REAST End of Year BBQ -

Wednesday the 7th saw over 50 people enjoy the two waves of the REAST end of year BBQ. I understand there was a constant flow of people from 12 noon through to second wave that started at 6pm. I am pleased to say there was some intermodulation between waves!

Mike Harris VK7ACQ gave the evening group a quick summary of his OS trip where he was gathering in formation for his Winston Churchill Fellowship on the use of HF and digital modes.

One reoccurring theme throughout Mike’s talk was that this hobby of amateur radio is not about the technology, it’s about the people and there are so many amateurs out there providing incredible levels of community service for yachts-people, travelers, government organisations and other amateurs that it just keeps amazing me!

Thanks Mike for coming along and bringing your map and pictures, we look forward to the report.

A quick cheerio to WIA Director, Robert Broomhead, VK3KRB and family who are currently touring this fine state of ours. Robert and harmonic Tim came along to the REAST end of year BBQ and enjoyed our hospitality. I gave Robert the BPL tour after the BBQ and gave him a demonstration of the interference in the Mt Nelson area.

(Justin, VK7TW)

Meet the WIA President - We started with a BBQ attended by about 22 people then Michael Owen, VK3KI, President of the WIA addressed the group for about an hour then took questions for about 30 minutes. 

Michael included a historical perspective of where the WIA had come from, the reasons and need for change, where we are now and some of the frustrations being experienced and a little of what's ahead with the Foundation Licence and future regulatory challenges.

We also welcomed George K5KG and XYL, Kay from Florida visiting the meeting and George was able to add a US perspective to the question time.

It was great to see so many come along a show an active interest in their National representative body.

The address was videoed and will be broadcast on ATV on the Wednesday night experimenter's nights.

VK7 Sewing Circle BBQ - Hearty congratulations to Ken VK7DY for again organising and hosting the Sewing Circle Barbeque at his QTH at Orielton. His ability to regularly lay on a beautiful Spring day goes unequalled.

Damien VK7HDS - the official REAST greeter and Phil VK7ZAX welcomed and parked everybody on arrival. Signing in took place at the checkpoint formed by Phil's beautifully restored military jeep and trailer fitted out with original signals equipment including an eleven set and a signalling lamp.

Phil, VK7ZAX's Jeep

The check point log shows 71 people enjoyed the day – 39 of them amateurs. Several people commented that it was great to see the increasing number of younger amateurs and soon to be's.

11 set in back of Jeep

It was very pleasing to see members from the NW and Northern clubs. Thanks guys for travelling South to get there.

Hayden, VK7HAY, Roger, VK7HRT & Damien, VK7HDS - Homebrew certificate presenters.

The homebrew competition had five entries. Roger VK7HRW on behalf of the judging panel said they had had a difficult job - but in the end decided to award first to Trevor VK7TS for his 400w linear amplifier. Second went to Justin VK7TW for his attenuator and antenna analyser and third went to Ken VK7KRJ for his controllers using PIC processors in his electric locomotive.

Trevor, VK7TS' 400w homebrew linear

Back Vince, VK7VH & Phil, VK7ZAX, Front Trevor, VK7TS & Cliff

The barbeques were loaded with - and cleared of delectable delights and following an alfresco lunch in the shade of the shed and Ken and Wendy's maturing trees the 2005 Sewing Circle Award was announced and applauded.

It had been presented earlier to Elwyn VK7EH who was unable to attend due to ill health recognising his commitment over many years.

Dale VK7DG presented the VK7HTW (Silent Key) 2005 Encouragement Award to Damien VK7HDS in recognition of the work he has done to promote amateur radio to the CB fraternity through relaying the broadcast on to CB HF and by his example.

Dale, VK7DG presenting VK7HTW (SK) award to Damien, VK7HDS

As always - the raffle draw got everybody's attention with eager checking of tickets as the winning stubs were drawn.

Many thanks to Wendy and to Max VK7KY for providing the valuable prizes.

Ken was able to pass the proceeds of almost seventy two dollars for future projects.

Thanks Ken Wendy and Max

The buy and sell tables

Turnover at the Bring and Buy tables was a little slow but attracted much interest and investigation. Several people went home happy with their bargains. The younger end - and some of the elders - were also delighted with the results of being invited to rat through Ken's enormous junk toy box.

