At the Woodend meeting this month we were pleased to welcome Guy DeSimone, VK3GUY, who runs VK Radio Repairs and is our local authorised Yaesu Dealer and repair centre. Guy demonstrated an FT-710 transceiver working in to a remote tuned screwdriver antenna outside on the lawn. There was some discussion of the Australian dealer network and some common repairs that Guy deals with. At the time of our meeting the Dayton hamfest has just begun and only a few announcements of gear up...

A few club members made the trip to the Moorabbin Hamfest which was a terrific show this year. Loads of interesting radios, test equipment, connectors and books were on sale. As well as beautifully restored older gear there was a display of modern Yaesu equipment. Towards the end of the morning's show prices started to come down and some tables were giving away what was left. It's worth staying to the end. Thanks to the organisers for a well run Hamfest, we look forward to next yea...

If you haven't seen the movie Frequency it's worth a look. The plot involves some amateur radio equipment which is used to communicate across time. The movie is available for free on ABC iview.

John, VK3JCB, showed his home-brew coil winder at the last show and tell meeting and we asked him for some more details on the project. Earlier this year I was given a cardboard box containing several hundred reed switches of varying sizes. Included in collection were a number of Comus GC-1513 switches. Just after receiving these switches, the February 2024 edition of Practical Wireless included an article detailing the construction of an antenna switching unit based around the use of...

Illustrated with archival film and photographs, as well as interviews with those involved, the documentary below traces the evolution of civilian involvement in radio-based intelligence during both world wars in the UK. It was the tireless work of amateur radio enthusiasts during World War I, that initially convinced the Admiralty to establish a radio intercept station at Hunstanton. Playing an integral role during the war, technological advances meant that radio operators could pinpoint sig...

This month's meeting was a show and tell session where some members brought along recent projects they've been working on. Aaron, VK3AHC, has been working with Meshtastic nodes. The board he's using includes Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS and a 900Mhz LoRa radio. LoRa radios have amazing range for their power and Aaron has been testing by going for a long walk with one of the nodes. John, VK3JCB, needed to wind solenoid coils with 1,200 turns of 0.2mm wire so he built an automatic coil winde...

Jim Gordon introduces Michael Goode An excellent turnout from club members at the latest RAOTC club lunch at the Caulfield RSL. Thanks to the excellent rail service from the north it's not too hard to travel to the big smoke for a gathering such as this. The speaker was Michael Goode, VK3BDL who talked about 'Holiday Dx-ing'. He has travelled all over the world and organised reciprocal radio rights in most places. Another highlight was Barrie, VK3AXK, who was able to spend some tim...

At the club meeting in Woodend, our guest speaker was Tony Falla, VK3KPP from our sister club BAREC who talked about his experiences in providing backup communications that can be used during emergencies. Tony talked about how quickly the communications we rely on, primarily mobile phones, can stop working in times of stress. Reasons include power outages that exceed the backup batteries, destruction of cell towers, or even the network overload due to people calling for welfare checks of...

The new venue this year, Rowsley Hall, was bursting at the seams with all the enthusiastic amateurs in attendance. The intense sun telegraphed that the day would turn out to be a warm one. Happily there were refreshments including, I'm told, a large number of hot chocolate options. While there was a strong team from our Bendigo brothers, I didn't spot any members of MRARC, at least early on. While those excellent capacitors were very tempting, I came away with...

Today's meeting at Woodend was well attended. Graeme, VK3CDO, gave a fascinating talk starting with a bit of history of aircraft in Australia and ending up with a survey of air disasters in our region. Graeme covered the history of the "DC" line of planes, starting with the DC1, DC2 and later the incredibly popular DC3. 13,000 DC3s were built over the years. Among the "highlights" was DC2 VH-UYT which hit Mt Dandenong due, we think, to navigation errors which led to them no...