Tag Archives: Presentation

Perspectives of Australian Broadcast Radio

Posted on by

On Wednesday 5th November 2025 we were privileged to hear and see a fantastic presentation on Perspectives of Australia Broadcast Radio.

Perspectives of Radio in Australia - Phil Tyson

Phil Tyson from the Sound Preservation Association of Tasmania (SPAT) came along with a very professional and entertaining journey through broadcast radio history from the wild west start when amateurs were allowed to play music in between the commercial stations through to the Golden Era of radio.

Perspectives of Radio in Australia - Phil Tyson

Phil’s presentation included many great pictures and audio recordings of historic radio programs and events.

Phil even brought along some great equipment from across radio history.

A huge thank you to Phil, ALARA and SPAT for the presentation.

Phil has extended a invite to the SPAT rooms in the old Bellerive Post Office and they are open from 11am-3pm Wednesday – Fridays. https://www.soundpreservation.org.au/

73, Justin, VK7TW

P25 Emergency Services Network Build

Posted on by

September Presentation Night

The first Wednesday night of September it was standing room only in the REAST COVID-Safe clubrooms for a presentation on how to build a statewide P25 based Emergency Services radio network given by Andrew Johns VK7AJ.

Andrew covered all aspects of a P25 Network and its use within a dispatching organisation like Police, Fire and Ambulance. The topics covered included – What is it, its benefits, comparison with its competition – TETRA, services and trunking.

Andrew then went on to architecture, interfaces, voice & data calls, encryption, the future and then took a look at the local environment.

A huge thank you to Andrew Johns and the respective organisations for the presentation.

73, REAST Committee

REAST Members learn about Virtual Reality

Posted on by
Ian Mackintosh Explaining Virtual Reality (Photo VK7TW)

It was standing room only and we had a visitor in VK2 Bob VK7BS who has moved down here and is about to become a member of REAST.

The room was setup in a theatre of the round configuration with a big table in the middle with three different Oculus Rift headsets (DK1, DK2 and CE1), computers, high power video cards, controllers and cameras.

Ian then took the audience through the video games that pioneered 3D and VR with Doom and Quake. We started to see standardised 3D gaming engines that most manufacturers adopted.

Ian Mackintosh started with a presentation on Virtual Reality (VR) Archeology. Starting in 1965 with Ivan Sutherland and Ian took the audience through the development of computer graphics and specifically three dimensional computer graphics. The VR boom took off in 1970-80s with Atari with arcade games which overtook the military applications and development. The game that took Atari to another level was Star Wars with vector graphics and Ian bought along service manual for this game. The 1990 saw NASA put resource toward VR along with Nintendo Virtual Boy and SEGA cockpit arcade game. But unfortunately each manufacturer would custom build and develop the hardware and software. Most of these were commercial failures. Ian then went through the VR Recipe including 3D hardware, multi-thread multi core processors, six degrees of freedom, 3D audio, etc.

Continue reading →

VK7MO 10GHz Grid Square EME Adventures Presentation

Posted on by

Wow, Rex Moncur VK7MO gave us a four part illustrated presentation on his 18,000km journey on his recent 10GHz Grid Square chasing EME DxPedition. Rex traveled far and wide into VK3, VK5, VK6 and VK8.

Rex started with a short presentation on the VK6 Northern Corridor Radio Group as he was very impressed with this club and the things they get up to. Rex then moved to a tutorial on EME propagation and then moved to his grid tour and get OK1KIR up to over 100 grid squares on 10GHz EME. These grid squares were from the OH, OG and OF grid fields. There were a few interesting and frustrating things that happened along the way but Rex achieved his goal!

Continue reading →

Remote Control Aircraft Presentation Fills Clubrooms for June Presentation Night

Posted on by

Ron Cullen presents on RC Aircraft Controls

Ron Cullen presents on RC Aircraft Controls

Wow standing room only for our REAST member Ron Cullen’s presentation on some very impressive radio control kit.

Ron started with some history of his Radio Control (RC) journey starting in 1979 when he was in the Air Force and they had an Aero modelling club and even showed and RC controller from that era.

Ron was posted all over Australia and he took his RC planes with him. Zoom to 1998 and Ron left the Air Force and shelved his interest in RC. A couple of years ago he started to get back into it. The night Walrus was his first purchase and some VR google was he first foray back into RC. This included some interesting innovations including a Visual Approach Slope Indicator for his RC planes and this mirrors the use of this technology at commercial runways.

Continue reading →

The Dish Mount and Controller Forum had us Spinning!

Posted on by

Richard VK7ZBX's impressive 1.8m mobile dish.

Richard VK7ZBX’s impressive 1.8m mobile dish.

We had a great roll up to our forum with many people coming along with show and tell.

Notable there was a large 1.8m AZ/EL dish that was trailer mounted that Richard VK7ZBX brought along – more on that later.

The night was all about sharing people’s experiences. We started with Rex VK7MO who took us on a picture journey of his adventures in dish mounts starting with 1296 and working through each iteration of the mounts and heading into the 10 & 24GHz telescope mounts with milling machine table used for accurate azimuth adjustment. Rex’s show and tell included the azimuth and elevation measuring devices. Thanks Rex.

Continue reading →

From Maxwell to Marconi – A History of Electrical Radio

Posted on by

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!

October Presentation – Antarctic Communication and Science Programs

Posted on by

AAD PresentationKim Briggs VK7KB gave a fantastic presentation on support the Scientific Program run by the Australian Antarctic Division with some communications references as well.

Kim started off with the Aurora Australis ship and the many different aspects that it is used for and how it is used. It is a very versatile ice-breaking science platform that is leased from P&O.

Throughout the talk there was references to the many many projects and programs that Kim has been involved in – from camera mounts, trawling, echo sounder refits, operating maritime mobile, calibrations, battery packs, data collection, whale recorders, Conductivity, Temperature, Depth instruments, etc. Kim has been involved in it!

We ran out of time for the communications presentation so we have booked Kim in for that presentation next year.

We finished of with many questions and ran a video from one of the trawl camera showing the sea bed at a variety of depths down to over 500m.

A huge thanks you to Kim and we look forward to the sequel.

The talk was videoed and will be played at this Wednesday night’s DATV Experimenter’s night.

(73, Justin, VK7TW)