Southend & District Amateur Radio Special Event

The team from Southend and District Amateur Radio Society were active at a fundraising event for Little Havens Hospice active on Sunday 24th August 2014.

The club was on-air with the special event callsign GB0FHH (Fair Havens Hospice) from the charity Summer Music Festival held at the Ekco Sports & Social Club in Southend.

The SADARS team of Bernie G0ENN, Eddie G1OHN and Mick G6WCI were joined by Essex Ham’s Pete M0PSX for the afternoon’s activities on HF and 2m, and some excellent contacts were made with countries including Saudi Arabia, the US and Canada.

The HF station made use of the club’s Windom antenna, with a tri-band collinear for local 2m contacts – a handy lattice tower used for the venue’s CCTV cameras made for an excellent antenna mast for the day, although local QRM from the artists performing at the music event was a little distracting at times.

It has been a while since the Southend and District Amateur Radio Society has been active in the field, but with renewed interest in amateur radio in Essex, it’s hoped that SADARS will be out-and-about in the area again soon.

Details of the event, plus photos - http://www.essexham.co.uk/news/southend-ars-aug-2014.html

New Zealand's Prohibited Equipment Notice updated

On the 24th July 2014 the Prohibited Equipment Dog Tracking Device Notice 2014 was replaced with the Animal Tracking and Training Device Notice 2014 to include training devices as well as tracking.

The Notice was introduced to address the supply, importation and use of equipment operating on United States MURs frequencies (151.820MHz, 151.880MHz, 151.940MHz, 154.570MHz and 154.600MHz)

These frequencies conflict with licensed land mobile services in New Zealand and do cause interference to those services.

New Zealand Customs is actively intercepting such equipment when and where it presents at the border.

Read the updated Radiocommunications Regulations (Prohibited Equipment – Animal Tracking and Training Devices) Notice 2014 - http://www.rsm.govt.nz/cms/policy-and-planning/spectrum-policy-overview/legislation/gazette-notices/product-compliance/prohibited-equipment-notices-1/radiocommunications-regulations-prohibited-equipment-dog-tracking-and-training-devices-notice-2014

Western Australia gets Summits on the Air

As of 1st September 2014 VK6 (Western Australia) became part of the worldwide SOTA award scheme and registered peaks in that state the first peak was activated by Mike VK6MB at the end of the first day UTC (actually in Australia, this was already the 2nd.).

Western Australia gets Summits on the Air

The effort to produce all the data required to have the new association accepted was a joint effort of amateurs from multiple VK states led by John VK6NU.

This now leaves only Tasmania (VK7) as the only Australian state or territory not in SOTA and its data has been prepared and is being verified at the moment, so it should also soon "join the fold".

VK2 (New South Wales) activators celebrated one year of being part of SOTA on Saturday the 6th. of September, with many inner-VK and VK-EU contacts, from summits around VK2.

The first peak to be activated was VK6/SW-048 Mt Frankland by Mike VK6MB on the first day with contacts from "chasers" in VKs 1,2,3,4,5,6 and the US. Mike also managed a summit to summit contact across the whole Australian continent with Andrew VK1DA on Mt. Ainslie (VK1/AC-040) near Canberra.