VK5 SOTA & Parks Symposium

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On Sunday 9th March, 2014, a VK5 SOTA & Parks Symposium will be held at the Guides Hall, Hannaford Road, Blackwood. This is the location of the Adelaide Hills Amateur Radio Society shack.

The purpose of the symposium is to allow like-minded amateurs to get together for the day, who have an interest in the Summits on the Air program, the VK5 National and Conservation Parks Award, the World Wide Flora and Fauna program, the Keith Roget Parks Award, and portable operation in general.

Doors will open at 8.30 a.m. with the symposium commencing at 9.00 a.m. sharp with a welcome by the President of the Adelaide Hills Amateur Radio Society.

Four guest speakers will then talk on topics including SOTA’s progress in VK, tips for activators & hunters of the VK5 Parks Award, an overview of the World Wide Flora & Fauna program, and using lithium phosphate chemistry batteries.

Morning tea including coffee, tea, cake & biscuits will be held at 10.30 a.m.

Following morning tea, there will be a further 5 presentations by guest speakers, on topics including home brew antennas, SOTA for the beginner, the parksnpeaks spotting site, prominence as related to SOTA, and a comparison between some portable HF equipment.

This will be followed by a short round table, general questions session and the closure of the symposium.

The presentations will conclude at 12.40 p.m. and this will be followed by a BBQ.

A charge of $4.00 is asked to cover for the cost of the BBQ and morning tea.

For more information, visit the AHARS website - http://www.ahars.com.au

Ham Radio Digital Communication Conference

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The TAPR/ARRL amateur radio Digital Communication Conference takes place next week, 20-22nd September 2013, in Cedarbrook Lodge, Seattle.

Our Saturday evening banquet speaker, Tom Van Baak will present a speech entitled “Passion and Precision: Adventures of a Time Nut.”

Our Sunday morning seminar will be about programming Androids and will be presented by Ron Frohne, KL7NA.

Submitted papers for the DCC are, as follows:

  • “(CAB) Controllable Altitude Balloon Proposal” by Pedro Converso, LU7ABF
  • “A Software Defined Radio for Mesh Networks” by John B. Stephensen, KD6OZH
  • “Applications and Infrastructure for Marathon Support” by Erik Westgard, NY9D
  • “DATV-Express – a Testing Report” by Art Towslee, WA8RMC and Ken Konechy W6HHC
  • “Evaluating OLSR and B.A.T.M.A.N over D-STAR” by John Ronan, EI7IG and Darren Long, GØHWW
  • “Gnuradio Companion module for openHPSDR Hermes / Metis SDR Radio” by Tom McDermott, N5EG
  • “High Performance BPSK31: Ideas for a New Generation” by John A. Gibbs, NN7F
  • “Modulation – Demodulation Software Radio” by Alex Schwarz, VE7DXW and Guy Roels, ON6MU
  • “Narrowband IP over Amateur Radio Networks (NIPARnets): Next-Generation Networking for Amateur Radio” by Timothy J. Salo, ABØDO
  • “Noise Power Ratio (NPR) Testing of HF Receivers” by Adam Farson, VA7OJ/AB4OJ
  • “Raspberry Pi Applications in Digital Communications: A Mobile Xastir-Based APRS Station” by John A. Hansen, W2FS
  • “Whitebox Handheld Software Radio Kit” by Chris Testa, KD2BMH
  • Our Saturday evening banquet speaker is Tom Van Baak, whose speech is titled “Passion and Precision: Adventures of a Time Nut.”

ARRL and TAPR Digital Communications Conference - http://www.tapr.org/dcc.html

Kickstarter for ARRL-TAPR DCC video - http://www.southgatearc.org/news/august2013/kickstarter_launch_for_arrl_tapr_dcc_video.htm

Cedarbrook Lodge - http://www.tapr.org/dcc.html/#hotel

Amateur Radio Exam at UKHAS Conference

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A few tickets are still available for the UKHAS conference at the University of Greenwich, London on Saturday 7 September 2013

The UK High Altitude Society UKHAS conference attracts those interested in learning about building and flying High Altitude Balloons or in tracking their 434 MHz signals.

The conference is open to all, you don’t have to have flown a High Altitude Balloon, you’ll probably get more out of it as a total beginner as there will be a huge wealth of experience in the room you can speak to.

There is an impressive lineup of speakers in addition to which there will be workshops, demonstrations along with assessments and exam for the amateur radio Foundation licence. Among the presentations will be one on Narrow Band TV by Phil Heron 2I0VIM.

Workshops

  • Balloon Q&A - James Coxon M6JCX
  • Pi - Dave Akerman M6RPI
  • Foundation Exam Preparation - Phillip Crump M0DNY
  • Knots! - Anthony Stirk M0UPU

Demonstrations

  • Balloon -> ISS APRS Setup - James Coxon M6JCX
  • Setting up Receiving Station - Anthony Stirk M0UPU

Tickets - http://ava.upuaut.net/store/index.php?route=product/category&path=74