The main presentation at the September meeting at Woodend was a fascinating talk on setting up power for an off-grid home and reducing the interference toHF ham radio operation by Richard, VK3LRJ. Richard and his partner purchased a small house on a five acre block at Drummond. There is no mains power (or water, or gas, and not much internet).The previous owner had worked for Telstra and had built a small but ingenious solar system using lead-acid batteries. There were panels that mov...

As usual, a big turnout of Macedon Ranges Amateur Radio Club members at the RAOTC lunch in Melbourne. Guest speaker, Peter Wolfenden VK3RV, gave a fascinating presentation about aviation and amateur radio from the 1920s, “Wireless in the sky”. 
The presentation included photographs of wireless technology of the 1920s, and some of the people involved at that time, together with their place in our history.

A lively and sumptuous Annual General Meeting capped off a great year for the club. President Joe gave a report outlining the activities over the past year. The treasurer reports that the club's finances are healthy. 2024-2025 Committee VK3PRC, VK3BRT, VK3JCB, VK3TPM, VK3MAB, VK3CDO, VK3NE The existing committee was re-elected with Peter, VK3TPM elected to the role of Vice President. Richard, VK3LRJ was elected as a new member of the team. Chef Joe, once again worked his ma...

Today's meeting at Woodend was well attended and began with president Joe warming up the crowd and reminding us that next month is the annual general meeting. Jim then spoke about a recent emergency exercise in Woodend that simulated extreme storm weather which had taken out power and phones. People were injured and, apart from finding things in the dark, the other challenge was communication. Jim was able to show his 2m hand held and explained to the crew that he could communicate wi...

Today for the first time, club member Peter VK3TPM, ran a FreeDV RADEV1 net. Participating stations were: VK5KVA Jack, VK3PCC Peter, VK5MA Ian, VK5LN Michael, VK2BLQ Stephen, VK2GTS Gary. We could see VK2ABO was hearing us and we had reports from VK3RV. A recent video on the Tech Minds YouTube channel was the trigger for at least one of the participants who ran FreeDV for the first time. I note that in the digitalvoice google group Mooneer K6AQ posted "I think it would be a good idea ...