As well as simply enjoying the good company and pleasant surroundings there were lots of interesting things to do and see ranging from watching growing families of geese and ducks on the pond drawing comments in a spectrum between - at one end - How Cute to - Yum Yum - at the other through a WICEN audio visual presentation. Rod VK7TRF's mobile cloud busting mast, some of the Monday evening play group's toys to ATV and WIFI antennas and testing equipment.

Rod, VK7TRF's cloudbuster!

A great day.

Thanks Ken for all your work

(Roger, VK7ARN)

Jamboree on the Air (JOTA) in the South:

Rod, VK7TRF reports on JOTA at the Lea and starts with Good weather and great kids.

A Scout leader and a prospective amateur helped me put up some of the gear on Friday. Then I got help from Paul VK7PA on Sat AM, followed by Graham VK7ZGK for some of the afternoon. We were running one HF and two VHF sets at the same time. Ken VK7DY popped by with his video camera for a while near tea time. Apart from that, I did it solo. So I was a bit busy. I had 37 from Blackmans Bay in camp plus visits from three other Groups.

We had good contacts into VIC, NSW, SA. But overall, contact numbers were down. The HF bands got noisy at night and then dropped right out. Nil contacts after around 2100.

One good point, the meal on Saturday night was of two ample courses, cooked by a professional chef!

Bye from the Lea Scout Camp from Rod, VK7TRF.

---------------------------

Roger, VK7XRN reports on JOTA in the Huon District. This year it was held in the wireless black hole of Cygnet - that's if you can call a location that is exceedingly difficult to access on VHF and has S7 noise on most of the HF bands a black hole.

So, why go to Cygnet you might ask. Well - because of the St James School Fair. To cut to the chase, the Huon Scouting district rotates JOTA around the three groups - Huonville, Geeveston and Cygnet and not wanting to miss a promo opportunity, Peter Bishop, the Cygnet Scout Leader, decided to have a Scout Camp at the Fair with lots of Scouting activities including JOTA. This also gave us an opportunity to promote Amateur Radio.

VK7's Gary JGD, Peter TPE, Damien HDS and Roger XRN together with Tom Andrews arrived in Cygnet and proceeded to establish the biggest antenna farm Cygnet had ever seen. The Scouts provided us with a 12 by 12 auto tent and this was supplemented by XRN's multi-function trailer as an annex. So, with a few hundred metres of guy ropes, nearly as much Heliax and RG213, the equivalent of a weeks production from Comalco in aluminium tubing and Mt Lyell's annual production in copper wire we had a JOTA station of sorts.

With the Fair over, JOTA takers increased with HF contacts predominating. As is often the case in these circumstances, a female Scout showed her worth in a lengthy contact with a VK2 male Venturer!

Pictures associated with this report can be found at:  http://wicen.taswireless.net/  

(Roger, VK7XRN)

Danny, VK7HDM reports on JOTA from the Glenorchy scout group. We had a great roll up of Girls and boys have no number but I would say about 15 to 20 Girls and Boys all showing an interest in getting to use ham radio.

They were keen, even lining up before I had finished setting up the station and helping out doing antenna work for me. There was lots of activities from ham radio, morse code, Q code, and the phonetic abc's - alpha bravo, It was great the whole group went through all the activities.

All the group had at least one or two chances to chat on radio some of them coming back for three or four goes and all enjoying themselves.

We were able to speak to VK4, VK2, via irlp, VK7SBB Rod at The Lea, VK7VKV Ray at the New Norfolk scout group and VK7DY at the Howrah scout group, we had HF but unfortunately there was no activity on 80,15 & 10. A 2 hour only day turned into a 5 hour day with every one having a great time.

Thanks go to VK7DY, VK7TRF, VK7VKV and anybody else I missed.

I have been invited back next year and they are already planning it and with the new bands we will be on HF in a big way!

(73 Danny, VK7HDM)

Tour of Tasmania Police Radio Room -

Over 25 people attended the City Police Station for a very informative tour of the Police Communications and Major Incidents rooms. It was great to see many of our budding young foundation candidates.

Duty Sergeant Pat Lee showed the group over the Communications Room where there are more than 12 operating positions that give full access to the police radio network statewide, police switchboard and the dispatch and resource management system.

