Broadcast - 10 Sept 2023
For those of us that are wondering how our two mainland visitors got on with their whirlwind visit to Tasmania, well we are lucky enough to have an update courtesy of Nic VK7WW.
“Josh VK3ZB and Peter VK3CMA arrived in Tassie from Melbourne last Thursday afternoon. As regular members of the NTARC’s weekly “TestNet” and “TechNet”, they were keen to visit the morning tea session at the Clubrooms to say ‘G’day’ and put a face to the voices that they hear on-air, quite apart from any ‘shopping for bits for their amateur radio projects’! Nic VK7WW hosted them on Friday afternoon, with suggestions of locations for their portable operations for the following day, Saturday.
The weather was beautiful for their visit to Tassie. Their chosen location was 30m from the beach at Penguin, with a 12m squid pole for a vertical antenna and 50w pep on 7.130 MHz. That afternoon over 15 contacts were made into the mainland. But their station setup created a lot of interest; there were so many locals who wondered what was going on, so that Josh and Peter became Ambassadors for amateur radio, explaining what it was all about. Thanks guys!
We hope you enjoyed Tassie. It was great to see you. Thanks for visiting and 73s from NTARC. “
Thank you for the update Nic and also for extending Tasmanian hospitality to visiting fellow amateurs.
From the pictures posted on Discord they had a pretty neat set up and from the run of cables it looks suspiciously like they may have been stealing the much needed 12 Volt power from their hire car. HiHi
It was a short visit but they certainly made the most of it and came prepared.
Preparation for the trip was obvious because at that Friday morning tea they produced their ‘Mini 1300’ Antenna analyser. This little test instrument covers HF, VHF, UHF and goes up to 1300MHz. It has a 4.3 inch TFT touch-screen to view the pre-set menu items covering its operational modes. For example SWR either fixed or swept, find a frequency, L/C meter, Multi SWR - suitable for multi-band antenna adjustment, RF Signal Generator, Time-Domain Reflectometer - which is more commonly referred to as TDR and is excellent for obtaining rough coaxial cable lengths plus many more functions. One mode that is very useful for field or “I am not quite close enough to read the numbers on the screen” is the Tune SWR Function. This feature uses a horizontal green bar graph and audible tone that changes in the pitch as the SWR varies. The lower the SWR, the lower the tone and bar graph level will be. A very versatile little unit that they obviously put to good use.
One last minute item, it appears that Peter VK7KPC obtained a Second Place in his section of the RSGB’s IOTA Contest for 2023. Peter participated as a Non-UK Station in the Single Operator Section and as a Non-DXpedition, QRP, 24-Hour, Non-Assisted, CW entrant. Nic your CW Net is paying off!
As always equipment and Second Place Certificate pictures are available on the NTARC Web site under “Blogs” for this broadcast. Now back to the house keeping.
UPCOMING EVENTS
The TestNet and TechNet session - Wednesday the 13th of September. TestNet/CW course on 3.580MHz from 7pm till 7.30pm…. and a TechNet on 3.567MHz from 7.30pm till about 8.30pm. Your host for the evening will be Nic VK7WW.
Coffee Morning - held every Friday in the NTARC Club rooms. Time is from 10am to noon and we look forward to seeing you all there. Why not pop in and join us for a cuppa, there is endless tea and coffee along with biscuits available for a donation.
The Club Technical night - The next session will be on Wednesday the 20th of September and will commence at the winter time of 6.30 pm through to about 10.00 pm, at the Club room Archer Street, Rocherlea
FINALLY - A reminder to all members that if you have any items of news you would like added to our weekly roundup, no matter how trivial, then please email them to the Secretary at the following address news@ntarc.net all items to be received no later than 5pm on the Friday prior to the Broadcast.
That’s all folks,
73 from Stefan, VK7ZSB, Secretary NTARC Inc.
