CCARC NEWS 13-05
THE PERIODIC NEWSLETTER OF THE CENTRAL COAST AMATEUR RADIO CLUB
ISSUE No 13-05 3rd. February 2013
In this Issue:
- Only 3 weeks to the Wyong Field Day!
- Welcome new club member Keith.
- Has the ACMA sent you a letter?
- February club open day this Wednesday.
- Broke & fixed.
1. Only 3 weeks to the Wyong Field Day!
The field day meeting yesterday (Saturday 2nd. February) went to plan as are the arrangements for “Amateur radio’s BIG DAY OUT“. Come rain or shine (but let’s hope for a little more of the shine!) the largest radio rally (as I, as a Pommy, call them), in the Southern Hemisphere will be happening again at the Wyong Racecourse. Sunday the 24th. of February will see the big event. Site set-up takes place at the same time as the Mini Contest University on the Saturday and record numbers are expected this year. This means EVERY club member will be called to see how they are going to help on the day (no excuses please). We thank the other family members in advance who come along each year to support the amateur radio member or members of their family, without your help things would be a lot more difficult.
As a reminder of what the Field Day is like, here’s a short set of photos from last years CCARC Field Day.
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Peter Berrett (VK3PB) will be coming to Wyong this year and will be making a video to be included in an upcoming Amateurlogic.tv broadcast. This video netcast has Amateurs around the world as its viewers and in fact Peter has made a video of the Wyong Field Day before – if you want to check that out it’s in the February 2010 broadcast that you can download from here http://www.amateurlogic.tv/blog/?p=63 or view it directly in Youtube here http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=xaJN5RieZ2I#t=0s.
Ed VK2JI
2. Welcome new club member Keith.
Yesterday (Saturday2nd. February) saw a new member joining the CCARC Keith VK2HKM is the latest of several new members the club is happy to greet and welcome into the club.
For those considering joining or re-joining the CCARC there is currently no joining fee, simply the annual club membership of $30.
The club is active in several areas of the hobby and welcomes new members for new ideas or opinions they bring with them.
Ed VK2JI.
3. Has the ACMA sent you a letter?
For those Advanced licensees who applied for a “Notice of Variation” to allow them to transmit up to 1KW as part of the ongoing tests, the answer is, if you haven’t yet, you will do. Whether or not you have actually transmitted over 400W PEP, the ACMA requires you to supply them with information on how you have ensured no EMR danger would occur when you transmit at high power on each of the bands that your installed antennas will cover. The worksheets and any other information requested has to be returned to the ACMA within 20 days of their request being sent out. A “lucky” sample after the ACMA has gone through all the paperwork, will get a visit from the ACMA to check what you have reported is correct.
So for those with KW licenses it’s probably better to prepare all of your paperwork in advance and to help you do that Doug VK3UM has created a simple to use EMR calculator program (note this is NOT the EME (earth moon earth) program that the WIA were previously linking to – this was corrected yesterday when I informed the WIA webmaster of the error).
Useful links:
ACMA worksheet and instructions
Ed VK2JI.
4. February club open day this Wednesday
Bob VK2PEP will be opening up the club rooms again this coming Wednesday (6th. February) from 10:30am to about 4pm for those who wish to attend. This is a monthly action especially to give those who have time during weekdays but are unable attend evenings or at the weekend, to get a chance to see what is going on at their local radio club. Members and guests are of course equally welcome.
Ed VK2JI.
5. Broke and fixed.
Unfortunately the APCO25 module in the VK2RAG 439.950MHz APCO25 repeater is still giving problems. Ian VK2HK is working hard to resolve these as soon as possible. Ian has been able to repair the unit’s analogue repeater capability. Feel free to use the repeater in its Analogue mode. This is one of our repeaters with the best coverage, especially up and down the F3.
Ed VK2JI
Anyone reading this on the website who is not yet a member of the CCARC, please consider joining by emailing ccarc @ ccarc.org.au for full details. We currently have no joining fee and the annual membership fee is A$30.00.
CCARC online links
Upcoming events of interest to the CCARC
For what’s coming up in the next few months at the CCARC, please check the club calendar, accessible from the header on any page on the website.
