THE PERIODIC NEWSLETTER OF THE CENTRAL COAST AMATEUR RADIO CLUB

ISSUE No 13-08 3rd. March 2013

*** Please don’t forget this Wednesday (6th. March) from 10am the club rooms will be open for the monthly gathering ***

In this Issue:

1. Recovering from Wyong ?
2. Contests etc.
3. New Chinese HF transceiver coming ~ about $400.
4. New club sales section on website.
5. Broke & fixed.

1. Recovering from Wyong ?

It’s good to look back on two days that went as well as they possibly could given the weather. The Mini Contest University went extremely well with all registered arriving DESPITE the horrible weather – in fact a couple more turned up on the day. For a first ever effort in Australia, all were praising how well it went and submitting ideas of how it could go even better next year, with suggestions of sections for beginners and experienced, workshop – practical demonstrations and other good ideas. Several attendees were well known leaders of the contesting fraternity within amateur radio in Australia. Trent Sampson – the WIA Contests Director was the keynote speaker.

Our evening meal saw nine attendees at Panarottis in Tuggerah. All were attendees or family of attendees from the MCU – I think we should promote this as the Field Day dinner as well as the MCU dinner more next year.

Input from MCU Survey:

Everyone who responded gave the MCU a definite “Thumbs up”. Many said change nothing but a few made the following comments:

• Start the MCU at lunchtime and run it right up to the evening meal, this allows people more time to arrive (and us to set-up).
• Improved data projector – the slides were unclear at time (especially on small print) and the unit was noisy and distracted from what the presenter was saying.
• If necessary a small attendance charge could be levied to cover costs, if possible tea / coffee  to be included.
• One person said he would come to the MCU even if it was not the day before the Field Day all others said they had intended to come to the field day in any case and the addition of the extra attraction the day before was appreciated. No one wanted the MCU on the same day as the Field day.
• For content one person said he would like a section on contest jargon and first principals of contesting, while another suggested separate basic and advanced streams. Another attendee said that items next year should be on new topics, those covered this year do not need to be covered again.
• I would like to see a more practical element – perhaps an operational contest station set-up on site or at least videos of a contest station in operation.

Sunday of course was the “main course” and the usual bunch of hard workers pulled it off for another year. We will have coverage on the well known amateurlogic.tv video podcast in one of the next two editions (we were featured in 2010 in edition 27 of the program) but you don’t have to wait that long as within hours of the field day finishing a very well produced tour of the event was up on YouTube from someone I guess is part of the maker community (i.e. electronics hobbyist) – take a look here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWrFqvRvC4k&feature=player_detailpage#t=0s

There will be a Field Day “lessons learned” meeting at 1pm on Saturday 23rd. of March to help next years planning. If you supported the event this year, please try to get along to this meeting and give your input on how things can be made even better.

  Ed VK2JI.

2. Contests etc.

This month we have the John Moyle contest on the 16th – 17th. – please support Dave VK2JDH in this annual venture to Mt. Allyn to represent the CCARC.

International Lighthouse & Lightship Weekend – even though it only takes place in August, it takes months of approaching the relevant authority (which has changed 3 times in the last 2 years) to get permission to use Nobby’s Head lighthouse. The number of CCARC members supporting the event has been low in the last two years, so who in the club can promise their support this year? Unless we get at least 8 people, ideally 10,  the effort is simply not warranted to progress all of the application and equipment preparation work. Please send me an email if you are willing to support this event, and please state for how many hours and when (we normally start at Noon on Saturday and finish mid-afternoon on Sunday) – contests @ ccarc.org.au

I will report back to the next business meeting as to whether we have sufficient members interested in supporting the event to make it worth going ahead or not. Please remember this is an overnight > 24 hours event – hence the reason we need 8-10 members to cover the complete period that we will be operational. The event itself runs for 48 hours but we simply could not support the full period.

Ed VK2JI.

3. New Chinese HF transceiver coming ~ about $400.

If you search YouTube for Feitong FT-808 HF you will see some Italian amateurs trying out a prototype of a soon to be released, Chinese built, 100W CW/SSB/AM HF transceiver. Whether or not you would ever buy a Chinese HF transceiver, the fact that this is in the market will create  competition and bring down the cost of the big name rigs. In the normal style of Chinese rigs, so as to be of interest to both commercial and amateur radio, this is a general coverage unit covering Top Band through 10 metres and everything in between. Because this allows use on the 27MHz CB band its sale in the US will not be possible – so expect a version with a modified computer ROM which will limit its use to the amateur bands in the next version.

Here are the technical details:

Ed VK2JI

4. Club Sales page to be added to website.

As authorised at the March business meeting a new web page is to be added to this website to allow club members to make PRIVATE SALES to others of their no longer needed amateur radio equipment. The club will not make any money out of this, nor accept any responsibility in any way for the sale. The contract will be between the seller and buyer only.

If you wish to sell something, you should submit a picture (if available) plus some text and a price along with how you wish to be contacted. If you don’t wish you phone number or email address to be given on the website, you can always announce when you will be at the club rooms with the equipment for those interested to come along and purchase.

Watch the top of any page on the website for the link to the new page to appear in the next few days.

Adverts should be sent to news-editor @ ccarc.org.au and will be run for one month or until you inform me that you have sold the item and I will then remove the entry from the list.

There will be no priority to the list however the newer items will appear at the top of the list and go down as more are added over time within the month.

This will be a trial and if the page is not used, it will be removed. So you know what they say  “Use It or Lose It”. ONLY CLUB MEMBERS WILL BE ALLOWED TO ADVERTISE.

Ed VK2JI

5. Broke and fixed.

The D-Star repeater was off the air following a power outage at Somersby but was fully operational again by Wednesday 27th. Feb.

Unfortunately the APCO25 module in the VK2RAG 439.950MHz repeater is still not operational. Please continue to use the repeater in its Analogue mode.

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.

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