Monthly Archives: February 2017

REAST AGM and 2017 Committee

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Last Sunday REAST held it’s AGM. A modest number of members attended and reports from President, Secretary and Treasurer followed by reports from Ex-Officio officers. Members heard that the Association is currently started a path of change with an increase in activities and further changes will occur this year as a result of the changing lease arrangements and introduction of NBN at the clubrooms. The financials for the Association were in good shape, with a loss for the year attributed to the purchase of new assets.

A committee was elected, with the only change from last year being Scott VK7LXX appointed as secretary as Sean VK7FAZE has stepped down for the year to focus on other projects. Congratulations to all members of the incoming committee. The REAST Committee for 2017 is:

President:            Ben Short VK7BEN
Vice-President:       Justin Giles-Clark VK7TW
Secretary:            Scott Bragg VK7LXX
Treasurer:            Alan Jeffrey VK7KAJ
Committee Members:    Larry Hower VK7WLH
                      Barry McCann 

Draft Minutes for the AGM & reports will be placed on the members only section of the website shortly.

From Maxwell to Marconi – A History of Electrical Radio

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February Presentation by Mike VK7MJ

February Presentation by Mike VK7MJ

Last week REAST held it’s first major presentation for the year with Mike Groth VK7MJ taking the audience through a history of radio from Maxwell up until the time of Marconi, where signals were largely generated in the form of electrical spark and modulation of the spark. This was the time of spark gap transmitters and who knew it would be so interesting!

Mike presentation took us through how a spark transmitter was tuned, how a coherer, magnetic, electrolytic and crystal detectors worked, and the role wireless played in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. We learnt about the early attempts at wireless telephony, the development of the HF alternator and the infamous Pousen Arc converter, and Fessenden’s pioneering Christmas broadcast of 1905.

For those who missed the presentation, we will soon have it up on our Youtube Channel, so watch out for that!

NBN to Improve Member Services

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Contractors installing conduit

For those visiting the REAST Clubrooms in the last couple of weeks, you may have noticed that there have  been some rather significant trenches being dug outside and down the hill. This has been to install the conduit for the National Broadband Network (NBN) Fibre.

There have been quite a few difficulties in being able to install the NBN to the REAST clubrooms given the location on top of the Queens Domain – The eventual solution has been an aerial installation of the fibre along  powerlines that come near to the clubrooms before completing the distance with underground conduit – no small feat considering that after about 2 feet you hit solid dolomite rock!

The NBN will allow us to provide many new and exciting services to members via the internet, mainly through the much improved network speeds that will enable the ability to use many of the online streaming services to provide live streams. The REAST Committee also have a few other tricks up their sleeve so be sure to watch this space!