QRAWhat is the NAME of yourStation? QRGExact FrequencyQRHFrequency variesQRK1-5 Intelligibility1 Crook - 5 Beaut! QRM1-5 Interference1 Nil - 5 Extreme QRN1-5 Static1 Nil - 5 Extreme QROIncrease PowerQRPDecrease PowerQRQShall I send Quicker?QRSShall I send Slower?QRTStop sendingQRVAre you ready?QRXCall again?QRZWho is calling me?QSA1-5 Signal strength1 Bugger all 5 Very strong QSBSignal is fadingQSLAcknowledge receiptQSOCommunicate with...QSPRelayQSXI am listening to ...on ... QSYChange frequency oftransmission to ... QSZSend each word twice...or whatever i.e. QSZ 2 and finally... ;-) ;-) QLFMate, are you sendingwith your Left Foot? ___ CT |
Ham radio spoken here
(last updated 21st Aug, 2008)
Mail to 
In 2006 we went to the , wow what a delight.
I was going to take part in the inaugural 3day ham convention (talkfest) but declined as I was really there on family business, BUT we did live at the site of the convention and met many serious DXpeditioners, purviewed their setups & might even have frobbed a knob or two... :-) (is 50 Q's/hr a good rate for phone?)
888 888 888 d8P .d8888b. 888888 888b 888 d8888
888 888 888 d8P d88P Y88b "88b 8888b 888 d88888
888 888 888 d8P 888 888 88888b 888 d88P888
Y88b d88P 888d88K .d88P 888 888Y88b 888 d88P 888
Y88b d88P 8888888b .od888P" 888 888 Y88b888 d88P 888
Y88o88P 888 Y88b d88P" 888 888 Y88888 d88P 888
Y888P 888 Y88b 888" 88P 888 Y8888 d8888888888
Y8P 888 Y88b 888888888 888 888 Y888 d88P 888
.d88P
.d88P"
888P"
(Ascii Graphics, I love 'em! Make your own at this figlet server.)
Amateur (Ham) Radio is one big area of interest outside work. My callsign
is VK2JNA (it was VK2YAK until 13th May 1999) & I'm a member of the Manly-Warringah Radio Society (MWRS)
which has the callsign VK2MB & through this group I've gotten most of the
information I needed to get my ham radio license. I was also helped a lot
by a ham friend at work, Bill, VK2XUS. I hold an Australian "Intermediate"
license & now I'm should be getting practise on my 10 WordsPerMinute (wpm)
morse so that I may sit the exam & achieve "Full Call" status. Some of
the things the MWRS does include holding exams so that Hams-to-be can
get their "call". We help with Jamboree-On-The-Air (JOTA) so that scouts & guides can
talk around the world & begin to understand radio. We have
communications exercises to keep current with our ability to provide
communications in trying conditions. We do this by providing radio comm's
for some local horse riding groups in Sydney, including the North Side
Riding Club, Forest Hills Pony Club & the Kellyville Riding Club roughly
once a year for each. The comm's exercises are usually about half a day in
length & are a great day out.
I sat the two exams for 5 wpm Morse Code back in 1999. I attempted both the 5wpm & 10wpm Sending & Receiving. I fell apart on the 10 receive (I passed the transmit exam !). With the 5wpm Morse under my belt, I now hold a `Combined' License. This gave me some HF priveleges that I didn't already have. I'm quite enjoying this, as I have an old TS-520 Kenwood HF Radio that until now I've only ever used up at the radio club (with full-call's around). Recently I strung up a (single trap, multi-band {80-40-20-15-10m}) dipole antenna to use on the HF frequencies so hopefully I'll give 80m a belt soon. It seems to have a decent Standing Wave Ratio (SWR) on 80,40,20m but terrible on 15m & 10m
I've always wanted to get my full-call licence (and I'm not there yet) but it's easy to let other things get in the way. Many thanks to all who encouraged me, particularly Russell, VK2BYN, who started up an "HF Fund" to raise money to pay for my Morse exams (this had the desired effect of making me feel guilty enough to do the study). Thanks also go to Ted, VK2FLB, who has tirelessly corrected my sending style & James, VK2JN, who was always there with words of encouragment.
Now, Russell let me have one day off & then I have to get back into the study to polish off 10wpm Morse receiving. I'll get there.
