Why I refuse to Re-Join the WIA!

**this is my personal opinion! it’s the internet, personal opinions are freely available on the internet! If you strongly disagree with my personal opinion, please send me $80 and pay for my new first years membership to show me the organisation has or is actually prepared to change 😀 The WIA is more than 100…

Mystical Unicorn DX Wire Ultra Light..

 A couple of years ago one of the Manly Warringah Radio Club members acquired some mystical unicorn DXwire from Germany. This created a heated debate that lasted for months on the merits of this expensive unicorn blood rainbow wire vs cheap and nasty copper from discount electrical suppliers R us. Well, i have just acquired some…

Project Space Balloon 5 – Flight

PSB5 has been flown. The device was launched at around 11:30am north west of Bendigo and  I was able to track the device from around 12:30 when it was heigh enough to be seen from home. The path was very different from that expected when they ran the prediction 2 weeks ago, the device headed…

FT817 Kranker Knob

Everyone kept saying “knob, knob, knob” about my ft817, i didn’t know what they meant, so I googled “817 knob” and discovered the Kranker Knob from the W4RT shop. This store has all kinds of ways for me to spend my money on the FT817! I ordered a knob, just on $30 with postage and exchange…

VK3 Sota “LITE” Introduction

At the November coffee shop meeting for the EMDRC radio club, Marshall, VK3MRG and myself presented on sota, and how to activate sota easily in metro Melbourne The night was aimed at people interested in being an activator but unsure where to start, where the summits were and how simple an activation can be. Marshall…

Project Space Balloon PSB-5 – This Saturday

I received this email from the PSB team, I hope to listen and capture the signals saturday. The website has more detail. http://projectspaceballoon.net ****************************************** Our PSB-5 balloon launch will be from Bendigo this Saturday, 16 November 2013 at 11am. The details: – 434.65MHz USB for telemetry and SSDV images. RTTY 450Hz shift, 300 baud, 8 bit…

EMDRC / VK3 Microwave Day 2013

On Sunday 10th November EMDRC hosted the 2nd annual VK3 / Microwave test and tune day at the club’s rooms located in Burwood. The format this year included the normal field testing of TX and RX systems, from 1.3GHz, 2.4GHz, 3.4GHz, 5.4GHz, 10GHz and 47GHz, but also feature a special visitor from Tasmania , Rex VK7MO and…

FT817 Peg Legs – Palm Radio

I discovered a critical flaw in the FT817 almost the first time I used it (a flaw for me anyway) the box is great, but has no built in ability to raise the display/control at a nice angle easily, it works a treat vertically, resting on the heat sink extension on the bottom of the…

QRP by the Bay Day

Yesterday afternoon, I visited peter VK3YE and a group of like minded hams at a arp afternoon at a park near the beach in Chelsea south of Melbourne. My kids came along with the promise of a cool playground/park for them to explore, and it was a very cool park with a lighthouse and pirate…

10GHz EME VK3BQ – W5LUA Texas

Today at the EMDRC microwave day, rex, vk7mo had a 10GHz EME (earth-Moon-Earth) station setup to work Al, w5lua in Texas. Rex runs the 90cm dish and 50watts running the WSJT software and using a new mode JT4F. After Rex made his initial contact with Al, a lot of those who were part of the…