of the Summerland ARC in Richmond Hill, at 1000 hrs for 1030 start. The training will be on theory and setting up of antennas for short-distance HF communications, using high-incidence skywave (‘NVIS’), and all interested people are welcome.

The Bushwalkers Wilderness Rescue Squad is holding the 27th NavShield over the weekend of 4th and 5th July, with WICEN teams deploying on the evening of Friday 3rd July.

The WICEN New South Wales’ website at nsw.wicen.org.au includes contact details, including a contact form, useful links, and a printable membership form.

WICEN has a twitter account: @wicennsw
It can be viewed at: twitter.com/wicennsw

Facebook users will find the official WICEN New South Wales page, and an informal national WICEN group.

WICEN ACT is part of the Canberra Region Amateur Radio Club, and supports events in the ACT and the surrounding region. The club’s website at www.crarc.ampr.org includes details of both WICEN and general events.

WICEN Victoria is supporting the Mallee Rally, an off-road vehicle event at Sea Lake, about 50 km south of Euston, from the 6th to the 9th of June.

Coming events include:

True Grit othis weeked
Southern NSW SAREX on the 13th and 14th of June
Northern Rivers Meeting and Training on Sunday 14th of June
NavShield 4th and 5th of July

Prepared by Julian Sortland VK2YJS on behalf of the WICEN State Management Committee.

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Space Weather Users Workshop

Space Weather Services, Australian Bureau of Meteorology (formerly IPS Radio and Space Services) is holding its inaugural Space Weather Users Workshop.

When
3 December 2015, 8:45am – 5:00pm
Where
300 Elizabeth St Sydney, Level 15 (Bureau’s NSW Offices)
Cost
Free (lunch and refreshments provided)
Registration closes
31 August 2015

Summary

This one-day workshop will provide an opportunity to hear from expert speakers, owners and operators of susceptible technological systems, and other users of space weather services.

The workshop will also provide the opportunity to tour the Australian Space Forecast Centre, learn more about the Bureau’s space weather services, and to provide feedback on existing and future services.

Enquiries

Enquiries can made at +61 2 9213 8000 or sws_workshop@bom.gov.au.

Some subsidised accommodation will be available for those travelling from outside the Sydney area. Further information on accommodation and travel will be provided in the near future.

http://swworkshop.ips.gov.au/

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Port to Port Mountain Bike Race – Newcastle

1 Comment

Ros & Raffy supported this WICEN event for several days whilst I only participated in the final Sunday since this was identified as the day with the greatest need. I was allocated the checkpoint downwind of the Belmont Sewer works located in some serious mud! (?newbie)

As this was my first WICEN event and my first serious portable excursion I spent some time gearing up and was quite pleased with the eventual result. It was great fun to test the equipment in the field. All of the equipment worked as planned. Given the inclement weather on the Sunday the necessity of some form of shelter was reinforced. Unfortunately the location was quite tight and as the photograph reveals the supporting poles for my shelter were situated in one of the mud puddles. Despite this all equipment was protected from excessive rain as was the operator!

PortToPortEcho

A mobile radio with a gain antenna on the top of a 5 metre squid pole powered by a couple of 18Ah batteries that had spent the last year powering some medical equipment meant that I had unfettered access to the Newcastle WICEN repeater. Simplex operation to base was also possible.

The riders showed an unusual sense of enthusiasm for the ride despite their universal brown and bedraggled appearance. I hope that they all were able to bask in the glow of achievement at the end of the day.

I have the sense that Newcastle will be calling again next year……..

Rob
VK2HRJ

 

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Ros VK2FROS & Raffy VK2RF at the Newcastle Port to Port Bike Race

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Ros & I participated in the Wicen supported Mountain Bike Race in Newcastle.

Weather was overcast and drizzly and raining at times.  Riders were amazingly fit, I think over 300 started and most finished the 4 days race. At the end they were thoroughly mud covered! We didn’t record any medical casualties although a couple of  mechanical failures were repaired with the aid of my trusty hex key set!

