CCARC NEWS 14-06
THE PERIODIC NEWSLETTER OF THE CENTRAL COAST AMATEUR RADIO CLUB
ISSUE No 14-06 14th. February 2014
In this Issue:
- ONE WEEK – THE COUNTDOWN HAS STARTED!
- VK4ICE will also be at the Wyong Field Day.
- Do you know someone who has made a significant contribution to Amateur Radio?
- CubeSats deployed from International Space Station
- Changes to VK2RAG D-Star repeater.
- Broke & fixed.
- Reminders.
- A final word.
1. ONE WEEK – THE COUNTDOWN HAS STARTED!
You may not believe it, but it’s only a week until our CCARC Field Day at Wyong.
THIS SATURDAY – 15th. Feb at 1pm at the club rooms is the last preparation meeting for the Field Day – so please make the effort to be at this weeks meeting!!
Saturday 22nd Feb. not only sees the site set-up activities but also a full day Foundation License course led by CCARC Club member Mark VK2MP and assisted by our president Chris VK2YY.
As always Sunday 23rd. Feb. starts early, with members needed before 5:30am to get everything ready before the flood gates are opened to the hoards pushing to get to the flea market stalls. We also need security there early to make sure none of the hoards get into the traders area and stop the traders from being able to set-up in time for them opening up at 9am.
The seminars start at 9:15am, so everything in the room needs to be ready for those to start.
There’s LOTS to do behind the scenes to make sure this is the greatest Wyong Field Day for some years, so please make sure you are on-time for your allocated tasks and if you find you’ve completed your tasks – please go and see if you can help someone else. The guys on the gates will love the chance to get a short break so that they can see a little of the event, so why not go and volunteer for ticket sales on the gates when (not if) you have time.
Ed VK2JI
2. VK4ICE will also be at the Wyong Field Day.
As shown on his website at vk4ice.com – David is intending to come down and take up a spot in the flea market as usual:
It’s even in his Calendar!
Not having registered as a trader however, he wasn’t included in our publicity – perhaps something for next year – a note on the CCARC field day webpage – those intending to be part of the flea market – let the CCARC know so we can advertise you ?
Ed VK2JI.
3. Do you know someone who has made a significant contribution to Amateur Radio?
The Board of the Wireless Institute of Australia at its discretion makes awards to members for their contribution to the hobby or the Institute over a period of time.
These awards are usually announced and presented at the WIA’s Annual Conference and AGM in May.
The Board is now calling for nominations.
The nomination form is available for download on the WIA website. Look in the news section for the article, which will include a link to the nomination form.
When completing the survey, you are not required to suggest which award should be made. The Board will assess each nomination, and decide which awards, if any, it will make.
Clearly it’s best to include as much information as you can so as to inform the Board, and please do keep it in some sort of chronological order. Also include information about any other awards they may have received.
It’s important to recognise the work done within the hobby, so please do give some thought to nominating someone you know of.
Nominations close on 31st March, and awards will be announced and where possible presented at the WIA’s 2014 AGM and Conference on the Sunshine Coast on May 16-18.
Wireless Institute of Australia
4. CubeSats deployed from International Space Station
On Tuesday, February 11, 2014 astronaut Koichi Wakata KC5ZTA successfully deployed the first of the 33 CubeSats that were launched from the Wallops Flight Facility, VA to the International Space Station (ISS) in the Cygnus freighter on January 9
He deployed the first two of the Flock-1 constellation of 28 Dove CubeSats made by Planet Labs at about 0831 UT.
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CubeSat Deployment from ISS
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In addition to the 28 Planet Labs CubeSats there are four amateur radio CubeSats – LituanicaSat-1, LitSat-1, ArduSat-2 and UAPSat-1 as well as a 915 MHz CubeSat SkyCube planned to be deployed in the coming weeks.
LituanicaSat-1 carries a 145/435 MHz FM transponder while LitSat-1 is thought to carry a 435/145 MHz linear transponder for SSB/CW communications.
