Broadcast - 13 April 2025
It was with great sadness that we were informed of the passing of Shirley VK7HSC.
Shirley has been a remotely located member of NTARC for well over a decade, visiting the club rooms when an opportunity arose. I know Eric VK7EV has already provided a moving Eulogy which reinforces how dedicated she was towards Scouting over the years. For us, Shirley was the first on air contact for hundreds of scouts that talked to her when attending “Jamboree On The Air” or JOTA at NTARC’s Rocherlea club rooms. She never seemed to grow tired of nurturing each and every first contact even though the events were over two days. At NTARCs General Meeting last Saturday a minute’s silence was observed on behalf of all members. Vale Shirley VK7HSC now Silent Key…….
Last Friday Coffee morning saw a bread-board transmitter brought in for a technical showpiece. Well not actually a bread-board but more a bread-baking tin with inbuilt transmitter. It was Nic VK7WW’s latest creation, a single valve 80 Metre CW transmitter. With the baking tin sitting upside down it contained most of the electronic components, located on the sides were sockets for the antenna and morse code key along with access to the coil tuning slug plus an attached power supply cord. The bottom of the baking tin which was being used as the top surface had two valve sockets, a mini seven pin socket for the lone 6AQ5 tetrode valve and the other a much larger octal style socket. The latter was being used as a socket for the plug in crystal. The eight pin receptacle evidently giving quite a range of usable spacings depending on the crystal style being pressed into service. Being a 6AQ5 he probably was only looking at three or four watts output power, but the little unit has already notched up a successful 600 km daytime contact with Jordan VK3ACU in Victoria. Evidently Nic only really had one design criteria to test out, he wanted a “chirpy” sound to the transmissions recovered audio. Well, from the demonstration, I think you have achieved that Nic…… There is a link to a video of the contact with Jordan included in the text version of this broadcast, we will let you decide if the keying is accompanied with a “Chirp” or a “Hoot Owl”, Hi-Hi. 4 Watts 1 Tube 600km CW
Colin VK7ZCF also brought in his now fully assembled and tested antenna matching unit for members to see. That’s the one designed by N7DDC and is generally known by the name “ATU-100 EXT”.
A neatly constructed kit that is now ready for field testing and use Colin.
Last technical night Ross VK7ALH continued his theme with transceivers from the Ten-Tec stable. This rig came to the club rooms as a comparison in technology with the Ten-Tec original Omni displayed last year. This version was the Omni VII and as you might expect it exhibited the same excellent level of construction. This rig wasn’t in for repairs but was one from Ross’ vast collection of radios and was just receiving a bit of a once over. It is still a Software Defined Radio or SDR communications transceiver covering amateur bands from 6 through 160 meters, 100 watts output on all modes. However this version has a full function colour LCD display with “Band Sweep” which gives you a snapshot of the entire band occupancy. There is an inbuilt auto antenna tuner and the rig is fully remote controllable via the Ethernet socket on the rear. Versions of the Omni stayed in production for many years with the Omni VII still in production well past 2006. Thanks Ross, I think this was the last version of the Omni released.
For those of you that missed Andrew VK7DW’s interview on ABC Radio last Friday, about the SpaceX Dragon FRAM2 Slow Scan TV test transmissions, a recording will be available on the NTARC web site under Blogs for this broadcast.
Pictures of Club Night equipment and the Kentish Ride Check Point will be available on the NTARC Web site under “Blogs” for this broadcast. NTARC Blogs
UPCOMING EVENTS
TestNet and TechNet session - Every Wednesday, TestNet/CW course on 3.580MHz from 7 pm, then a TechNet on 3.567MHz from 7.30 pm till 8.30 pm. Your host for the evening is Nic VK7WW.
Club Room Technical night session – The next session will be on Wednesday the 16th April, at the usual time of 6.30 pm at the Club Room Archer Street, Rocherlea.
Coffee Morning – Please note that due to Public Holidays there will be no coffee morning on Good Friday the 18th April and Anzac Day the 25th April.
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 5 pm on the Friday prior to the Broadcast.
That’s all folks,
73, Stefan VK7ZSB, Secretary NTARC Inc.
