Absolutely perfect weather for the well attended annual club family picnic day on Mount Macedon. A great turnout, wonderful, friendly conversation and we're already looking forward to next year's event. Thanks to VK3NE for arriving early and holding our prime position.

This week's club meeting was our traditional social event featuring a quiz from Quizmaster Joe who put a wide variety of question to the competing table. Topics included physics, computing, art, geography and astronomy. Once again, the ladies table won hands down. Table 6 was more puzzled than most. This year we had a BBQ which was a great success. This year's event was the best turnout in living memory.

At this month's meeting at Woodend we were honoured to have a presentation from popular ABC TV weather presenter, Paul Higgins, VK3EN. Paul took us on a journey through the history of weather prediction in Australia. The technology used to predict the weather and portray it graphically has changed dramatically over the time Paul has been involved. Starting with simple maps with velcro'd temperature in the days of standard definition TVs through to the era of computer graphics with the...

A bottler of a show and tell meeting at the club this month. Craig Norris, VK3CDN, from Icom gave us one of the first demonstrations of the new 24GHz features of the IC-905 (with transverter). Graeme, VK3CDO, showed a Vietnam era portable military radio set called an A510 which was in beautiful condition. Put beside an IC-905, I think we could tell which radio he'd rather have in damp jungle conditions. Peter, VK3TPM, showed a home brew antenna hoisting drone and a home brew AM tr...

Saturday's meeting will be a "show n tell". You are encouraged to bring along items of interest, projects complete or not, interesting equipment or accessories. Here's a few previews. Graeme VK3CDO will bring an AWA made military radio A510. "The A510 wireless set was a crystal controlled, low power light-weight transmitter-receiver, designed primarily for use by long range infantry patrols. It could be used as a man packed station on the move, in a vehicle, or as a ground station...

Followers of informative radio web sites QRPer and SWLing will be familiar with the prolific Thomas, K4SWL. He lives in North Carolina in the US and has just come through hurricane Helene. The reason I think it's useful to spread his story is that in the midst of widespread damage, amateur radio kept working (of course) and proved to be incredibly valuable. Throughout the storm, our normally quiet repeater systems were buzzing with activity. The traffic became very organized, with hourly...

Brian Richardson VK3CCR gave a very informative presentation about radar covering both ground based and military plane mounted systems. He explained how it works, how interference and unwanted reflections are mitigated and recent developments which have allowed the power to be reduced while improving accuracy. The club had two new members in attendance for the first time, both are interested in getting their licenses. Rather than using the projector and portable screen we took advanta...

The Radio Old Timers Club annual general meeting and lunch was well attended by members of MRARC. Peter VK3RV, Jen VK3WQ, Ray VK3ACR and Peter VK3TPM were there to represent our club. First the meeting kicked off with the annual general meeting which was conducted efficiently by Jim Gordon VK3ZKK with some members on Zoom. Next a hearty lunch was served. Mick VK3CH gave a detailed presentation about microwave operation. Futuristic technology was on show from VK3BIG who h...

Australian QRP and home brew enthusiasts typically subscribe to two fine newsletters, the local Lo-Key from the VKQRP club and the British SPRAT from the G-QRP club. Both are A5 format newsletters packed full of interesting projects and ideas. They are of sufficient quality to stand many re-readings over the years but it's sometimes hard to find an item that comes to mind in the pile. Lo-Key has an index and SPRAT sells back issues on CD or USB key. When I heard of the publication of ...

A handy introduction to ham radio that hasn't dated at all really. https://youtu.be/DLjrr8Mgu5A?si=JFHDRZtzXiYqG6OD