There are 3 types of exams to pass when getting a license in Australia; Theory, Regulations & Morse Code. Depending on exactly what combination of exams you pass, you could end up with one of these 5 types of License (in roughly ascending order of difficulty)
I made friends with a ham at work (Bill VK2XUS) and I picked his brain from time-to-time. I also joined the local amateur radio club. I then purchased a copy of "Novice Theory", "Novice 1000 Questions" & the "ARRL Handbook" from Dick Smith Electronics. I read the theory & began to plough through the questions. When I couldn't answer a question or found that I had got it wrong (answers in the back of the book), this is what I did (in order) until I understood what was going on:
a) went back to the novice theory book
b) ARRL Handbook
c) annoyed Bill
d) asked my friends at the Radio Club
When I got to the end of the book, I felt I'd covered enough to attempt the Novice Theory exam, I set a date with the Exam Invigilators at my club. They ordered the exam papers. At this stage I got the Regulations booklets free from the Australian Communications Authority & started filling my head with the details. On the day of the exam I thought I'd also have a go at the `Full' theory exam paper as well. The Invigilators had a spare so I had a crack at that (not having prepared myself). I was expecting to fail in this one but I thought I might have had a small chance (& this would give me a `Limited' call instead of `Novice Limited'). Well, I got through the 3 exams (Regs, Novice Theory & Full Theory). This enabled me to get my Limited callsign VK2YAK. It seems that all the Regulation information that was in booklets are now spread across the Australian Communications Authority website [ACA (amateur)] and this would be a good place to start looking.
In 1998 I started to get itchy to get onto the HF bands properly. I borrowed Morse code tapes from a friend at the Radio club & started practising these and augmented this with one of the PC computer programs "code practise" to get better as well. I got myself up to the 7 WordPerMinute level & thought I'd have a crack at the 5wpm receiving & sending exams. With some prompting from Tim VK2ETJ ("Ah, go on, 'av a go") I thought I'd give the 10wpm a whirl as well. I passed 3 out of 4 of these so I still have to do the 10wpm receiving. Better than I expected! I'm just back to working on this now.
There are other sources of information about getting your Australian Amateur Radio Licence & I would look at the WIA How to Become a Radio Amateur and particularly the WIA Education Service as the books & tapes seem quite worthwhile. I would always suggest that anyone studying for their Ham Radio licence should be able to have a `mentor', whether that be a ham friend, or become a member of a ham radio club or something of the like. It can save hours of frustration by having someone who can explain things to you somewhat differently than `how the book' does. This is evident when you consider that even though the "1000 questions" book has answers, they are not all correct!
QSL literally means Aknowledge Receipt.
QSL cards are sent bewteen Amateur Radio Operators to serve as a confirmation of communication (with all the details filled in of course).
Click for a larger image
"My home location - from a ham radio point of view" CQ Zone 30 Gridsquare QF56of ITU Region 3 33 � 45'8" South, 151 � 13'24" East AMG_Zone: 56 AMG_Easting: 335430 AMG_Northing: 6263900
At home I'll have Terrey Hills tuned in in the background and be wandering through 80metres (3.500-3.700MHz) but lately I've got my dipole tuneable on 15metres (21.000-21.450MHz) so I may be there trying for some DX (often between 21.200 & 21.300 between 0700-1300 UTC).
There was one morning earlier this year my H/T came in real handy. I was half-way to work when I had a blowout on my bike. It would be an hour walk to work from there or 1/2 hour back home & then I still had to get to work (in their wisdom the local private bus company won't allow bicycles on board). Whilst listening to the 2m repeater up 'till this point I'd noted that Steve, VK2KFJ had just left home & would be going past very soon. I broke into the conversation he was having & got him to pick me & the crippled bike up. I was in the car within a minute, arriving at work 5mins later. Therein lies the justification for a $700 radio and annual license fee - NOT! ;-)
For HF at home I have an ED-52C single-trap 5-Band dipole strung between a 40ft telescopic TV mast at one end of my property & a 35 ft combination scaffolding/waterpipe attached (at the 22ft mark) to my house . The TV mast has two levels of three `guys' & will stay up with or without the aerial. The distance between the poles is approx 105ft but there is a problem. The aerial is about 112ft long! This means that I had to droop the ends down. It still seems to work quite well & is resonant on 80m, 40m & 20m. I'll be darned if it's resonant on any other bands. On 15m it is downright NASTY. On 10m, forget it. The centre of the dipole is not supported & is about 30ft high. It has a coax feed draped from a branch of a gum tree & then a lemon tree before disappearing under the house.
On the 35ft pole on the house I have a small rotator with 2m 9element beam (vertically polarized), counterbalanced by a 70MHz-500MHz discone. My mate Mike refers to them as Sputnik (discone) & Yorgi (Yagi)! The beam is very handy for 2m repeater work around Sydney. The beam is especially good with simplex contacts with friends running H/T's; or mobiles in bad areas that can't get into our Terrey Hills repeater that well. I've got an old 70cm Beam to replace the discone but I need to do some checking out of that first before it is `launched'. I'll move the discone to a seperate mount (lower) as it's handy with UHF CB & testing out other junk.