Sergeant Lee answered many questions and the many aspects, events and incidents that can confront the radio operators on the end of a triple zero call. Pat also outlined some hypothetical scenarios to give us an idea of how the comms operators build up a picture of the incident, dispatch and allocate police resources.

The command control during an incident was particularly interesting with the Duty Sergeant taking a leading role in a major incident until senior officers can be contacted and dispatched. The radio room is very much the powerhouse of a modern police service and I think many people came away from the tour with increased respect for the police communications operators who each handle something like 200-300 calls on a shift.

Pat then showed the group through the major incident room which has space for a complete incident team with full communications facilities to the incident through forward command stations which are linked back to the room. There is a dedicated communications console for the room which is linked into the main radio room. Many questions were asked and answered and Pat made the comment it was good that it was a quiet night as he could spend some time answering our questions!

Thanks to Inspector David Chambers and Duty Sergeant Pat Lee for making this visit possible.

Wireless Local Area Networking
It was great to see so many people along to the REAST presentation night. We had a very interesting talk by Murray, VK7ZMS on the extensive Wireless Local Area Network that is being installed in Southern Tasmania.

Experimentation started with the StarNet network which at its peak included about 40 locations around Southern Tasmania. This network developed for use of email, games IRC and shared resources and had a number of redundant links providing a highly reliable wireless network.

Initially wireless equipment utilised PCMCIA type cards and early wireless routers on 900MHz, 2.4, 5.2 & 5.8GHz using spread spectrum OFDM techniques. This equipment is now cheaper and easier to use in a range of home and business applications.

It utilizes the 802.11b protocol, is limited to 4watts EIRP and theoretically has a 16.2km range limit due to timing issues where packet acknowledgements arrive before the actual packet, this is similar to the problems experienced on long packet radio links however at the much higher data rate of 11Megabits per second. This limitation is overcome through a range of techniques and up to 30km duplex links are now common.

Murray brought a range of equipment with him and demonstrated some of the state of the art wireless technology that is currently being used in the now fully commercial TASMANET network of which Murray plays an important role. TASMANET is involved in the installation of point to point and point to many links for businesses and individuals

Murray relayed much of his experience with establishing these microwave links and some of the interesting problems encountered. Thanks Murray for the fascinating talk combining radio and computers.

REAST Mid-Winter FEAST - Direction Setting BBQ 

Sunday 21 August REAST held a free Sunday lunchtime BBQ at the Domain for members and interested people. About 25 people turned up and we started proceedings with an informal meeting to discuss how we are going and how we can do better. Then moved into a discussion about what people wanted from their club, amateur radio and their committee.

We then christened the new BBQ, which is available for members to use at any time, enjoyed soup and salad and John, VK7JK even BBQ’d his beloved bananas! The amber fluid flowed well and we finished off with an auction of some pre-loved equipment courtesy of Dave, VK7DM, making over $500 for the club.

Your committee will be compiling the survey’s, input from the day and putting it together into a strategic plan for REAST to give some direction over the coming years.

I thank everyone for coming along on Sunday. Your input before, during and after the day, is really appreciated and if you haven’t completed a survey then we encourage you to do so and send it back to me for inclusion. The feedback I have received about the day has been very positive to the point where we are considering making it a semi-regular event.

Justin, VK7TW.

BPL - Up Close and Personal!

Wednesday 3 August saw Justin, VK7TW and Martin, VK7GN give a presentation entitled BPL – Up Close and Personal.

The first part of the presentation covered the basics of what BPL is, the different types, frequencies, data carrying capacity and typical systems. We then went on to why there is so much fuss about BPL and why it so popular with the politicians, then a little of the economics of BPL and its competitors was thrown in.

An outline of the TasColt trial was also included to keep amateurs up-to-date with this important and interference free - Fibre To The Premises trial. Some examples of typical BPL installations were included. An outline of Aurora’s first and second trials were given and a number of detailed pictures of the installations that are appearing around Hobart were shown.

This first presentation was completed with an outline of VK1OD’s conclusions of the other Australian trials and the challenges that BPL in the marketplace face.

Martin,VK7GN then gave a very interesting demonstration of the Field Strength Measurement FSM software that was developed by Owen, VK1OD. This software extends a conventional SSB receiver to allow measurements and calculations of field strength of radio signals or interference.

