Monthly update, November

Well its been a little while since the last update and I've been busy. AHARS has been quite active, the good weather has brought about many good events.

The AHARS Symposium. Was a great day, its amazing that as I keep reading and tinkering that little nuggets from the talks start to fall into place. Little bits of wisdom finally making themselves understood. There was just so much to take in on the day... Note the microwave gear on the right hand table, along with the VK5TR loop, and HPSDR rig at the lower right corner.








We had the National Field Day. So I helped out at the AHARS tent. To aid publicity AHARS got a foot in the door of the Eden Hills Primary School Strawberry Fete. Its your usual spring fair; food, plants, books, cloths, stuff, junk, treasure, etc etc...








The great resistor packing day for AHARS. Folks in the club thought it wise to do a bulk purchase of resistors so that all the constructors, repair and homebrew folks had adequate parts in their respective junk boxes. I decided that I needed to stock up too, so I ordered a box. The bulk order was made, around 1.2 million resistors in all. The day finally came, we assembled and sorted out each 'decade', cut 100 of each value, then assembled a bundle of each of the 12 values into a roll, then each roll into a box. Thankfully many extra volunteers participated for a good day. Lots of radio talk. I learned a thing or two about boat anchors. Went home with a box of resistors =)








The AHARS Buy and Sell. I was up very early to help setup for the Buy'n'Sell. There was an amazing array of stuff. Old radio gear, new radio gear, test gear, computer stuff ... I picked up a few things.








With the holidays coming up, I hope to get more done...

73, Kim

National Field Day 2010

Yesterday being the National Field Day - NFD for 2010 in VK (Australia), I spent with the Adelaide Hills Amateur Radio Society.

AHARS setup a tent at the Eden Hills Primary School Strawberry Fair.

A number of contacts was made on HF and 2meters and 70centimeter. Some contacts were made through the cross band repeater on the project horus ballon, launched to coincide with the NFD.

I spoke to about a dozen people across the day and handed out pamphlets. That doesn't sound like many people, but there were at least six club members there across the day, who each spoke to members of the public across the day about Amateur Radio and the club activities.

There were a couple of themes across the day for me. The main one was the grey nomads, who use the travelers nets to update their location and journey progress with their net controllers, mainy for safety, directions and recommended stop overs. Folks who use UHF CB and or the four wheel drive net VKS737 already. It was interesting to see them explore the options that Amateur Radio could give them. Even if it was only a couple of more bands to listen to the various travelers nets and listening to the reports coming in about traffic congestion, etc. Its not something that I've really put a lot of thought into, but certainly created an awareness for me about how folks outside of amateur radio use radio and why.

Secondly was the HF verticals and how to set them up with automatic tuners, especially across multiple bands. I believe the original squid pole article was from VK3JJ in AR, but I will have check that. A few of the AHARS club members present had built up the JJ antenna and all spoke about issues with tuning and assumptions with measurements and materials. There is certainly a lot of room for experimentation and of course careful measurement - a topic that comes up so frequently, which of course lead on to the third theme for me... upgrading my license.

I spoke to several folks about upgrading my license, the study involved and stratagems for learning. All duly noted. I will be pulling my finger out over the summer break.

I bumped into a few old friends, picked up a few books and plants at the fair. Saw a new part of Adelaide that I hadn't seen before. Over all, even with a little sunburn, I enjoyed the day.

73, Kim