------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SEPTEMBER 4 2011. VK and WW STORIES AND MORE IN THIS EDITION OF NEWS FROM THE WIRELESS INSTITUTE OF AUSTRALIA FOR WEEK COMMENCING SEPTEMBER 04 2011. Project Horus. The VK5 team advises they are planning a day of several amateur high altitude balloon launches, looking towards October the 16th (a Sunday). Also they are hoping to launch a talk through repeater to be used by the amateur community as part of JOTA, as well as several experiments and other in-house payloads with at least one APRS equipped payload. The repeater is likely to be launched early in the day, airborne for as long as possible. At this point they have not decided on exact input/output frequencies, but will publish this information soon. As usual, launches are very weather dependant. Please direct any queries regarding plans to the contact form on the website: http://projecthorus.org/?page_id=162 (Adrian VK5ZSN & Terry VK5VZI) SOMEDAYS ARE DIAMONDS! And it would seem so are planets! Well at least one recently discovered by CSIRO Astronomers using 'The Dish' – CSIRO's radio telescope near Parkes, VK2. Yes they believe they've found a small planet made of diamond, orbiting an unusual star. The discovery was made by an international research team, headed by Professor Matthew Bailes of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. The journal, "Science," say ""Although bizarre, this planet is evidence that we've got the right understanding of how these binary systems evolve." VISION AUSTRALIA An ISS linkup which came "out of the blue", occurred in Australia last Monday night according to the UK Southgate Amateur Radio Club and was deemed a great success. Twelve students got to ask one question each before the ISS passed below the horizon. Again I ask clubs and hams that are associated with any of these "talks to spacemen", please let the WIA know in advance, we do not get advised by Ariss be it here in Australia or overseas, maybe they are concerned someone might 'fire up' on the spacecrafts input frequency? HAMS ACROSS AUSTRALIA. VK1 This is Alan Victor Kilo One Whiskey X-ray, Education officer of the, Canberra Region Amateur Radio Club and WIA assessor. Because of the amount of recent interest in obtaining an Amateur Radio Licence CRARC have run foundation licence course weekends in July and August. CRARC’s next Scheduled foundation course is next weekend 10/11th of September which is fully booked. Where possible upgrade assessments are run as part of the foundation course weekend, however we can run upgrades at other times by arrangement. For each course weekend CRARC has have been at or near capacity of six to eight candidates. The number of candidates is limited by the number of WIA assessors and learning Facilitators available for the courses. Now for the plug if you are at all interested in becoming a course presenter and or WIA Assessor or Learning facilitator in the ACT Region please contact the Canberra Region Amateur Radio Club education officer Alan VK1WX on education@crarc.ampr.org CRARC have already taken and are taking bookings for the 12/13th November course Foundation courses generally run every two months if the number of WIA assessors/Learning Facilitators increased, CRARC could increase the number of candidates for each course, thereby increase the number of participants in our great hobby of Amateur Radio 73 Alan VK1WX VK3 web service:- http://www.amateurradio.com.au/news/ Police Roundup http://www.vicpolicenews.com.au/ Want some quality training for the Foundation Licence, or know someone who may be interested, then tell them about the next class on offer from Amateur Radio Victoria which is September the 10th and 11th. Inquiries most welcomed by Barry Robinson VK3PV on 0428 516 001 or email foundation@amateurradio.com.au Mark VK3PDG of the Southern Peninsula Amateur Radio Club tells us the Rosebud Hamfest is on Sunday 13th November 2012 NOTE 12! at 10am. This is a new Hamfest to promote Amateur Radio on the Mornington Peninsula The SPARC Hamfest is a new, exciting event showcasing all things Radio & Electronic. Displays, forums & traders are just the start. Cutting edge technology will feature alongside traditional favourites, & our kids corner will educate & delight children as well as the young at heart. Come to Rosebud by the Bay on November 13th 2012. VK4 - QNEWS web service local audio news:- www.wiaq.com/ftp/vk4_qnews_64.mp3 local news email qnews-vk-subscribe@yahoogroups.com VKR Roundup