Wellington VHF Group, Inc: Online.

Recession hits radio classes

One response made by the Government to the recession has been to wipe nearly all of the funding previously allocated for community education throughout N.Z. Consequently the community school, Onslow College, where we previously ran evening radio classes for amateurs, has withdraw facilities. This has forced us to cancel our radio courses planned for the next semester.

This move by Government has not been popular, having led to outcry from communities and condemnation in the media. So, how can we continue to attract and to educate new amateurs? A new strategy is called for.

At their last meeting your committee approved an initiative brough forward by Peter ZL2VK. We will be running radio classes between 3:30pm and 5:00 pm one afternoon a week for a series of thirteen classes. We already have a good relationship with Tawa Community Centre, part of Wellington City Council, and they will provide the venue, (the Group also hold our meetings at this centre), and they will also help us with promotion of the classes to the local Colleges. Peter has the organisation of this well underway, but he needs more tutor/mentors. If you are interested in supporting this activity, even if only for some sessions, please contact Peter directly on Tel 232-8608 or 021-0239-5071, or e-mail Peter at sheldad@iinet.net.au

In addition to these classes, we continue to provide study materials available from our website at , and to provide exam services. We also continue to provide Callsign services, and have licenced 8 new amateurs, and reissued a further 18 licences to lapsed amateurs in the past 12 months.

MED - Discussion paper on “806-960 MHz band replanning”

As I mentioned in last month’s column, we have been working on a response to MED. This has now been sent in. Copies of our submission are available in pdf from the President on request.

Two Special Interest Group meetings

This past month we ran two SIG meetings on successive Thursdays. Both were well attended.

The first saw members work on modification of 900MHz mobile radios. These are second-hand items from USA which require some changes to be able to be used on our band in N.Z. John ZL4JY has devised the necessary modifications, and under his direction, the units were cleaned and modified. Although they still need a software upgrade to complete the modification, they were able to be go/no-go tested and almost all worked first time. A further session should see the work completed and the radios made fully operational. John ZL4JY was also able to demonstrate the 900MHz repeater that he has completed, ready for installation.

The second SIG meeting involved further work on members’ Softrock software defined receiver kits. Firstly, some of us had anticipated the assembly of small surface-mount devices as a challenge, but with a little practice we were soon making good progress. Secondly, some found the maths involved in DSP a bit daunting. Perhaps this presents an opportunity for one of our technical wizards to present a tutorial on this topic, (SDR, DSP, j-operator, complex numbers with imaginary and real parts, quadrature signals etc and how this all applies to conversion to digital, and digital processing). If you would like to volunteer to expand our knowledge, please contact John ZL2HD, our meeting coordinator.

Rutherford Trophy awarded to Fred Johnson ZL2AMJ

Congratulations to Fred ZL2AMJ, who has been honoured by the Institute of Physics. The President of the N.Z. Institute of Physics has presented Fred the Rutherford Trophy for 2008 for his work in developing the “Radio Waves in Schools” kits.

Fred commented “I appreciate the honour of this award, as it displays that when you get into Amateur radio, you don’t know where and to what it may lead”. How true.

The Radio Waves in Schools kits have now been delivered to over 50 schools and to some Universities and Science Centres and are effective in promoting amateur radio to youth. Congratulations Fred, from all your friends within the Group, we are proud to have assisted you with the production of this programme.

AREC and Brrr, Brass Monkey

Rick ZL2TVY, our deputy section leader reported that our AREC section had been placed on standby twice in past weeks for searches for missing persons. Whilst on these occasions our services weren’t needed in the field, it does give LandSAR the reassurance that our people are prepared and ready should the need arise.

The most recent of the two incidents unfortunately resulted in two fatalities, and this case underscores just how hostile and unforgiving the Tararua ranges can be in winter.

So, for those of you who are venturing out to high places for the Brass Monkey contest (50MHz and up, 1-2 August), take care out there.

73,
Dick Greenbank ZL2TGQ
President.