Date & Time

Event

Date

Event

June Presentation – Microcontrollers and Ubiquitous Computing

Last Wednesday night saw a fantastic presentation from Patrick Burns VK7FPJB who is undertaking his Computer Science PhD project and is sponsored by the CSIRO.

Patrick’s PhD is researching how to use technology to be more physically active.

Patrick took those assembled through the different research that has been done thus far along with reference to the current technology like Nike iPod, Wii, Garmin Forerunner, Pokewalker, gaming interfaces, persuasive computing and ambient displays. I think the interesting one was the toaster that toasts today’s weather onto the toast. This is the concept of using everyday things to convey information.

There has been much research into conveying information through ambient displays on a team and individual level.

Patrick then displayed and took us through the ActivMON or the wearable Ambient Activity Display which is the size of a large wrist watch and it have accelerometers, Bluetooth and a ultra low power microcomputer with a Lithium Ion thin film battery.

Patrick took us through the devices on this board along with the design, construction and manufacturing of these boards.

With some interesting programming Patrick takes the accelerometer (Activity) data and sends it to a clock (via Bluetooth) which has a ring of tricolour LEDs which pulsate and change colour based on the data that is being sent to it.

Patrick demonstrated that the clock colour slowly changes as the activity level us built up until you reach your goal and the clock magically goes Blue.

This was a fascinating presentation, thanks Patrick and we look forward to hearing about how it progresses over the coming years.

73, Justin, VK7TW

We intend to run an introduction to geocaching for anyone interested.

Do you have a GPS or a smart phone that has a GPS and wondered what you can do with it? Well geocaching or world-wide treasure hunting using your GPS may interest you.

We will have a some presentations to explain the basics then we will actually go and find a few caches around the Queen’s Domain.

www.geocaching.com

www.geocaching.com.au

See you there.

Our May Presentation saw a wonderful presentation from Alan VK7KAJ.

This was a retrospective look at wintering in Antarctica over 5 expeditions.

Alan Jeffrey VK7KAJ spent five winters in Antarctica as a radio technician at both Mawson and Davis stations.

Alan’s talk and slides were focussed on the radios that were used over each expedition and the maintenance and unique conditions that Antarctica presents to the Radio Tech.

In comparison with last month’s presentation of the communications systems in place today at the Australian Antarctic Division there was much contrast with mainly HF and Telex over HF being used for much of the communications with both Australia and South Africa for the delivery of meteorological data and rad-phone services.

Frequencies from 4040kHz up to 22MHz were utilised from 10kW transmitters at Mawson and 1kW transmitters at Davis into Rhombic and log periodic antennas to get signals through.

Alan also gave an idea of the living conditions and some humours activities and events.

A great big thank you to Alan for sharing his experiences.

The presentation was videoed and will be shown in a future DATV night and go into the DATV library.

REAST Activity for the National Field Day

REAST set up a station on the lawns of Salamanca Place and operated VK7OTC. 

It was a magnificently sunny day with a sprinkling of autumn leaves over the lush grass.

WICEN came along and helped make the day an even greater success.  We had some visits from amateurs from both VK and overseas who popped in to say G'day as well as many curious onlookers, some were even brave enough to come over and take a look and have a play!.

The day started off with a group of budding film makers asking if we minded if they used us as props to shoot documentaries as part of a film makers workshop they were doing, so we busily worked away on the radios and answered many probing questions whilst being filmed and interviewed.

Sam, VK7FSTL is waiting for his call up for a logie, hihi. 

A fun day was had by all.

(73, Tony, VK7VKT, Secretary REAST)

National Field Day

Wednesday 6/4/11 was a fantastic night at the Australian Antarctic Division Headquarters at Kingston. We had about 25 people come along.

The presentation was given by Peter Yates VK7PY who is the Telecommunications Manager and Ian McLean VK7IM who is Senior Technical Officer who run telecommunications for the Australian Antarctic Division.

Peter started the presentation with a historic flavour at Macquarie Island and the 1912 communications base  established for the Mawson Expedition and showed what is currently on the Wireless Hill site.

Peter then moved to the latest satellite communications using the InMarSat BGAN – Fleet Broadband service via the IntelSat satellites over the Pacific and Indian oceans. This forms the ANARESAT network with bandwidths of 768Kbps into Casey, 512Kbps into Davis and Mawson and 384Kbps into Macquarie Island. The provision of these service costs around $700K per year.

These satellite service provide IP services for both networking and voice over IP. This supports the bases and the Aurora Australis. Much work has been done to reduce the size of files and emails to ensure efficient use of the network and the reduction of un-necessary traffic.

http://www.antarctica.gov.au/webcams

The IP telephony uses the open-source Asterisk IP telephony solution which runs on a Linux platform and provides seamless telephony services across all Antarctic bases and HQ in Kingston.