http://www.police.qld.gov.au/News+and+Alerts/Media+Releases/ Welcome to QNews from VK4WIA. I'm Geoff Emery, VK4ZPP, and I've been thinking. Way back when Model T Fords and Austin 8 motor cars were sought after prizes of the new industrial age, the radio experimenter was adapting available paraphernalia to the hobby. By the time Australia could claim its own motor car, the surplus of war time electronics were being used to grow many a ham station. By the time the first 8-bit computers were appearing, surplus boards from obsolete mainframe computers were supplying active and passive components to the hobbyist. A few projects featured in "Amateur Radio" magazine. The commercial land mobile industry has bequeathed many rigs to the amateur cause with varying amounts of success. The one thing that marks these practices has been the personal desire to learn. learn by doing. When we look over recent times there has been an exponential growth in the semiconductor industry to feed the communication/IT markets. The upshot of this is that mass produced components with performance that would have classed them as laboratory grade standard in years gone-by are now being used by the home constructor. The major demand for home brewing is stronger eyes as surface mount components get smaller. I'm Geoff Emery and that's what I think....how about you? TOWNSVILLE vk4wit@wia.org.au 4773 1196 or 0408 001142 po box 333 Garbutt East, QLD 4814 www.tarc.org.au The North Queensland Amateur Radio Convention will be happening a couple of weeks time in Charters Towers, from Friday afternoon 16th to Sunday afternoon 18th September. The registration deadline is this Tuesday 6th September. The primary venue for Convention happenings will be the Charters Towers RSL Club. Be registered to partake in tours, the Convention Banquet and the famous Monster Auction. For more information head to the Townsville Amateur Radio Club website at www.tarc.org.au This is Gavin VK4ZZ for the best Amateur Radio News Service in the cosmos ! VK7 vk7 local news, email vk7regionalnews-subscribe@yahoogroups.com http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vk7regionalnews/ NTARC meets informally for coffee each Monday and Friday at Friends Cafe, in Jimmy's shopping complex off Charles Street, Launceston between 11.00am and noon. A reminder too that on the last Monday of each month, the coffee venue switches to Lilydale, with David VK7YUM and Norma VK7FOOD at their cafe in the main street between 11.00am and noon. (73, Yvonne, NTARC Inc. Secretary) DISCUSSION POINT What use is an f-call? (#3) I have previously discussed the idea that having an f-call is like having a key to the front-door, or like the first step towards gaining a pilot license. You may think while you're listening to me talk that I've been in Amateur Radio for years and that I have all the HAM experience in the world. The opposite is true. While I have a long history in broadcast radio, that is, I'm not afraid to open my mouth in front of a microphone and I'm not afraid to participate in public fora, I am as fresh as a newborn in the Amateur Radio field. You might think that your skills, the ones you have as prior experience before you got your license are not sufficient to be able to actually contribute to this hobby. You may have the belief that there are others more qualified than you who may scoff at your technique or knowledge. As I have said, learning to fly, going solo, is something that every pilot from Cessna to Space Shuttle needs to do. Every Amateur you hear on the radio has been through those steps, some last week, some 50 years ago. There is no way to learn to swim, other than getting wet. If you're listening to this online, perhaps next week, you'll turn on your radio, or find a friend who has a radio to listen to this broadcast over the air. If you're listening to this over the air, then I encourage you to stick around at the end of the broadcast call in. You might be worried about "doing it right". Perhaps some background will help. A call-back is structured so that everyone can hear everyone else. Call backs can be as simple as keying the microphone and saying your call-sign. Wait until you have some silence, key the mike and talk. We don't bite! Also, if you end up keying the microphone at the same time as someone else, the person running the call-back might ask you to try again, or they might not say your call-sign, so they may not have heard you at all. So call again! As a final encouragement, I've been