Port to Port Mountain Bike Race Website

 

 

p2p2015-RosVK2FROS-Ros at the Newcastle Port to Port Bike Race P2P2015-VK2RF-Raffy at the Newcastle Port to Port Bike Race P2P015-VKFROS- Ros at the Newcastle Port to Port Bike Race

project

New(ish) PCB Milling Machine

I’ve sold my old heavy duty CNC and acquired an old non working Roland MDX-20 Modela that needed some love.  These little engraver/modelling machines sold for many thousands of $$$ in the past and were widely used in various industries.  Sadly this unit hasn’t had the best life and needed some work to get it going as the original controller board had been (destructively) removed and some seriously hacky working on the wiring left it in a real mess.

With few hours hacking on the weekend I now have all three axis moving they they should using an open source ‘TinyG’ controller board which mates with web based control software.  All that is left to do is build a new spindle as I’m not happy with the runout on the standard setup, I’ll need a little lathe time to make that once the parts (and tools) have arrived (and tidy up the wiring).   Fortunately the local hacker space has a metal lathe that should be up to the task.

This unit is small enough that I can bring it on project day to show off 😉 and maybe even mill some PCB’s.

This CNC will be used to make circuit boards for assorted radio projects, first up will (probably) be a series of RF filters.

http://www.vk2vjb.net/2015/05/30/good-bye-to-one-cnc-hello-to-a-newish-one/

 

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Planetary Society Lightsail has gone quiet, they are now relying on a classic IT bug excuse!

27 May 2015

The planetary society launched a prototype lightsail last week, and it appears that a known defect may have got to them! The manufacturer advised that they may have a buffer problem about 2 days before they may have had a buffer problem! Although they continue to try and reset, they are now hoping for that classic IT excuse for crashed PC’s,  Servers, Databases, Networks etc… “Your [xxxxxx] crashed because it was impacted by a stray space particle”. Turns out this really happens, and it happens so frequently to unshielded devices like cubesats that they expect it to occur within 3 weeks!

You can still try and listen out for them on: 437.435 MHz, AX.25, FSK, 9600, call sign KK6HIT.

 

Lots more info available at Lightsail Mission Control

And here is some possible viewing times over Sydney for the next week. Unfortunately the chances of seeing it at the moment are tiny! If the sail does unfold it is expected to be very bright.

Start Max altitude End
Date, Local time Az Local time Az El Local time Az
27-May 18:00 NW
324°		 18:05 NE
43°		 70° 18:10 SE
136°
28-May 17:47 NW
319°		 17:52 SSW
195°		 88° 17:57 SE
138°
29-May 17:34 NW
314°		 17:39 SW
231°		 67° 17:44 SE
140°
30-May 17:21 NW
309°		 17:26 SW
225°		 51° 17:31 SE
142°
31-May 17:08 NW
305°		 17:13 SW
223°		 40° 17:18 SE
145°
1-Jun 16:55 WNW
300°		 17:00 SW
222°		 32° 17:05 SE
147°
2-Jun 16:42 WNW
295°		 16:47 SW
221°		 26° 16:52 SE
149°
project

Special Project Days

This year we will consider holding special project days where we can get together and demonstrate and use amateur radio.

Possibly not at Rose Bay but certainly nearby. Would amateurs like to suggest topics for these “special” project days please?

73 John VK2LJ

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received my sm1000 smart mic today

2015-05-17 17.29.20

The sm1000 is an interesting bit of technology implemented as a microphone to bring digital voice to almost any ham receiver.  The microphone implements the codec2 voice codec designed by David Rowe in hardware, replacing the need for a pc running freedv.

Im looking forward to making some cables for my ic-7100 and ft-857d and trying it out.

It was nice to see David was recently awarded at the WIA conference for his contributions to amateur radio, specifically with Codec2, FreeDV and now the SM1000.

http://www.rowetel.com/blog/?p=3125

 

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