The technique depends on the fact that the audio output power of an SSB receiver is linearly related to the RF input power (including the equivalent internal noise power) up to the onset of AGC action, which is typically a little more than 20dB above the equivalent receiver input noise power. By using a known external attenuator to keep measured signals within this linear range, relative measurements can be made of the receiver audio output power and absolute results calculated by factoring in the attenuator, receiver equivalent internal noise power, and other scenario variables. 

Effectively, the SSB receiver is used as a linear down converter, to translate a narrow RF spectrum segment of interest to audio frequencies, and to analyse the audio output of the receiver using FSM.

You could think of the combination as a multiple conversion super-heterodyne receiver where the last IF is at audio frequencies.

FSM has the capability to sample the audio for a defined period (default is 8K samples or about 372mS) and calculates summary statistics; the relative DC offset, RMS, Quasi-peak and Peak voltages.

Measurements made in this way of the internal noise of the sound card connection, the receiver internal noise, and the external signal, along with measurements or estimates of the test environment are used to calculate the received power and electric field strength of the external signal, noise or interference.

(Owen Duffy, VK1OD FSM Manual)

A extensive CD-Rom of BPL related information including VK7 references was distributed to those members present and a few additional copies have been left at the Domain clubrooms for the Wednesday afternoon members.

Safari Tasmania Report:

REAST – WICEN  OPERATIONS ON THE  2005 SUBARU SAFARI

Thirty REAST WICEN personnel provided a part of a wide and varied communications system in the Southern Forests of  Tasmania.  Various nets serviced the event, part of the Australian Rally Championships and the Tasmanian Rally Series

The Command net, linking the Clerk of the Course in Geeveston with Stage Commanders, utilised the Huon Council repeaters on Tyler’s Hill and Grey Mountain.

Course Cars and First Intervention Vehicles were linked to Rally Headquarters in Geeveston via the Forestry repeaters on Doody’s, Tyler’s and Blue hills.

Each Rally stage had it’s own net utilising Targa Tasmania repeaters and radios.

SOS points used two nets, the appropriate Stage Net and various VHF and UHF frequencies via airborne repeaters.

The Skynet system used the same aircraft to link nodes at Starts, Finishes and SOS points to the Results team in Geeveston.  As cars passed these points, they were detected and times automatically transmitted.  Whilst a very rapid means of car tracking, reliability was inadequate given Tasmanian terrain and climate.

WICEN’s primary role was to provide the reliable transmission of car numbers and their starting and finishing times from each of the rally’s twenty special stages.  Starts were on the minute and finishes were timed to one tenth of a second.  In addition WICEN was able to back up other networks in most locations.

The rally was run over two days in two heats.  For Heat 1, WICEN had two nets.  One utilising a VHF repeater at Alonnah on Bruny Island directly back to Geeveston and another on RBW on 2m at Kermandie Ridge via a 2m/70cm cross-band link at Doody’s Hill.  This enabled separation from the VHF signals at Rally Base.  Approximately half of the field stations used each system.  For Heat 2, RBW was relocated to Blue Hill near the Arve Forest Airwalk.

At the WICEN base in Rally Headquarters in Geeveston, two operators received, confirmed and recorded the transmitted information.  A third operator entered the data into a system designed by Nick VK7HAF.  Every two minutes the data was dumped into the Australian Rally Championship timing system along with Skynet data. This was then displayed graphically on a large screen in Rally Command showing every point that each car passed as it made it’s way through the event.  The same data was also used to update the rally.com web site as the rally progressed.  This is the first year that WICEN has provided a live data feed for the ARC timing system.

The WICEN networks ran almost perfectly.  Some interference to the 70cm link was managed on the run by reprogramming two radios, one being remote, with a loss of less than one minute.  Not bad when you consider that there were almost a dozen radio systems working in the same building between 70MHz and 550MHz.  Other minor problems in the field were quickly overcome by slight repositioning and other minor adjustments.  There were zero WICEN equipment failures, though back-ups were available had there been.

Particularly pleasing was the willingness of the older, more experienced operators to hand over the microphone to the several young or otherwise new operators on this year’s team.  Very few procedural issues arose and these were soon corrected so that the new chums were quickly up to speed and accuracy.  An exceptionally well done job by all concerned.