broadcasting on radio for nearly 20 years. I've conducted some 1500 radio interviews and spoken to many people. Every time I key the microphone, my stomach flutters and clenches. The trick is to carry on regardless! I'm Onno Benschop, Victor Kilo Six Foxtrot Lima Alpha Bravo. Be brave, you can do it! HOME OF THE GOOD GUYS As part of the Lincoln Short Wave Club’s 90th birthday activities, the club has donated a brand new FT450AT to the radio station at the University of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. The shack is housed in the Department of Electrical Engineering and is the HQ of the Ethiopian Amateur Radio Society. Listen for E T 3 A A often around 14.180 and 21.180. (sourced to southgate) INTERNATIONAL NEWS With thanks to RSGB, Southgate AR Club, the ARRL, Amateur Radio Newsline, NZART and the WW sources of the WIA. Public Consultation on Allocation of the Digital Dividend in New Zealand. The NZ Ministry of Economic Development has released for public consultation a discussion document on the allocation of “digital dividend” radio spectrum, specifically the 700 MHz band. The digital dividend is the radio spectrum freed up by the switchover to digital television. The discussion document canvasses technical and policy considerations for the allocation of the 700 MHz band. A workshop will be held on Thursday 8 September in Auckland, to provide an opportunity for interested parties to clarify any of the analysis or proposals presented in the document. FCC dispatches four "roll call" teams to look for silent signals. Roll-Call teams", use specially equipped SUVs, to "take a snapshot" of police, fire, government, radio/TV and other users of spectrum. In about two hours, the two-person team can perform a "fast scan" of the entire spectrum. Scan an area about to be hit by the likes of Hurricane Irene they then return to those areas once the storm passes, to detect changes. One thing the FCC is especially watching for: Broadcasters or wireless sites that may be running on emergency battery power, and which might need assistance. The FCC has opened its emergency 24 hour operations centre, "to protect peoples' ability to communicate" and to support licensees such as radio and TV. Harris Corporation has been awarded a $16 million follow-on contract by Lockheed Martin to supply more than 100 Harris High band Networking Radio systems for the U.S. Army's Warfighter Information Network — Tactical (WIN-T) Increment 2 program. The contract represents the largest-quantity radio order to date, and brings the total value of WIN-T contracts to Harris to more than $200M since 2002. High band Networking Radio (HNR) features the first-ever use of directive beam technology to achieve higher throughput over longer distances. A directive beam also permits simultaneous use of the same frequency between nodes not in each other’s RF path (Satnews Daily) After a Russian supply ship recently exploded, there are worries that there will be no way to get new astronauts to the station. By late November, the station may have to operate without a crew. The Russian supply ship was destroyed during lift-off and is a similar ship to what's used to launch astronauts. Three of the six space station astronauts, meanwhile, will remain in orbit for at least an extra week. Currently there are two Soyuz spacecrafts docked at the ISS. One is scheduled to bring back three astronauts in September and another is scheduled to bring the other three back in November. ============================================================================= NEWS FROM ARNEWSLINE USA A big day in the life of 11 year olf Kaitlyn Cole KS3P. At the 2011 Huntsville Hamfest, Kaitlyn was presented with this years Amateur Radio Newsline Young Ham of the Year Award. Reading from a prepared statement, Kaitlyn had quite a story to tell about her involvement in the tornadoes that ravaged her home state and her decision to try to help those in need: KS3P: “When the tornado struck on April 27th, I was very scared. We had no power and the phone was dead. I did not know how lucky we were until my parents took us out driving around our community. “Some of my neighbours had lost everything or had their lives cut short by the tornadoes that struck. It was not some far off event on the news. This was personal to me. “I didn’t think a young ham like myself could do much, especially an 11 year old elementary student. My dad took me down to a command post in a Huntsville church. We signed some release forms and