Broadcast - 26 September 2021
Sitting at my desk writing the news, the wind is howling outside, trees are swaying and a number of limbs have come down. Snow is forecast in certain regions down to 100 metres and they call it Spring!
Considering the weather on Friday was horrendous in the north we had an exceptional good attendance at coffee. Thankfully Ros had arrived early and had the fire going, urn on and goodies on the table with sausage rolls in the oven heating up. Lots of chatter about all and sundry with the TV turned on keeping us all informed of the events of COVID on the mainland. We are truly lucky in this State not to have any cases so lets hope it stays that way, but as always, a reminder to all to please sign in on arrival, preferably by using the QR code Check in TAS app. Also, please remember to use the hand sanitizer after you have signed in and before joining others at the tables.
A few NTARC members travelled to Pyengana in the north east of the State on Friday to assist Wicen Tasmania (South) Inc in the equine endurance ride event held yesterday. Here’s hoping they packed their warm clothing, I suspect they will appreciate the warmth of their homes and beds tonight.
Final reminder that numbers need to be finalised for our social dinner gathering on Tuesday 28th September so if you are planning to attend could you please email the secretary on the email address noted in the future events notice regarding this outing.
Last Wednesday was tech night at the club so we now hand over to Idris VK7ZIR to provide you all with a rundown of the evening’s happenings;
“Quite a mixed bag at our Tech Session tonight. Ross VK7ALH made it a TenTec evening with three examples of the marque he has in his collection. The first two, a Model 544 and a Corsair 2, were in various states of repair. Previous owners had attempted repairs and given up, so Ross had set to work. The covers were off and the modular construction could be seen. Unfortunately modules had been lost, or discarded from both radios and Ross had to scour the Internet and even go dumpster diving to replace them. He now has a full complement of the units to effect repairs. We shall look forward to the results. The last radio, fully functional, is an Argonaut 5, relatively recent and more compact that the previous examples. Very nicely presented. As usual, Ross gave us a comprehensive run down of the faults and remedies. Thanks Ross.
Peter VK7KPC showed off his very nice Bird Termaline dummy load, being used to fault find in our radio shack. Nice acquisition Peter.
Now we have a non-amateur project which is very different, but none the less fascinating in its ingenuity and construction. This was a COVID-19 inspired project built by André VK7ZAB which caused much interest and he tells us: “a friend, Colin Price, known by a few of the club members, lives in Sydney and works in the TV sports industry. With the cutbacks and lockdowns he has been spending more time at home so he got a puppy dog for company. Dog Augie is growing and Colin is resuming shift work and doesn’t want to leave the back door open. So André got volunteered to build an automatic pet door for him. Shouldn’t be too hard! The pet door is a vertically sliding panel covering a cut out in the apartment’s back door and moved by a linear actuator. André showed off the resultant controller box and the full schematic drawing. All that was required was an Arduino Uno micro controller with screw terminal breakout shield. A few logic inputs from switches for manual control. A DC to DC converter power supply module. A relay module for motor controls and to release the solenoid in the lock. The lock had a micro switch to show its state so required a logic input to the Arduino. It also had two reed switches to show the position of the door panel. Also an input for the trigger data from the RFID reader, which detects the tag on the dog. Then to change motor speed, a power MOSFET module is required which is driven from a Pulse Width Modulated output from the Arduino. Then to prevent the door being a guillotine, a Hall Effect current sensor module is required to indicate the motor has stalled and needs reversing. The current sensor has a voltage output which is read by one of the Arduino Analog to Digital Converters. And finally a Real Time Clock module to time stamp a log of door activations to show Augie’s activity. It ended up being a fully packed enclosure!”
Thanks Andre’, an amazing achievement and quite a demonstration of circuit design and software development which went with it. Just goes to show that Radio Amateurs are just as good at things not radio related!
The usual discussions and good cheer reverberated around the Club rooms with our Discord session in the background with Nic VK7WW Net controller and his slow Morse school. Very popular with mainland VKs. Good onya Nic.
Until next time,
73, Idris VK7ZIR”
Thanks Idris, sounds like the night was very entertaining. Electronic doggy doors eh? I could do with one of those but as our biggest dog is a very large Labrador it would need a sizeable entrance for him, so it might be easier to simply automate the existing standard back door. Mind you, Hamish has been known to try to take himself out of a doggy door sized to suit a Jack Russell but managed only to get his head out and was stuck for some hours. The doggy door was never the same after his extraction.
UPCOMING EVENTS
SOCIAL OUTING – Wednesday 29th September Commercial Hotel, cnr George and Cimitiere Streets. Meet time will be 6.00 pm and the table has been booked under the name of NTARC. Menu is a-la-carte, with quite an extensive choice and is reasonably priced. It can be viewed on their website. Please RSVP the secretary at either of these email addresses news@ntarc.net or ypmaxwell@bigpond.com by Tuesday 28th lunch time as numbers will need to be confirmed on that afternoon.. Thank you to all those members who have already advised notice of attending.
SLOW MORSE COURSE – Wednesday 29th September. Your host and teacher is Nic VK7WW. Frequencies and times are the same as were used by Nic for the previous TestNet and TechNet. And if you have forgotten what they were, here they are, 1900 hrs to 1930 hrs on 3.580 MHz and then at 1930hours through to about 2030 on 3.567MHz.
So why not tune in and give it a try. For those who may want some extra help, this website is reported as being very good. www.morsecodeclassnet.com/
TECH NIGHT – Wednesday 6th October at the NTARC Club rooms, 19:30 hours until whenever.
October General meeting - Saturday 9th October. Meeting to commence at 14:00 hours (2.00pm).
JOTA/JOTI 2021 – takes place from 15th to 17th October. Setting up will happen after coffee session Friday 15th. , Peter has lined up a number of events that will be taking place at the Rocherlea Scout Hall, commencing on Saturday 16th at noon and will run through until 8.00pm with the possibility of the Venturers attending after 8.00pm. Sunday 17th October will see groups arriving from 10.00am up to 3.00pm. Plan is they will visit for about 2 hours and the breakdown will see them spend half an hour utilising radio, this will be followed by half an hour on the Internet and a further half an hour outside locating those elusive foxes. Some Skype and JOTI TV will be thrown into the mix, plus 10 minutes being allowed for cleaning up between activities. Also on offer will be how to make a morse code trainer and this activity doesn’t require any soldering, so hopefully the first aid kit won’t need to be opened.
If anyone can assist on Saturday and Sunday, Peter would love to hear from you. He can be contacted by email; dodd.pc@bigpond.com or mobile 0408 805 086.
COFFEE MORNINGS – currently held every Friday in the NTARC Club rooms. Catch up time is from 10.00 am to noon and we look forward to seeing you all.
These coffee events represent a good opportunity to collect your QSL cards. We currently have cards awaiting collection, so why not pop in and check the QSL box and join us for a cuppa and chat.
Just a friendly reminder, please demonstrate your appreciation of all the effort that goes into operating the club, its facilities and the other services we provide, especially in these abnormal and very trying times, enjoying the company, coffee, biscuits and cake, by leaving a gold coin or two, or even a small bank note, in the jar to assist in our on-going operations.
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 me at the following address news@ntarc.net all items to be received no later than 17:00 on the Friday prior to the Broadcast.
Your continued cooperation in this regard will be greatly appreciated.
We will bring you all such contributions next Sunday morning.
73, Yvonne VK7FYMX, Secretary NTARC Inc