At someone's recommendation, I made a Roll-up J-Pole for 2metre operation (22k). I got the plans off the web (it is at many places) & I present it here for easy finding. I've used this when going bushwalking & stopping overnight. I can hang it from branch with string & 3m of coax to my H/T. It doesn't work for me on 70cm, but maybe I need to trim a few things. This is a neat, easy & cheap aerial for anyone with simply a H/T at home. It can be hung from the curtain rod, hidden from view! WARNING: Two people who have built off this plan found they needed the aerial to be about 52" long instead of 51". Start long & trim back!
Recently I took delivery of a "Hustler 6BTV" (6 Band Trap Vertical) which I purchased second-hand from my mate Eric (a ham at work). At home I mounted it on the ground (a 4' stake, depth 2.5') but it was very average (& that's being nice!). I took it to the second JOTA station we set up this year at the Mosman Girl Guides & mounted it 15 foot in the air with two 60ft radials. Walking this monstrosity up by myself was a bit ridiculous but I got it done. At first it was dead as a doornail! Investigation showed a break in the coax feedpoint. Without my soldering iron I did a hasty connection job (pen-knifes are heaven sent) although quite good enough for a day of transmitting. We worked VS6 on 10m, G, CT, ZL & VK4 on 20m and VK5 & ZL on 80m. Excellent, considering how simple it is to carry around & setup (compared to say, a dipole). To work out who these countries are, click here.
A few worthwhile links for further reading on Patch Antennas...
There is a lot of good info available from the WIA website (linked above). If I miss the Sunday broadcast I view the text via this website.
They are *always* asking for them, so I've written an article or two for the WIA's "Amateur Radio" magazine. This is the monthly Mag you get when you become a member.
I have recently become a member of WICEN. Even now I don't currently feel I have the time to make a solid commitment to their activities, although I do try & help out with some of the community service events that they are involved with, including the City-to-Surf Fun Run in August and the Hawkesbury Canoe Paddle in October. In joining, I will try to make time to become more efficient in message handling etc to enable me to help out effectively.
I've always been intrigued by the efficient communication that can be done by voice on radio & also, equally impressed at how it can be massacred by long-winded overs of people who never seem to get to the point. As a child on CB radio, I was involved in some nets (even net controller!) & immensly enjoyed this communication that used the procedures of controlled nets.
This involves being a communication person stationed at the various drinks stations throughout the course. Other positions include Ambulance Headquaters in town or at Finish or at the First-Aid station at Bondi. We usually connect through a UHF repeater temporarily located near Bondi. We pass messages (traffic) involving emergencies (runners collapsing & requiring assistance) & also simple things like "The drinks station has run out of cups, can we have some more?". This is a good day out starting early (leave home around 6:30am) & finishing early afternoon, depending on which station I'm at.
This invloves being a communication person stationed at the various checkpoints along the Hawkesbury River somewhere between Windsor & Mooney Mooney (Brooklyn). Checkpoint officials take down the number of each canoeist going past & we pass the traffic downstream of which canoeists have been through our checkpoint, which have retired, which are missing etc. We need to be set up by 3pm on the Saturday afternoon for a 4pm start of the race. The (mad) canoeists head downstream from Windsor & the 111km trip can take until midday on the Sunday (i.e. all night!).
This is a particularly interesting event from a radio point-of-view because of the difficult & varied terrain surrounding the river. In the last race I set up a backup 2m/70cm aerial as Eric, VK2KUR already had the station going with a modest aerial setup. It was atop a 10m mast with 25m of RG-213 coax feeding it. I brought this down to a 2 position coaxial switch which I also ran Eric's aerials through (so that we could flick between aerials as the conditions varied throughout the night). We found that his aerials picked up the UHF repeater about S9 whereas mine picked it up about S3 (on the same radio). This is roughly a 36db difference. Eric had much shorter coax & I have tested mine to be less than a 3db loss through the system. The explanation simply comes from the freaky conditions where there are multiple paths which the radio waves follow & this can lead to cancellation effects. This can change throughout the evening & hence having a second set of aerials that can be switched to may be of benefit.
Hawkesbury Canoe Paddle 2000 (14Nov2000)
The Hawkesbury Canoe Classic was on again the weekend of 11-12th November. As usual, it is a race over 111kms of the Hawkesbury river from Windsor to Moonee Mooney. The canoes (kayaks or surf ski's etc) have between one & eight paddlers & there were about 400 canoes entered this year. It has staggered starts (different classes) from around 4pm & the first boat home arrived at 2:33am Sunday morning! The cutoff to be finished is midday on the Sunday.WICEN is trusted with doing the majority of the radio communications from the start to finish with many checkpoints, RVCP help out as well with their own Marine comms & some checkpoints on boats anchored in the river.