were given wrist bands. We then met up with Charlie, W1CST. Charlie gave me a chance to operate and provided guidance. It was really overwhelming at first because I was completely new to doing net control in a real emergency. “At the time, I knew I was helping out but didn’t think much about it because there were so many hams working. For me it was a way to cope with the devastation and to give something back to my community.” All in all it was a great afternoon to honour a very giving young woman who even though she is only age 11 has proven that hams of any age are ready and willing to serve their community in times of need. As such, we join with our corporate underwriters and with the Huntsville Hamfest in congratulating Kaitlyn S. Cole, KS3P, for her dedication to the hobby, to the community and really to all of mankind. A LOOK BACK AT THE SHUTTLE AMATEUR RADIO EXPERIMENT Amateur radio has been an active participant on Space Shuttle flights since STS-9 Now that the shuttle program is at an end, Newsline Producer Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF, takes a quick look back at how the shuttle took manned ham radio into space: Audio of W5LFL first CQ approaching the US Pacific coast. That’s what it sounded like on my Icom IC-2AT in the courtyard of the old Metromedia Square building in Hollywood, California that winter evening in 1983 as Astronaut and Mission Specialist Owen Garriott, W5LFL, streaked across the night-time sky at close to 135 nautical miles above me in the space ship Columbia. Dr. Garriott was fulfilling a dream that he’d had since before his first trip to orbit aboard Spacelab several years earlier. That was to take a ham radio station with him into space. Now, thanks to some assistance from the late NBC Newsman Roy Neal, K6DUE, the blessings of then NASA Administrator Jess Moore, and an amazing flying machine called the Space Shuttle, it had come to pass. His first CQ from orbit brought thousands of responses, but the one that he heard best and who became the first United States ham to contact W5LFL was Lance Collister, then WA1JXN, now W7GJ, of Frenchtown Montana. The QSO between the two hams lasted only a few seconds during which ham radio history was made: First QSO between W5LFL/space mobile and WA1JXN in Montana. To get on the air from Columbia Dr. Garriott used a commercial handy talkie that had been modified and programmed for operation on several ham radio frequencies. To get signals out of and back into the orbiting spaceship W5LFL used a specially-designed cavity antenna engineered to fit a specific shuttle window and was held in place with Velcro binders. The antenna, designed by members of the Johnson Space Centre Amateur Radio Club was roughly 24 inches in diameter and looked somewhat like a large aluminium cake pan with a piece of coaxial cable running from it to connect it to the hand-held transceiver. Knowing the number of QSO’s would be fast and furious a small cassette recorder was attached to the system to log anyone he heard and anyone he talked to. Random QSO space to ground audio. In addition to the random QSO’s , Garriott also had some interesting pre-arranged contacts. Among others W5LFL was able to speak with the amateur radio club in his hometown of Enid, Oklahoma and with the Johnson Space Centre Amateur Radio Club in Houston Texas whose members had helped develop his flight ham station hardware. He also held QSO’s with the late Senator Barry M. Goldwater Goldwater and with Jordan’s late King Hussein, JY1. Contact between W5LFL and JY1: Dr. Garriott’s ham radio adventure on STS-9 ushered in a host of outstanding outreach activities that in following years that put ham radio onto almost every shuttle mission. It also lead to the creation of the Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment or SAREX program. This was the ground breaking alliance between the ARRL, AMSAT and NASA that over the years enabled astronauts on-orbit to make contact with thousands of school kids as well as to their own families back on Earth. And not only using FM voice. Soon both slow scan Amateur television and packet messaging were a part of SAREX as well. Eventually SAREX went from the Shuttle Amateur Radio Experiment to be renamed the Space Amateur Radio Experiment and then to ARISS – Amateur Radio on the International Space Station. Today, Earth to space station contacts are almost routine. More modern equipment and external antennas in the International Space Station make signals both ways