The off duty social side of the event was also enjoyed by all and included eight ball tournaments, wine and cheese tasting, various gourmet delights and copious rag chewing.  There was a difference between the former and the latter!  Accommodation was varied, ranging through tents, caravans, campervans, backs of vehicles and trailers, to floors in buildings.  One or two chose to spend the night in bed at home rather than endure the cold nights.  Some of the younger campers had igloo shaped tents and were delighted to find that the heavy frost actually made the igloo tents into a reasonable facsimile of the real thing.  Five a.m.starts were the norm.  Phil Grundy’s V8 alarm clock, which was set a bit early, awoke the base crew as it fulfilled it’s dual purpose of windscreen de-icing.

In summary, over 4,000 transmissions were made by WICEN over the weekend and 24,000 numbers were passed.  Our fine record for dependability was maintained.  Roll on Targa Tasmania.

Footnote from Ken Roddam - Clerk of the Course: A special thanks to the WICEN team for a job well done, without a lot of fuss. The whole command centre functioned extremely well this year.  Once again Thanks.

(Roger, VK7XRN, REAST WICEN Coordinator)

For pictures of the event head to http://wicen.taswireless.net

Tour of Police Vessel - Van Diemen

About 25 REAST members and friends toured the Police Vessel Van Diemen down at the Hobart Wharves. Our host was Leigh Stanley who is the skipper of the Van Diemen. Starting with the specs – the Van Diemen is about 10 years old, it’s 22.7m long with a beam of 6.56m and a draught of 1.6m. It is powered by twin v12 caterpillar marine diesels each capable of 1000hp. It has a top speed of 30knots and cruises at 23 knots. It carries 12,000litres of fuel giving it a range of a 1,000 nautical miles and weighs about 70 tonnes.

Members checking out the horsepower!

12KVA GenSet

On board it has full facilities to cater for a crew of 5 on up to 10 day sorties anywhere in Tasmanian waters and this vessel was even used during the recent PonSue surveillance and tracking exercise.

The Marine Police conduct a wide range of operations including commercial, recreational fishing inspection, rescues, surveillance and patrols. There are about 28 marine police stationed around Tasmania including four female marine police.

The inflatable.

Leigh demonstrated the very impressive computerised navigation system which is fully GPS enabled and this presents current marine charts on a large touch screen. The full range of communications modes are available which include – Satphone, VMS, CDMA, VHF, VHF Marine, Fax, Email and internet access is available on board.

Skipper Leigh demos the nav gear

Leigh described a typical tour of duty which include fully cooked meals in the well equipped galley including off-course the fresh fish! There were the obligatory stories that involved sea-sickness, etc.

The facilities!

The ABC will be screening a four part series in August that was filmed on the Van Diemen called Real Life Rescue. This includes the rescue of the crew off Skandia during the last Sydney Hobart Yacht race.

Many thanks to Leigh for showing us around the vessel and for Inspector Ross Paine for organising it.

Traffic Management and Engineering - On June 1 REAST members were treated to a fascinating talk by Graham Lill, VK7ZGL who is an engineer from the Department of Infrastructure, Energy and Resources, Traffic Management and Engineering section.

Graham gave a detailed illustrated technical presentation on the traffic management system and the engineering behind it in and around Hobart including the Tasman Bridge and Cat’s Eye corner on the Southern Outlet.

Graham’s background starts as an engineer with the Philips Company and he has been designing traffic control systems and electronics ever since. Graham was also a trouble shooter for Philips traffic systems for many years and relayed a story about an interesting problem in Adelaide where high level RF was rendering the control modems ineffective due to the proximity of a high powered radio station transmitter.

Graham outlined in detail the SCATS computer system that controls most traffic lights in and around Hobart. This involves not only the control of the actual traffic lights but, the CCTV camera systems that are all over Hobart, the Tasman bridge and main arterial roads. These are linked through multiplexed fibre optic and coaxial cabling. Remote traffic light sites all over Tasmania are linked into the system via dial-up modems and some radio modems.

