News 02.02.2020

Preparations are full steam ahead for the Club’s Wyong Field Day, Sunday the 23rd of February. A full list of the traders, exhibitors and lecturers have been placed on both the club’s website and social media platforms.
Fox hunts return to the weekend by popular demand, with the club hosting both a mobile and pedestrian hunt, on Saturday the 22nd February, starting from the race course. If you are interested in taking part, please complete the registration form so that planning can be arranged; the form is on both the club’s website and social media pages.
There will be a meet and greet the evening prior to the field day held at a local tavern across from Wyong train station from 6:30 PM onwards.
It’s a great way to have a chat with other amateurs before the field day, meet old friends and have an opportunity to make new ones.
At the Field Day, both Lecture rooms have been filled and in a Field Day first, we are proud to have Peter Parker VK3YE attending live via Web Conference for those who follow Peter, He is an incredible asset to the Amateur Radio community. There is a fully air conditioned marquee available for commercial traders, and word is that some traders are planning field-day only specials.
Gates open for traders between 6am and 8:30am, and general public at 8:30am. As always, there’s the Field Day raffle with some great prizes up for grabs including a lucky door prize; so, make sure you keep your wrist band on you.
There will be both VK and US licence examination and upgrade facilities on the day. To register for VK examinations, please email the club’s education officer at education@ccarc.org.au no later than Thursday, the 20th of February.
For more details on all Field Day activities, head over to www.fieldday.org.au.
The Clubs repeater team have been working tirelessly in the background over the past few months to have a MMDVM based repeater system activated for the Central Coast region and are proud to announce that this has been completed! The new 70CM VK2RAG repeater is available on 438.875Mhz with a 7Mhz negative offset running off the Brandmeister DMR network. This repeater has a static talk group of VK wide 505 as well as state based 5051 through to 5059 with both timeslots available for use. Further modes will become available in the coming weeks. A special thanks goes to Don VK2ZCZ, Ian VK2HK.
The club’s Thursday evening net starts at 8pm, on the VK2RAG 2 Metre repeater. On Thursday evenings, the repeater is connected to Echolink conference server “CCARCNSW”; and to the HAM server, with thanks to John VK3HJQ – which also relays VK2WI Evening News. You can also watch the net by checking into the live Facebook video stream. The Club thanks Alan VK2MG for jumping in to run this.
The Club’s D-star repeater is making progress; with a replacement computer is now up and running, the repeater is available locally and will soon be configured to restore full operation.
You can find out more about the CCARC on the web at ccarc.org.au. The club is also active on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Simply search for “Central Coast Amateur Radio Club” and remember to give them a like and follow to keep up to date on the latest happenings. Club related news is happily accepted at publicity@ccarc.org.au.
Brad VK2NMZ
Vice-President, Central Coast Amateur Radio Club.