CCARC NEWS 12-20

CCARC Club News WICEN 26/05/2012 | 0

CCARC NEWS 12-20

THE PERIODIC NEWSLETTER OF THE CENTRAL COAST AMATEUR RADIO CLUB

ISSUE No 12-20 26th. May 2012

In this Issue:

CCARC success in John Moyle Field Day contest – 2 x 2nd place.
Work at Somersby repeater site – slab laid (pictures).
Inaugural Club HF net – findings.
WICEN: St Albans prep meeting and repeater set-up practice (pictures).
“Gifting” equipment to other club members.

1. CCARC success in John Moyle Field Day contest – 2 x 2nd place.

CCARC station VK2EH/P 2nd in class in John Moyle Field Day.

CCARC station VK2AFY 2nd in class in John Moyle Field Day.

The club station VK2EH/P came 2nd in the 24 hour, multi-operator, Portable, VHF only, Phone only section of this years John Moyle Field Day. A certificate is being sent.

The other club station VK2AFY from the club rooms ran as a training only action for the 6 hour shorter contest but despite that also came 2nd in section in the Multi-operator, 6 hour, home station, All band section. A certificate is being sent.

Well done to both teams and to the people who organise the clubs entry into these contests.

Note: the home station was running “barefoot” without the linear at the time, I wonder if we may have been one place higher with it? Maybe next time?

Please don’t forget we have both the (portable) VHF-UHF Winter Field Day (23-24 June) and the (from the club rooms) Remembrance Day (11-12 August) contests coming up – please contact me; news-editor @ ccarc.org.au if you wish to take part and I’ll pass your name on to the organisers.

2. Work at Somersby repeater site – slab laid (pictures).

Chris VK2YY, the club vice president has been busy and extended the concreted area at the repeater site to both give parking space where we will no longer drag mud into the building and the run off of rainwater is now better controlled – Thanks Chris & team!

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3. Inaugural Club HF net – findings.

Thursday’s 40m net did not workout as well as hoped. A combination of time on the band and general band conditions meant that even those geographically close to each other had difficulties. After 30minutes only Pat VK2AAE and myself (Ed VK2ARE), were in communication and that with difficulties. Considering we are only a couple of miles apart this was very strange. We moved to the 2m (VK2RAG) repeater to re-group and others joined. Some had heard but not been heard. Short tests were performed on 80m & 40m and while 80m seemed a little better it also did not allow all to hear each other.

This Thursday (31st. May), I will try 15m (21.280MHz) at 19:00 local and see if we do any better there. Please listen and call if you hear me.

Thanks to those who took part in the initial tests: Pat VK2AAE, Brad VK2ATI, John VK2FJKH, Dave VK2FDIW/M & Bob VK2AOR/M.

4. WICEN: St Albans prep meeting and repeater set-up practice (pictures).

Today a preparation meeting was held at the club rooms following a delicious barbeque to check the logistics for the upcoming St Albans cross country horse trials on June 9th. & 10th. This is now a two day event as opposed to a single day in previous years, meaning that we have to be ready earlier however the feeling of the group is that by spreading the event over two days, it will actually be easier for us to handle as we will not need to be in place by 4am and be working to nearly 2am the following day as in previous years, starting a little later at around 6-7am and finishing early evening on the Sunday and only having to cover the afternoon on Saturday.

Following the meeting Glen VK2GEM ran everyone present through the assembly and connectivity of the portable repeater to be used in the event. Here are some photos, “hot off the photo plate”.

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5. “Gifting” equipment to other club members.

“Gifting” equipment to other club members;

Five boxes at the rear of the lecture room are available for any Amateur Radio related items that you no longer want but believe other members may be able to make use of. Please place your items there not elsewhere in the club rooms. If you wish to drop me an email to news-editor @ ccarc.org.au I’ll happily list the available items in the next CCARC NEWS to publicise what you are kindly giving away to a good home.

The boxes are emptied about every 4 weeks so anything not taken from the boxes at that point will be thrown out.

Please no junk.

Please also avoid leaving ANY personal property at the club that are not in the boxes, intended to be “gifted” to others, as the club cannot accept any responsibility for its loss.