a lot stronger than they were back in 1983 when Dr. Owen Garriott, W5LFL, called that first CQ from the space ship Columbia and ushered in the era of manned ham radio in space. Looking back over the years of ham radio operations from the United States Space Shuttle, I’m Bill Pasternak, WA6ITF, in the Newsroom in the City of Angels. In all there were five videos made chronicling ham radio on board the United States space shuttles. They live on as a lasting reminder of manned amateur radios first steps into space. SPECIAL EVENTS AND ON AIR CONTEST COLUMN - D A T E L I N E 2011 Oct 22 WIA Jack Files Contest Nov 26-27 WIA Spring VHF-UHF Field Day 2012 January VK Ross Hull Memorial VHF UHF Contest March 17-18 VK JOHN MOYLE MEMORIAL FIELD DAY June Long Weekend (vk4 time) VK Shires Contest. July First full weekend NZART Memorial Contest RD CONTEST Please make a note that there is only ONE email address to send your completed RD log to and that is the one shown on the WIA contest page. rdlogs@wia.org.au If you send it to ANY other email address it WILL end up in cyber-space! rdlogs@wia.org.au SPECIAL EVENT STATIONS, DX and BEACON AND NET ADVICE WB 6 OJB will be on the air as 7P8JK from Lesotho between September 15th to the 22nd. While other information was given, during his last Lesotho operation he was on the High Frequency bands from 40 to 10 meters using mostly SSB with some CW. QSL direct to his home callsign WB 6 OJB. 4 W 6 A will be QRV from Atauro Island (IOTA OC-232), Timor-Leste (East Timor), from 16 to 26 September 2011. 10 to 160 metres CW, SSB and RTTY. QSL manager is M 0 URX, direct via the bureau, or LoTW. PB 2 JJ will be active as 9H3JN from Malta between September 2nd and the 14th. Operations will be on 80 through 10 meters mostly CW but with the possibility of some SSB. QSL this operation via his home callsign PB 2 JJ. For rugby enthusiasts, look out for ZL4RUGBY operated by ZL4PW until 31st October. This is to celebrate the 2011 Rugby World Cup being played in New Zealand. THE QNEWS WORK BENCH - the nuts and volts report – Measure Twice cut Once. I’m Col…. VK3LED It's a parent's worst nightmare. A Child dying after being left in a hot car! But it's a tragedy that can always be prevented. A USA Man, Russ Rusakov says he has the solution. That's why he invented “The Safety Seat Alarm System”, with his company, Suddenly Safe 'N' Secure Systems. A weight-sensitive pad slips under the car seat, and is connected by a tiny transmitter. If you walk just 2 meters away from the car, an alarm that's connected to a key chain starts to go off. Rusakov described, "It immediately alerts with an 80 decibel sound, and it vibrates," He says it's very much like a smoke alarm in your house. You hope it never goes off, but can be a life-saver, if it does. Since it went on the market in March, they've sold literally hundreds! WW SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS --- FINAL FRONTIER FO-29 reaches 15th birthday Japan's FO-29 amateur radio satellite passed its 15th birthday on August 17th. Thanks to the careful power system management by the operating team the analogue repeater continues to function well. Recent telemetry received from FO-29 operational continuous analogue bus voltage as 15 - 16.5V and Transmit Power: 500 - 900mW. The linear transponder can be accessed on these frequencies: Uplink: 146.000 - 145.900 MHz Downlink: 435.800 - 435.900 MHz Beacon: 435.795 MHz The FO-29 Blog is on-line at http://blog.goo.ne.jp/fo-29 A google english translation of the blog can be found at http://tinyurl.com/FO29Blog Moon Mission Final Preparations. NASA's Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission to study the moon is in final launch preparations for a scheduled Thursday Sept. 8 launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. GRAIL's twin spacecraft are tasked for a nine-month mission to explore Earth's nearest neighbour in unprecedented detail. They will determine the structure of the lunar interior from crust to core and advance our understanding of the thermal evolution of the moon. (Source:irts) Astronomers Find Largest, Most Distant Reservoir of Water Two teams of astronomers have discovered the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe. The water, equivalent to 140 trillion times all the water in the world's ocean, surrounds a huge, feeding black hole, called a quasar, more than 12 billion light-years away. (Source:irts) WW SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS --- RADIO SCOUTING