Node controllers (fanless PCs running Linux and Asterisk) USB to analogue/serial interfaces are used to interface with the various radios services. The radios are all Australian! The airband radios are XCOMs from Queensland, the HF radios are Barretts and the VHF are Spectra Engineering from WA.

The software engineering was written by Ian and has evolved over the last few years. Ian demonstrated the service via the touch screen interfaces and contacted someone at Mawson based via VHF at the base back through the system to Kingston. The system has many great features which Ian took us through.

Following the talk Peter and Ian then people through the NOC or the Network Operations Centre which monitors all the networking, traffic and connectivity through the AAD network.

A great big thank you to Peter, Ian for the presentation and to Warren VK7FEET and Paul VK7PAH who organised the presentation.

The presentation was videoed and will be shown at a future DATV night and be placed into the DATV Library.

I am sure that he many Amateurs who attended the "Meet The Voice" gathering at Ross last Sunday must have been satisfied with the day, there were 73 Amateurs registered, I do not have the numbers of other guests, but tank you for your contribution to a very successful day. 

Congratulations to Frank Clark VK7CK who received an award for services to Amateur Radio over the past 25 years, and also to Dick Van Beek VK7DIK who was presented with an award for his services to Amateur Radio on the West Coast, and Amateur Radio in general. 

The Sewing Circle Shield for 20122-12 was presented to Scott VK7NWT previously VK7FTTT from Sisters Beach by Cedric VK7CL the 2010-11 holder. A very popular choice thank you Cedric.

Our raffle of SWR meter, 2 meter Hand held transceiver, Capacitance meter, a lovely men’s jacket and 6 bottles of wine was well supported and the 5 winners were grinner's as they left Ross for home. Thank you to the donors of the various items for your support.

The proceeds of the day from your registration and support of the raffle returned $496.00 dollars to the Radio repeater group on the North West Coast to be put to repeater maintenance. This money raised will go to the Northern group in 2012 and the Southern group in 2013.

Over the five years of the "Meet The Voice" day, you have assisted these groups to approximately $2000. In the five years we have not had any debits for expenses. The generosity of those responsible for organising the day is very much appreciated.

Thank you one and all.

"Meet The Voice" will be on again during the third week end in March 2012, at Ross. Make the note in your diary.

(Don, VK7AY)

Last Wednesday night saw a great roll-up of interested people to a talk on Software Defined Radio by Richard VK7RO and Justin VK7TW.

Ric kicked off the presentation with explanations on how traditional phasing rigs worked using dual double balanced modulators with out of phase audio modulation and out of phase carrier oscillators to produce both side bands without carrier. Richard then outlined the alternative of crystal filters and some of the issues involved with this type of filter. Phasing was developed originally as a cheaper alternative however early in the development of phasing it was only possible to get about 40dB of suppression and this was OK for a transmitter but was not sufficient for receivers until the development of the four phase receiver. These phasing receivers offered 40-60dB of opposite side band suppression and Richard showed an early 4 phase receiver he homebrewed.

Richard then went through the advantages of digitising the signal through DSP methods and how easy it was then to manipulate phase and amplitude and filter out unwanted signals. Rich then showed his softrock and Genesis SDR receivers to those assembled.

The presentation then moved to Justin who took people through some of the I&Q terminology and how it is represented then showed some of the SDR’s available, the difference between the quadrature sampling detector and the zero IF direct down convertor. Justin then took people through the HPSDR architecture, software and how it has been created.

Justin finished of the presentation with a demonstration of the PowerSDR and KISS Konsole software connected to the HPSDR which was on the club’s trapped dipole.

The presentation was videoed thanks to Warren VK7FEET so, this will be put into the DATV library and will be played in a future DATV night.

Thanks to Richard and Justin for this fascinating talk.

(REAST Committee)

All position are open.

The business of the AGM will be:

(a) to confirm the minutes of the last preceding annual general meeting and of any general meeting held since that meeting;

(b) to receive from the committee, auditor and servants of the Association reports on the transactions of the Association during the last preceding financial year;

(c) to elect the officers of the Association and the ordinary committee members;

(d) to appoint the auditor;

The AGM will be followed by a BYO BBQ - Hot plates, tea, coffee and soft drinks will be available.

See you there.

(REAST Committee)

2006

Events/Meetings/Gatherings in 2006

2005

Events/Meetings/Gatherings in 2005

Nov & Dec 2004

Events & Meetings in Nov & Dec 2004