The presentation night for May featured a fascinating history of a true Tasmanian Telegraphy, Telephony and Wireless Pioneer – Frederick “Pop” Medhurst.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QD7Px1IyE1w

The chronological journey of Frederick “Pop” Medhurst was given by Justin VK7TW who wrote the source article for AR Magazine at the start of 2024.

Justin started with an introduction of where Frederick “Pop” Medhurst came from in Chobham, UK and his early life and training. He met Alexander Graham Bell and was offered a job and corresponded with Bell for the rest of his life. He moved to Australia and then Australia and married his wife Edith Edney.

Federation created a unique technology test opportunity and Pop communicated ship-to-shore using spark in 1901.

Justin then showed pictures of the Medhurst Field Telephone that Pop invented and sold throughout the world. The Medhurst company installed the first electric light in Hobart. He was the first Life Member & Patron of the WIA Tas Division and was president over many years. He was also first president of the Hobart Radio Research Club. He organised the first and second WIA Federal Conferences in Tasmania in 1928 and 1935.

He was seen in photos at many events and field days around Tasmania up to quite an old age. The story was peppered with many firsts and Justin finished with the fact that the Medhurst Company still exist in North Hobart.

Frederick VK7AH sitting front centre in the WIA Blazer!

November 1932 VK7 Field Day Crew

REAST hosted a Fox Hunt day on Saturday 6th August 2022.

Even though the weather was a little bleak there were 10 hardy fox hunters who come along.

Fox hunters gathered for a quick briefing before setting off into the bushland of the Queen’s Domain to find the QRP Fox on 2m outputting 15mW.

This was a good training exercise to get fox hunters used to using their directional tape measure yagis and attenuators as they got closer to the fox.

The QRP Fox was eventually found and then the QRP Fox magically disappeared to another location that was in plain sight!

This was behind a metal sign so the signal was somewhat reflected and a little confusing to locate.

Prizes were given for those who found the QRP Fox over the two exercises.

Fox hunters then had a briefing on the DX Fox that had been hidden somewhere in greater Hobart.

This fox was built by Hayden VK7HH and uses a Baofeng handheld putting out 1W driven by an Arduino controller.

Fox Hunters took off in their cars and had been given an hour before hints would be given via Repeater 2.

The BBQ was started so there was hot food for when the fox hunters returned!

One hour came around and the hint of “Eastern Shore” was the hint. Then a little while after that another hint was transmitted being “Kangaroo”.

A final hint was given which was “Kangaroo Bluff” and there were some Fox Hunters who were already at the Kangaroo Bluff Historic Site and locating the fox.

With the DX Fox found everyone came back to the Queen’s Domain for the prize giving ceremony with some great prizes supplied by Hayden VK7HH from Ham Radio DX, thanks Hayden.

The Ham Radio DX video on the day can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeiccuuExOY

We then gathered to consume a yummy hot BBQ lunch thanks to Tony VK7VKT’s culinary skills on the hotplate.

Congratulations to all who won prizes and thanks to Ham Radio DX for sponsoring the DX Fox Hunt prizes.

Planning has commenced for the next one and the ALARAMeet Fox Hunt in November 2023.

Ron Cullen (Callsign TBA) took some “hatcam” videos of the fox hunts that are available at the following links, thanks Ron.

November Presentation

We have been fortunate to be able to secure a presentation from Paul Daniels VK0PD / VK2PAD who gave us an illustrated talk on his experience spending the winter at the Australian Antarctic Division Casey station. Paul started with some background on his interest in radio and Antarctica.

Paul did a site survey once down at Casey and the RF noise was not good but found a location for the antennas and operated from the Hobby Shack. Paul took a IC-7300, an IC-705 and HLA-305 PA and ATX converted SMPSU. Paul built a foot switch from workshop rubbish and showed his operating position in the hobby hut.

Paul showed the weather forecasts in Antarctica and the snow storms/blizzards engulfing and breaking the antenna regularly. It emphasised that there are relentless wind and blizzard conditions that saps your enthusiasm over time.

As the building services supervisor he visited the past radio antenna installation however all the V beams were broken and tower installation was condemned.

He outlined some fun stuff they get up to namely a sauna for 25m then into an ice bath for about 10m – yeah right!

Paul outlined an engineering job he undertook to improve safety and there is constant maintenance that is required to combat the relentless weather and this included some RF engineering work on the tandem delta with the comms tech.

Paul played a video of the first plane coming in along with the fog and it couldn’t land! But then an RAAF C-17A came into the next day and Paul got to come back on a nice big RAAF transport plane – nice!

Paul then took questions.

Do you realise that a job in Australia takes three to ten times longer in Antarctica!

Paul talked about operating radio and the polar flutter and outlined that he was operating radio down there not to make quick contacts but to operate radio and have conversations.

Paul described the size limits for the hardware that you can take down to Antarctica and the need to take down things to keep you busy.

Paul answered some late questions about heading south to work for the AAD and the opportunities that working for the AAD present. He finished with the comment that the AAD is a very supportive organisation to work for.

A huge thank you to Paul for this presentation and to Hayden for liaising with Paul.

There is a recording that is available from the REAST YouTube channel.

73, REAST Committee