NEWS 04.06.2023

Central Coast Amateur Radio Club News – June 4, 2023

The club rooms at Kariong are open on Saturdays from 10:30am. As always, members and visitors are most welcome.
The Club had yet another successful show and tell at our clubrooms last Saturday. We had a good roll-up of both members and visitors. The event wasn’t themed so there was a good variety of interesting stuff.

Ryan kicked the day off with a live presentation of what SDR radios can do. He had a Hack RF SDR
modified by the addition of a Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillator for increased stability and
frequency accuracy. A small antenna was pulling in strong signals including some nearby interference. The
SDR was easily able to lock onto the GRN and with the use of SDR trunk software was able to decode the
control channel and various user traffic channels. The waterfall display clearly showed the various signals.

Ryan reported that a cheap RTL dongle can be had for about $30 and with the addition of readily available software, most digital transmissions including pagers can be decoded. A $30 SDR can take the place of an $800 scanner. Very impressive to see what Ryan has achieved.

Glen demonstrated two very different classic CB sets from the same year. One was more classical styling
whilst the other was more space age in appearance with rounded corners. He had restored this unit from the grave by replacing the burnt transformer, adding a heatsink to overcome a heat issue and re-capping it. The power supply and speaker live in a base unit that cradled the rig with a companion frequency display on top rounding out the full setup. All told something very unique from a period of rapid innovation in radio design.

Ryan kindly followed with a display of photos and commentary of the “Micro DXpedition” from Girrakool
to Wondabyne that Graham VK2GRA and Ryan VK2FRTS did mid-week. Ryan’s photos were very well
done, especially the panorama looking west from mount Kariong. Details of this 11km trek are on the club’s website and Facebook page.

Graham was up next with a display of some “Outback” style radios; including a small yellow AWA TR105
HF set that runs off “D” cells and a classic Codan 6924 “lunchbox” HF rig running off a car battery,.A Codan 8528 land mobile 100watt radio showed the advancement of technology. A Brisbane manufactured “Scout” HF rig with built in antenna tuner was last up.

Thanks to all those who “Showed and Told” and to those who came along.

On June 17 and 18, a Foundation and education training weekend is planned at the club rooms with training on the Saturday and exams on the Sunday.

At the VK2RAG Somersby repeater site, the D-Star, Rad-Net DMR and 2m Echolink services are fully
functional.

The club Web SDR at Somersby. Websdr.ccarc.org.au is configured to listen on 6 metres, 2 metres, 70
centimetres and 23 centimetres.

The Morning Tea Net is run on weekdays at 10:00am and the Weekly net on Thursday at 8:00pm.
Both nets are run on on the VK2RAG repeater – 146.725MHz with a 91.5Hz sub-audible tone, and on the
CCARCNSW and HAM Echolink conferences.

The Thursday evening net is also live video-streamed on the club’s facebook page.

You can find out more about the CCARC, our upcoming social events and other details that we can’t tell you about here on the web at ccarc.org.au, by phone on 02 4340 2500, or on social media by searching for “Central Coast Amateur Radio Club”. Remember to give the club a “like” to follow for any updates.

73, Alan VK2MG
Publicity Officer, Central Coast Amateur Radio Club.

Summary of Nets
VK2RAG 146.725 with 91.5Hz tone and Echolink through the CCARCNSW and HAM Conferences