Author: webdev

At the January business meeting, Peter VK5BE sought club support to investigate building a repeater at Portland to support our members there. The club agreed to the investigation.

Since then Peter and Col Vk5dk travelled to Mt Eckersley, just north of Heywood to see what might be possible.

While there they were able to access our Channel 6 repeater on The Bluff from ground level using a 1/4 wave antenna on the roof of Peter’s car. This gave the group some hope. The distance is 100km.

Col had brought along a yagi for 70cm and using that they were able to work the repeater via the UHF links at The Bluff. Signals were noise free and it should be understood that the UHF beams were pointing to Naracoorte and Mt Benson, not Mt Eckersley. So a link will not be a problem.

This gives strong hope that a repeater at Mt Eckersley would be a good proposition for both linking and providing coverage to the area. The view from the top was very impressive.

While there they spoke to the farmer and he was positive about hosting the repeater on his farm.

Further updates will be made when more progress is made. No final decision on proceeding with the project has been made, it’s investigations at this stage.

Naracoorte repeater
The repeater is now up and running again, thanks to Peter VK5BE for making two trips to Naracoorte.
On arriving at site on Sunday, Peter found that the battery and charger were operating as they should. The various receivers and transmitters also seemed to be working well.
The problem was traced to the controller. Recently the Naracoorte repeater was locked for two days, so to save the TX I decided to turn it off by remote control to save wear and tear. Well that turned out to be the wrong thing. Unfortunately there was a bug in the software (nope, not the 6 legged variety) which resulted in once a transmitter was turned off it was not possible to turn it back on from the same receiver. It would have been possible to do it through the links but we didn’t know that until later.

So Peter brought the controller to my QTH where I had a spare ready to go but in the meantime I was able to identify the problem on the spare and use the plug in  keypad to recover repeater control if it was turned off. So when Peter arrived here it was just a matter of telling the controller that it was OK to work the repeater and it could be returned to site with the warning to me not to turn off the repeater by remote control until I had killed the bug. When we install the antenna which is now ready to go (just waiting on personnel and the crane), I will reload a corrected version of the software.

So Peter then drove back to Naracoorte, re-installed the controller and all was well again. While he was there he has turned the mute off a little harder as it was on the edge of noise. That should sort the noise problem.

Thanks Peter. I have disciplined myself accordingly, a couple of quick slaps on the wrist.

Update:

Problem in software found and fixed. Will update both Naracoorte and Bluff when next on site.
Cheers
John

At present Naracoorte is not responding. A few days around Christmas time it was locked on with receiver noise and this is usually either interference or low volts. As it went on for a couple of days I think the unit was losing power. Probably the battery charger.

At present no-one is going that way with a key so it will be off until further notice. I think the links are down too.

John

Repeater coordinator
2/1/20

Whoops, Col and I were both preparing a note at the same time. So here’s some extra info but see Col’s post for the fine detail.

We are booked in. Bring your own everything. Be prepared for a nice walk around the Lake, plenty of wild birds to be seen and maybe even a wallaby or two.

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Here’s a map of the location, use + or – to zoom or mouse to shift map around.

Anyone building yagis would find this source of clamps very handy. Especially if you need to insulate the elements.

John

https://www.pirtek.com.au/-/media/feature/products/sect-e-tube-section-rev-h-hyperlinked.pdf

ALARA  is the Australian Ladies Amateur Radio Group. The Associations mission is to encourage women’s interest and active participation in amateur radio.

We have created a grant scheme to encourage more women and girls to get their amateur radio licence qualifications. This scheme covers approximately half the cost of getting a licence and callsign. It is also available to enable current Foundation Licence holders to upgrade their qualifications to Standard or Advanced.

Full details are available on the ALARA website https://alara.org.au/

The information has already been provided to WIA and Amateur Radio magazine.

I would appreciate it if you would forward this message to assessors and anyone else associated with the AMC who may be in a position to promote the grant scheme.

Linda Luther, VK7QP

President, ALARA

Users would know that about two weeks ago we lost the transmitting link to Mt Benson from the Bluff.

Today, Andrew VK5MAS and I visited the site to identify the cause of the problem. Turned out the transmitter itself was faulty and was outputting a VERY weak signal only just audible 20 metres away.

We had prepared for all eventualities and so had a spare TX on board. A quick swap and all was OK again.

Unfortunately my IFR blew a fuse and so it was not possible to set the audio level to the standard 3kHz deviation for a 1kHz tone. I needed the IFR to monitor the deviation. Consequently it was set by ear and will need to wait for another time once the IFR has been repaired.

In the meantime, the whole repeater system is again functional.

While we were there our power meter was read. We will now be able to pay the proprietor of the site for electricity used.

John VK5DJ

Congratulations to our five prospective amateur radio licencees. Following the exams held Sunday 21st July they have all learned of their success. A job well done over three Sundays and their homework completed with the Foundation Manual.

Well done, and a special thanks to Tim VK5AV for his leadership in the program and ably assisted by Tom VK5NFT, Peter VK5BE and John VK5DJ.

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Callsigns have now been confirmed as shown below each photograph. The photos are passport style as submitted to the Australian Marine College, I’m sure we’ll get some better ones later. We know all our members will welcome our new Hams when heard on air.

Deanna and Kate have both been active and it’s great to hear their voices on air. Now we’re waiting for our other new amateurs to get some equipment and aerials up so we can say “G’day”

The repeater problem has been tracked down. Would never have found it on site. We won’t mention how many hours this has taken.

Solution – the audio input transformer had been burnt out. Originally I thought it had just failed but on replacing the transformer the next one also died. The problem was a blob of solder on the socket for the exciter that was shorting the +12V supply to a bridge connection for the input of the audio. Unfortunately it was intermittent. After putting a third transformer in (supplies getting thin) and resoldering the joint to get rid of the surplus solder there was no longer 12V finding its way onto the audio transformer and burning it out

I have rechecked all levels and adjusted powers on the units. The repeater was re-installed on Tuesday 16 July 2019. Audio working fine.

You’ll note that the map is missing. I’ve been experimenting so that it would become interactive. Unfortunately Google now charges for use of an interactive map although the first $200 worth is free.

I’m looking into it but reluctant to put my credit card to the test. I’m looking at alternatives but as we all know the Google Maps is the best.

Hang in there I’ll see what I can do over the next few weeks. I’m a beginner at WordPress.

John