Broadcast - 15 October 2023
We will begin this week with an update on the general meeting held last Wednesday 11th October. There was an excellent roll up of members, many arriving well before kick-off time, claiming their seat and refreshing their memories by reading the minutes of the previous meeting held in August. The agenda was once again worked through in a timely manner. The two main items for future calendar reference by club members are:
Christmas social will be held on Wednesday evening the 6th December at a venue to be announced. It is being trialled early in the month this time, hopefully before members other family, school and work commitments require attendance.
Secondly the next club general meeting will be held on Wednesday the 13th December at 7:30 pm in the Rocherlea club rooms.
Members certainly were not in a rush to leave as many discussions continued on until well after 10pm. We thank all those members that donated food for the after meeting refreshments.
Last week’s rumour was correct, Peter VK7KPC will be receiving another award. This time for his success in the 43rd ALARA Contest, taking out “Top VK7 OM” in the State awards section. Looks like one more certificate for the achievement folder, well done Peter!
Worth noting is that another VK7, Catherine VK7C, took out the National Award and Trophy for “Top Scoring Australian YL”. An excellent achievement, good going Catherine!
Next technical night - If all goes according to plan, Lionel VK7ZLB, will bring along his Icom 9700 transceiver with its newly acquired firmware update and some recently arrived mail order toys. Lionel will be giving us a bit of a run down on the Icom software site and updating Icom rigs. Probably the main improvement from the latest software update is the rigs ability to continuously update from its external frequency reference every 100 milliseconds. This should certainly help with frequency stability, assuming you provide a GPS locked external oscillator to the reference socket. Hopefully we will see Lionel, his rig and some of the new toys next Wednesday evening.
JOTA/JOTI for 2023 volunteers to assist are needed!
The Venue is the NTARC Club rooms, which is the Rocherlea Scout Hall, Archer St, Rocherlea.
The sessions will be on Saturday the 21st of October from noon to 6pm and Sunday the 22nd of October from 10am till 3pm. Groups are planned to arrive in two hour blocks, split up and rotate through four activities. We also need local contacts to chat with the participants on air in case we can’t link up to other Scout venues. If you are able to assist for any length of time over the two days please let Peter, VK7KPC or the club Secretary know of your availability or by e-mailing secretary@ntarc.net
NTARC Auction Hosting - we have received quite a bit of interest in the possibility of hosting a “Shack Clear-out” auction. This one will be open to all amateurs’ not just NTARC members! So have a think, do you have items that are no longer needed, are you trying to claw back some of your space, do you just want to down size and consolidate your equipment setup? There already has been receivers, transceivers and test equipment pencilled in, so we have tentatively proposed an auction to be held on Saturday the 25th November. A percentage of item sale price will go to NTARC for hosting the auction.
As always equipment pictures and result links are available on the NTARC Web site under “Blogs” for this broadcast. Now back to the house keeping.
UPCOMING EVENTS
The Club Technical night - The next session will be on Wednesday the 18th of October and will commence at 6.30 pm through to about 10.00 pm, at the Club room Archer Street, Rocherlea.
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. So why not pop in and join us for a cuppa, there is endless tea and coffee along with biscuits available for a donation.
JOTA/JOTI - Saturday the 21st and Sunday the 22nd of October at Rocherlea club rooms.
The TestNet and TechNet session - Wednesday the 25th of October. 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.
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.