Some of the people involved from our radio club, we had Richard VK2SKY manning (on his own!) Checkpoint Delta; at Control was myself, Dom Bragge VK2JNA: at Checkpoint Hotel was Andrew VK2TWO & on Checkpoint Lima (which is nominally handled by RVCP) out in the river on his boat was Tom VK2HUZ & his crew of amateur soon-to-be's Selwyn & Peter (Peter is just finishing his HSC & will join the club soon).
The basics of the radio operation (should!) go like this.
Collating the data
At each checkpoint, the canoeist comes close to the shore & calls out their number to an HCC official. The official records this as both "arrived here" & "left here" entries. If the canoeist just stops at a checkpoint for a rest/cup-of-tea/sleep/toilet stop, they are simply recorded as "arrived here" until they leave, when they'll be entered into the "left here" log. This information is posted on a blackboard at the checkpoint & is conveyed to the WICEN operator for uploading (via packet radio) to a bulletin board. The information on the blackboard is so that groundcrew for each paddler can stop in & see how their canoeist is going!Crosscheck
After Checkpoint Alpha uploads "left here" info into the packet system, & maybe some co-ordination on the voice network, Checkpoint Bravo can download it for it to be checked against their growing "arrived here" list. Anomalies will then stand out & missing canoeists can be looked for, either at the checkpoints or on the water by rescue craft.Complicated by the event going through the night, sometimes problems arise of canoeists missing checkpoints or numbers being recorded wrongly. This causes some consternation until it is worked out but the event works well. With the voice network, consisting of interlinked 3 70cm repeaters & one 2m repeater, officials can be found readily for decisions to do with safety (like closing the race early due to bad weather) or rulings; and safety information can be broadcast to every checkpoint quickly. We can find when a canoeist last passed through a checkpoint or whether they have pulled out & are then not expected further down the course & we can get their groundcrew to meet them asap.
At the Control centre, we were lucky enough to have a number of WICEN operators so we could man the radios from 1400 Saturday throughout the night to beyond the end of the race on Sunday. I slept in 2 shifts; about 2300-0000 Sat night & from 0630-0900 Sunday. At other times I was the Control radio operator or their backup.
All in all it is a good event & a great practise for WICEN operations. All the riverside checkpoints are portable, some using mains power, some on generators & some with their own batteries etc. This is my third HCC & I hope to be back for many more.
Dom Bragge VK2JNA
"Back when I were a lad" I got interested in Radio whilst on a school Army Cadet Camp. I saw some of the radio's the `signals' guys were using & it simply took off from there. I convinced a friend that having CB radios would be fun so we went out & bought a 3 channel hand-held each.
I have lots of UHF CB repeater location data (& links to frequencies) on Dom Bragge's CB Page...
There is a good CB website at THE AUSTRALIAN CITIZENS BAND RADIO FILES.
An old work aquaintance, Keith Harwood, explained it like this to me: Skin Effect...
I am currently (Feb2001-Feb2002) operating from our home in Denville, a small town in New Jersey, about an hour out of New York City. I have setup a G5RV junior (52ft long) which is only about 14ft high, one end strung from a tree branch & the other from 2 8ft tomatoe stakes lashed together.
I have a regularly scheduled QSO with the crowd at the Manly-Warringah Radio Society in Sydney every week. the sked details are Wed 1100UTC 14285kHz. Out of the last 6 Skeds, we have contacted 5 times! Also had contacts with MWRS members at their own QTH's including Horst VK2HL & Pano VK2BTA.
Check out a wild look at Australia in this azimuth map Bearings from New Jersey...
A large list of all my radio bookmarks.
|
This RingSurf Australian Amateur Radio Net Ring The BEST way to tour Australian Ham sites. Want to join the Australian Amateur Radio Ring? |
|---|
|
[ Previous 5 Sites | Skip Previous | Previous | Next ] [ Skip Next | Next 5 Sites | Random Site | List Sites ] |
 |
This RingSurf Amateur Radio World Ring Net Ring owned by Dom Bragge's HAM page VK2JNA [ Previous 5 Sites | Skip Previous | Previous | Next ] [ Skip Next | Next 5 Sites | Random Site | List Sites ] | |
 | This Amateur
Radio Webring site is owned by Dom Bragge VK2JNA. Want to join the Amateur Radio Webring? |  |
| [Skip Prev] [Prev] [Next] [Skip Next] [Random] [Next 5] [List Sites] | ||
Mail to dominicb@lucent.com.SPAM.ME.NOT
<-- remember to remove the .SPAM.ME.NOT
Get your own Free Home Page
