Wellington VHF Group, Inc: Online.

Well that was an interesting year. Started with the possible loss of Kordia Sites and in particular "Breaking" of the National System. An extended power outage at the Belmont 710 sites (Only power from a Genset 2-4 hours a day) followed by District Plan Changes that got parts suddenly changed at the end of consultation.

Maps of the New Zealand Amateur Radio beacons, digipeaters and repeaters using Google Maps are now avaliable on the VHF Group Website at http://www.vhf.org.nz/maps .
The maps are available as maps embedded into this website, displayed in Googler Maps and as KMZ files that can be displayed using Google Earth or any other software that reads KMZ files.

The server hosting vhf.org.nz will be subject to a scheduled outage tomorrow evening (Thursday) between 5 and 9pm NZ Time.
Further details can be found here. Apologies for the inconvenience.

ZL1VMF
Webmaster

[EDIT: Scheduled Outage to move the server will now occur tomorrow (Friday) between 0815 and 1000hrs]

Hi Folks - sorry for a couple of unscheduled outages this morning and the further outage yet to occur later this afternoon.

The website has had a few odd reachability problems for some NZ networks over the last week or so.
BlakJak.net has some details; I believe it's now resolved but i'm waiting for the server host to confirm. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Apologies for the brief outage between 1100 and 1200hrs today.
Looking into the root cause, in the meantime, remember to check BlakJak.net's Administrivia for the latest on the servers goings-on.

At the NZART 2010 AGM in Auckland the remits were discussed and voted on.

Remit 2 had been withdrawn by Council but the submitting Branch held it's right to have it presented.

The outcome of the voting is:

Remit 1 Free ARX Services to NZART members - by count. For: 629, Against: 737 Lost on votes.

Remit 2 Review of Family membership - Carried with amendment to replace "principal member" with "licenced member".

Remit 3 Release of Call Letters X,Y,Z- Carried

Remit 4 Seek Mandate for Entry Level Licence - Carried

Remit 5 AREC meeting times at Conference - Lost

At the April meeting of WVHFG, Mark Foster ZL1VMF advised the meeting that due to a change in working circumstances, he would be relocating (back) to Auckland. Mark joined the Group in 2006 when he moved to the Wellington area from Auckland.

Mark, in his time with the Group, quickly became heavily involved in Group activities. He was voted onto the committee at the 2006 AGM and was also appointed to the role of Webmaster. Mark also served as Secretary of the WVHFG and remained as an elected committee member until the 2009 AGM. Often handy with his camera, many of the images found on this website and subsequently printed in Q-Bit were taken by him. Mark was also involved with the WVHFG AREC Section and assisted recently at the SAR Exercise in the Tararuas and arranged and coordinated WVHFG involvement in the 'Bike the Trail' event in both 2009 and 2010.

Mark Foster ZL1VMF operating the SAREX Base at the recent Police SAREX in Upper Hutt, April 2010

The May 2010 meeting was ZL1VMF's last regular meeting attendance. Members of the group thanked Mark for his efforts. Mark will continue to be associated with the VHF Group and will continue serving as Webmaster and webhost, allbeit based in Auckland and ably assisted by other members of the Web Team, which includes ZL2HD, ZL2TGQ, ZL2KG and ZL2WAL.

On a personal note, i'd like to thank Wellington VHF Group for the welcome they extended me on my arrival to Wellington, and their ongoing support over the last 4.5 years. I'm happy to continue to be associated with a positive, forward-thinking and progressive Amateur Radio Club that truly has the hobby (and its enthusiasts) at heart. - ZL1VMF

Sorry to folks who noticed the server was unavailable from ~0100 until ~0900 this morning. A power glitch in the Wellington CBD had a, shall we say, negative impact on the network provider i'm connected through. More details under BlakJak.net Administrivia as they come to hand.

We now have a Google Calendar tracking Events @ The Wellington VHF Group.

This has great potential - keep an eye on it for upcoming events and for those who use Gmail (etc) already, you can integrate this into your own Google view.