Graham outlined what a standard intersection controller entails and went into detail about the theory and practice for the detection of vehicles and the issues that confront an engineer when designing for all types of vehicular transport. The inductive loops operate in the range 40 to 100kHz with loop inductance of between 50-500mH. Modern detection circuits can detect vehicles in about 10-25ms and some can even profile the vehicle.

Lamps are traditionally 240VAC incandescent and have moved to quartz halogen. LED arrays have been slow to be introduced due to the circuitry not being able to tell if the lamp is lit or not. Incandescents draw much more current than LED arrays and therefore the controller cannot tell if the lamp is lit and reports a fault back to the SCAT system.

300 baud modems are used to link the controllers back to the SCAT system and all controllers are polled every 2 seconds. SCATS works with a deciding factor called “degree of saturation” and tries to group traffic into platoons with gaps and intelligently tries to maintain the gaps!

Graham then outlined the refurbished Tasman bridge control engineering with fibre cable connecting the 13 traffic control gantries in a fully fail-safe and backed up arrangement. Each gantry has it’s own intelligent controller that connects back to two PCs that are monitoring each other and either can take over if there is a problem. The visual screen-based representation allows a point and click control and safe-guards are throughout the system.

Graham then outlined the engineering behind the slow vehicle signs that alert motorists to slow vehicles on the Southern outlet and Brooker Highway and soon to be one on the Western shore approach to the Tasman Bridge.

This was a fascinating talk by an engineer who has a fantastic amount of knowledge and skill in the area of traffic engineering.

Thanks Graham.

I have left copies of the presentation that Graham gave in the Domain clubrooms for anyone who is interested.

8^th Model Makers and Collectors Exhibition 
REAST took this fantastic opportunity to display and promote amateur radio, electronics and technology as the hobby of choice. Ken, VK7DY has a wrap-up of events:

Friday was taken up with setting up the display and fine-tuning all the equipment.

Reg VK7KK, our Education Officer made sure that his table was full of good hand out material and a audio visual displays were functioning properly.

Kevin, VK7KV whose job was to make sure our display really stood out and looked right worked tirelessly adjusting lights and posters for the ultimate effect.

Ken VK7DY, set up the ATV display and experimenters table.

Jack VK7IL, set up his computer and Morse code keys and practice oscillators.

Garry VK7JGD brought along his VHF and HF Radios including antennas out on the lawn all working and with his portable communications unit made for a very interesting working display. 

Hayden VK7HAY assisted and also had his 2m Quagi on display which made for a good back drop for the display.

Well Saturday morning came round and there was a steady stream of people throughout the morning and afternoon, the car park was packed.

Jack VK7IL seemed the most popular with his Morse demonstration. Many questions and key tapping took up Jack’s time over the weekend.  It was great to hear the sound of Morse code through out the weekend.

Clayton, VK7ZCR, Hayden and Dale, VK7DG were all kept busy on the experimenter’s table disassembling videos and other gadgets as well as constructing UHF antennas. Some testing was done by Brain VK7HSB and Justin VK7TW with the oscilloscope and audio generator. SSTV was also demonstrated throughout the weekend.

John VK7JK, who was fitted up with a colour Hat-Cam Camera was very popular as people could see his soldering and component construction skills live to the TV monitors also by two other live floor cameras recording all his and other activities during the weekend.

A number of enquiries were received about training, the names of persons interested in the Foundation Licence recorded and 5 Novice Course CD training packs were sold.  Over 100 information leaflets were taken together with numerous back issues of Amateur Radio magazines and other information brochures.

We had many helpers over the weekend and I must say that it was just great to know that we have so many willing radio amateurs.

I counted 16 licensed amateurs who took time to come and help as well as provide equipment and time for this event.   As well we saw many inactive license holders come by and say Hi.

There were also some of the CBers who talked with Gavin VK7HGO who were inspired on seeing our efforts and are considering their amateur tickets.

A highlight of the weekend was the arrival of David, VK0MT who has just returned from Macca . He was in great demand for autographs and questions about his time as radio operator on Macquarie Island. Thanks to David - he made some historic contacts and a lot of dxers very happy.

I think that I have covered a fair bit of what took place at the D.E.C.

I would like to thank all my helpers for coming in and making this a great success . The amount of expertise and talent we have available to us in REAST is astounding. Thanks for a great weekend of Amateur Radio.

(Ken, VK7DY, Coordinator)