Tag Archives: REAST

REAST Visits Aunty (ABC)

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A huge thank you to Damien VK7SD and Allen VK7KAN for their wonderful interactive tour of the ABC studio and technical areas on Wednesday 12 March 2025.

ABC Tour 20250312

There was a group of 27 REAST Members who came along and toured all the facilities starting with the Radio Studios with the groups splitting into two and hearing all about the high-tech digital studios and the role of the presenters and producers. We where even treated to the Producer of the Night Radio programming letting us know all about his role.

ABC Tour 20250312
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REAST @ the Australian Antarctic Festival

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The Australian Antarctic Festival rolls around every two years and in 2024 REAST was asked if it would like to participate with a focus on radio in Antarctica.

https://www.mawsons-huts.org.au/2024-festival-program/

We jumped at the chance and thanks to Kim Briggs VK7KB and Justin Giles-Clark VK7TW we were able to source a chronology of ex-Antarctic radio equipment for the display.

AAF 2024 - REAST Stand

AAF 2024 – REAST Stand

From the 1911-14 Mawson Expedition we had a spark transmitter / receiver thanks to Richard VK7RO and we had the output going out loud on an amplified speaker that caused people to jump when they heard it – the kids thought it sounded like a fart which got people laughing!

We moved to Collins gear from the 1940-50-60 with some great supplementary pictures from the Australian Antarctic Division.

Eddystone and Collins gear covered the 1960-70 and ICOM gear covered the 1970-1980s.

There was the Ionospheric Prediction Service Beacon on display (VK0MA) and an aviation Non Directional Beacon Antenna Tuning Unit both from Mawson Base.

The 1980-90s were covered by a Barrett 950 HF gear and the 2000s to the present day was covered by ANARESAT Satellite Technology pictures.

Mike Hawkins VK7DMH bought along his weather satellite receiving gear and we had weather satellite pictures coming through over the weekend.

There were five Arduino based Morse code decoder available for kids and parents to learn Morse code on and they were definitely the highlight of the weekend.

Morse Code AAF 2024

Morse Code AAF 2024

Those people who came along to the festival were able to learn and play with the very code  that was being used to link Antarctic bases with the rest of the world in the past.

AAF 2024 - Morse Code

AAF 2024 – Morse Code

On the Sunday we also had a HF QRP station setup and live contacts were made with a range of stations including ALARA contest stations.

AAF 2024 - VK7WN Contact

AAF 2024 – VK7WN Contact

A great weekend of promotion and celebration of Antarctica, radio technology throughout the ages and amateur radio.

A huge thank you to Kim Briggs VK7KB, Herman Westerhof VK7HW, Mike Hawkins VK7DMH, Warren Nicholas VK7WN who helped out making this weekend a success.

73, Justin, VK7TW

P25 Emergency Services Network Build

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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 Virtual Club Gathering – DMR

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VK7HSE on DMR
 
Our second whole of club virtual gathering was a focus on Digital Mobile Radio with Scott VK7HSE.
 
Scott focused on the Radioddity GD77 handheld which is very popular in Southern Tasmania. Scott started with a short recap on DMR terminology then dived into exploring Roger Clarke’s OpenGD77 firmware and the features of this firmware enhancement.
 
This firmware update sits on top of the normal GD77 Firmware and provides many more features and the ability to download the user database for your area which then presents the callers callsign instead of their DMR identity number.
 
Scott took the audience through where to get the firmware update from GITHUB and then how to load the firmware on your GD77. Some of the features of the loading software were also covered.
Scott and Clayton VK7ZCR then took questions from DMR, FM and Chat channels. A huge thank you to Scott and Clayton.
 
Some helpful links mentioned in the video below:

The code plug that Scott VK7HSE refers to in the video can be found here: OPENGD77_VK7_FM_DMR_ZONE80_REV1

The above code plug has been prepared by Scott VK7HSE. This code plug is offered without any warranty or liability from both REAST and Scott. You may use at your own risk. Please be aware you will need to update personal details in the codeplug before uploading to your Radio. These details will be your DMR ID and callsign. Please note this code plug will only work once the GD77 has been upgraded with the above firmware.

The presentation was recorded and can be found on the REAST YouTube Channel at:
 
This presentation took place on the Zoom platform thanks to Hayden VK7HH.
 
 

New Digital Repeater To Increase Digital Coverage

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Yaesu DR-1X Repeater
On Wednesday, REAST repeater officer Damien Styles VK7SD commissioned the new Yaesu DR-1X digital repeater much to the excitement of the gathering of people at the Wednesday evening experimenters group. While the repeater was purchased some time ago, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that frequencies have been allocated by the ACMA for it’s usage.

The Yaesu DR-1X is capable of both analogue and C4FM digital voice and automatically switching between the two modes. Soon an additional module will be acquired to provide DMR, DSTAR and p25 digital voice capabilities.

This repeater is on air right now, with an output frequency 438.675Mhz with a 7Mhz negative offset for the input on 431.675Mhz.

Our repeater officer would be most interested to hear signal reports from you. If you are able to access the repeater, please let Damian know by emailing repeaterofficer@reast.asn.au!

Interest in Satellites is Blasting Off!

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20161124004318-5ff90c6cIn recent months an interesting phenomena has been occurring on Wednesday evenings at the REAST clubrooms. More and more you see one or more members huddled around a radios while pointing Yagi antennas at the sky and gently bobbing the antennas around as if they were fly fishing. Irrespective of the mean comments that these members may have gone a bit batty, there is indeed increased interest in making contacts via a number of orbiting satellites as they orbit the Earth.

Interest started growing around August with Larry VK7WLH bringing allow his hand held Arrow Antenna for Low Earth Orbit (LEO). This piqued the interest of several members and soon saw the purchase of more LEO type Yagis to work the Satellites. Wednesday nights have been largely spent trying to work out the optimum passes for the most well known satellites and then trying to hear the Beacon, or more recently establish a 2-way contact with other operators through the satellite. Below we have a video of Justin VK7TW listening for satellite beacons:

Are you interested is working the ‘birds? got to get some satellite satisfaction? Why not come up to one of our Wednesday night meetings to find out more, or visit the AMSAT Australia website for even more information and signing up to their mail list.

REAST Visits the ABC!

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REAST Members visit ABC (Photo: VK7TW)

Thursday night saw a good group at the front door of the ABC next to the Railway Roundabout and we were welcomed by Damien VK7SD and Alan VK7KAD who were our fantastic and very knowable hosts for the night.

We started in one of the radio studios with producer Dave who took the group through the preparation of radio segments using the various tools that are used to edit and queue radio promotional segments around Australia. Thanks Dave.

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