The IARU coordinated frequencies are listed as:
LituanicaSAT-1
• FM Transponder Uplink 145.950 MHz Downlink 435.180 MHz
• AX25 Uplink 145.850 MHz AX25 Downlink 437.550 MHz
• CW Beacon 437.275 MHz
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Lituanicasat1
LitSat-1
• SSB Transponder Uplink 435.180 MHz Downlink 145.950 MHz
• AX25 Uplink 437.550 MHz Downlink 145.850 MHz
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/palydovas
ArduSat
• 9k6 MSK CCSDS data format downlink 437.? MHz
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/575960623/
ardusat-your-arduino-experiment-in-space
UAPSAT
• AX.25 Packet Radio uplink 145.980 MHz downlink 437.385 MHz
Koichi Wakata KC5ZTA
https://twitter.com/Astro_Wakata
NanoRacks https://twitter.com/nanoracks/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/nanoracks
Planet Labs
https://twitter.com/planetlabs
A Dove in Space
https://twitter.com/adoveinspace
Video of NanoRacks interview: Deploying CubeSats from the Space Station
http://amsat-uk.org/2014/01/31/
video-deploying-cubesats-from-the-space-station/
CubeSats deployments are streamed live at
http://m.ustream.tv/channel/live-iss-stream
Thanks to the Southgate News for this item.
5. Changes to VK2RAG D-Star repeater.
I have recently added some additional software packages that will allow our D-Star repeater to connect to the “rest of the world” Dstar systems and not just the “USTRUST” system. For those of you that have D-Star and know how to add linking into the UR or YourCall field of the radio, you can now add all the XRF reflectors and link to them, I will be adding the DCS reflectors as well during next week, but a router change is required so I will need to go to Somersby to do that. I have also added the ability of being able to control this linking via DTMF and this will expand after I am happy that it is working how it should.
If you go to the D-Star Page of our clubs website https://www.ccarc.org.au/wp/d-star you will see further information and when I do any further changes I will add this information to that page as well as send out something on the CCARC News. You will also see that the Dashboard has changed as well http://dashboard.vk2rag.com
Ian VK2HK
6.Broke & fixed.
Nothing to report this week, everything running smoothly.
7. Reminders.
This section lists important announcements and possibly items from previous CCARC NEWS editions that are still current and may need your input:
THIS SATURDAY – 15th. Feb at 1pm is the last preparation meeting for the Field Day – so please make the effort to be at this weeks meeting!!
Don’t miss TX factor – The UK based Amateur Radio TV Channel starting on the 21st. of February – here’s their trailer:
Anyone reading this on the website who is not yet a member of the CCARC, please consider joining by emailing ccarc at ccarc.org.au for full details.
For submissions to this newsletter from CCARC club members please email the editor news-editor at ccarc.org.au
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.
8. A Final word.
As I’m sure you all know by now, I am leaving Aussie shores to head back to Europe in March and so will not have the honor of providing you all with this news sheet any more. I have enjoyed my time with the CCARC. There have been ups and downs in the club and I am sure there will continue to be the odd argument or five. It’s normal for any club. It may not seem it at the time but it actually indicates a healthy club, with members with different opinions expressing them out loud.
Dave Stephens VK2DLS is taking over the CCARC NEWS with backup help from Keith Morrell VK2HKM – I wish them both all well in their future efforts and I’ll be watching from afar (that’s one advantage of a web based newsletter – you never know WHO is reading it).
For the few of you (HINT HINT) that submit items for the news letter, you can still send them to news-editor @ ccarc.org.au as this is getting diverted to Dave’s email address instead of mine.
So it only remains for me to wish you all a healthy 73 as editor of the CCARC NEWS and switch to being a reader of this fine mini-publication.
Ed VK2JI, ex VK2ARE, still G8GLM and to become D-something-something-something!