http://www.scouts.com.au http://www.scout.org/jota http://www.international.scouts.com.au CALLING FREQUENCIES Please QSY off the calling frequency after establishing communication. Australian voice calling frequencies: 3.650, 7.090, 14.190, 21.190, 28.590, 52.160 World CW calling frequencies: 3.570, 7.030, 14.060, 18.080, 21.140, 24.910, 28.180, 50.160 World voice calling frequencies: 3.690 & 3.940 MHz, 7.090 & 7.190, 14.290, 18.140, 21.360, 24.960, 28.390, 50.160 Calling frequencies for Slow Scan TV (SSTV): 3.630, 7.033, 14.227 Calling Frequencies for PSK31 14.070 SCOUTMASTER ARTHUR ANDERSON, W9WPH, STABBED TO DEATH ON HIKING TRIP W9WPH, of Kokomo, Indiana, 76, bled to death after being stabbed in what authorities are calling "a senseless act." W9WPH together with another man was leading two Boy Scouts, ages 11 and 12, on a required five mile nature hike on Bunker Hill, 60 miles north of Indianapolis. He was a scouting volunteer of some 50 years and was an Assistant Scoutmaster of a troop based at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Kokomo. Read more here arrl.org/news/scoutmaster-arthur-anderson-w9wph-stabbed-to-death-on-hiking-trip WW SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS --- RESCUE RADIO IARU REGION 3 Emergency Centre of Activity (CoA) frequencies 3.600, 7.110, 14.300, 18.160 and 21.360 MHz Southern Peninsular ARC are conducting an interesting exercise with the Peninsula Group of Fire Brigades on October 23 this year, attempting to link all stations back to the Rosebud Fire Station Divisional Command Centre by purely portable/self-contained means and outside of normal emergency service communications channels. This will be a chance for SPARC members not involved in formal teams such as WICEN etc to test their skills as a "last resort" option by emergency services. SOCIAL SCENE 2011 Sep 10 VK4 Sunshine Coast Hamfest SUNFEST at Woombye School of Arts 9am. Sep 11 VK3 SADARC Comms Day at St Augustine's Hall Shepparton 10am. Sep 16-18 VK4 NQ Amateur Radio Convention Date Set Townsville Sep 23-28 R3 Region 3 ARDF Championship Bendigo VK3 http://r3.ardf.org.au/ Sep 30-Oct 2 VK4 Central Highlands Amateur Radio Club AGM at Camp Fairbairn CONTACT Secretary Gordon, (vk4kal@wia.org.au) Oct 23 VK3 Hamvention Ballarat Sunday. Nov 20 vk5 Adelaide Hills Amateur Radio Society Hamfest Goodwood Community Centre, Rosa St Goodwood at 0930. Visit www.ahars.com.au for contact details 2012 15TH IARU REGION 3 CONFERENCE hosted by V.A.R.C. in Ho-Chi-Minh City, Vietnam. JAN 23-FEB 17 YEAR 2012 World Radio Conference WRC-11 Geneva 23rd January TO 17th February 2012 FEB 12 VK3 CentreVictoria Hamfest, Kyneton Racecourse FEB 26 VK2 CCARC WYONG FIELD DAY MAY 3-18 VK5 YL International 2012 Australia (vk5tmc@bigpond.com) Nov 12 VK3 SPARC HAMFEST (ROSEBUD BY THE BAY) Submitting news items If you would like to submit news items for inclusion in the VK1WIA broadcasts, please email your item in text to nationalnews@wia.org.au to submit audio read "how to submit items" in the weekly news page on wia.org.au Remember the sooner you submit material the more the likelihood of it being broadcast in the very next edition of WIA National News. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ============================================================================= WIANews - we've reported...YOU decide. TWITTER http://twitter.com/VK1WIA Societies and Club News Letter Editors can EXCHANGE a feed prior to the actual broadcast date, e-mail nationalnews@wia.org.au Call-backs follow the RF editions, but also for text readers you may lodge a quick reply to let us know you read it, who knows, you might even get a "cheerio call". Thanks to to our dedicated band of broadcast volunteers who utilize their time and equipment in bringing you this weekly broadcast. The purpose of "WIANews" is to rapidly provide news of interest to active amateurs residing in Australia and the globe. We strongly encourage membership in the Wireless Institute of Australia and participation in the activities of local clubs. Opinions expressed in "WIANews" are those of the writers who submit material and do not necessarily reflect those of the rebroadcasters, nor the National WIA, but are broadcast in the spirit in which they were submitted. Material may be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form, a credit to WIANews wouldn't go astray... Compiled by VK4BB on behalf of the National WIA. ***************************************************************************** /ex