5 min
QNews for May 19th 2024 Q-News AR News from Queensland
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- Hobbies
This is Allan VK4HIT with news from Ipswich and District Radio Club.
First up from WICEN, the Brisbane Trail Marathon was held on April 28 with members volunteering their time at five checkpoints, a portable repeater site, and the base. The importance of providing safety communications to such events opens up the opportunity for members to support the club through the WICEN group. Congratulations to first-timers.
The next event is the Pinnacles Classic on June 16 followed by The Guzzler Ultra Marathon held over two days – July 20 and 21.
Now to more domestic matters, but no less important. Members are reminded a new mowing roster for the clubhouse is being put together. Able bodied members are urged to put your name forward. The club supplies the mower and fuel. The roster means only one or two mows per year if it can be filled with at least 10 members. As secretary Greg VK4GJW puts it – many mowers make light work.
Reporting from Ipswich this is Allan, VK4HIT.
Hello, I’m Geoff Emery, VK4ZPP, and I’ve been thinking.
An interesting time has been had by radio enthusiasts in the past few days with a G5 level flare impacting the Earth’s magnetic field. Some people recognised the severity of the event when the bands went dead and pictures of auroras from the Antarctic to the sub-tropics were appearing on TV and internet sources.
Those of us old enough to remember the heady days of the legalisation of CB in this country know that it also coincided with a peak in sunspot activity.
27MHz was a school that taught many how well low power signals can go when conditions are right.
We are seeing these magnificent openings again.
Back then the Novice Licence was drawing interest amongst radio enthusiasts and projects were published to adapt and use cheaply available equipment on the Novice allocations. The hobbyist Aladdin's cave of the day, Dick Smith stores were at the front of the pack in packaging and selling kits for things like transverters which used the ubiquitous CB rig as the generation platform to access other bands. Many people went on self learning safari and explored the design technology and I recall Amateur Radio magazine carried articles for changing the mixing crystals in the 23 channel radios to put them on accepted amateur frequencies in the 10 and 11 metre bands.
These days there are collectors who pay seemingly outrageous prices for veteran CB equipment and from pictures I have seen, there have been numerous tables at ham fests seeking to move the same types of gear on to new homes. The difference is that the amateur event sales are usually at much lower prices.
Here we have a combination of things. Good conditions and a source of less valuable radios than the all singing, all dancing commercially produced amateur radios. There are radio clubs that make available gear to new members at cheap prices or on loan to allow the freshly minted ham to burn brightly when the urge is new.
What if we managed to get some of this old CB gear and set about having a conversion project within our clubs? There would be many amateurs who have relics of past activities sitting on shelves and in the magic junque boxes and who would like to know their treasure was given a good home instead of finding the rubbish skip when the Last Post has gone silent.
Maybe we could see some of the construction and conversion articles pulled from the archives and updated with the use of currently available components.
We have just heard the cry of the Budget with its reminder of the high cost of living and, just perhaps, we have a means of doing some club activities which would help newly interested people get the feel for radio. Being able to adapt and modify has been the hallmark of the amateur and there is nothing more satisfying than the sound of a project that is completed and working.
I’m Geoff Emery VK4ZPP and that’s what I think….how about you?
This is Allan VK4HIT with news from Ipswich and District Radio Club.
First up from WICEN, the Brisbane Trail Marathon was held on April 28 with members volunteering their time at five checkpoints, a portable repeater site, and the base. The importance of providing safety communications to such events opens up the opportunity for members to support the club through the WICEN group. Congratulations to first-timers.
The next event is the Pinnacles Classic on June 16 followed by The Guzzler Ultra Marathon held over two days – July 20 and 21.
Now to more domestic matters, but no less important. Members are reminded a new mowing roster for the clubhouse is being put together. Able bodied members are urged to put your name forward. The club supplies the mower and fuel. The roster means only one or two mows per year if it can be filled with at least 10 members. As secretary Greg VK4GJW puts it – many mowers make light work.
Reporting from Ipswich this is Allan, VK4HIT.
Hello, I’m Geoff Emery, VK4ZPP, and I’ve been thinking.
An interesting time has been had by radio enthusiasts in the past few days with a G5 level flare impacting the Earth’s magnetic field. Some people recognised the severity of the event when the bands went dead and pictures of auroras from the Antarctic to the sub-tropics were appearing on TV and internet sources.
Those of us old enough to remember the heady days of the legalisation of CB in this country know that it also coincided with a peak in sunspot activity.
27MHz was a school that taught many how well low power signals can go when conditions are right.
We are seeing these magnificent openings again.
Back then the Novice Licence was drawing interest amongst radio enthusiasts and projects were published to adapt and use cheaply available equipment on the Novice allocations. The hobbyist Aladdin's cave of the day, Dick Smith stores were at the front of the pack in packaging and selling kits for things like transverters which used the ubiquitous CB rig as the generation platform to access other bands. Many people went on self learning safari and explored the design technology and I recall Amateur Radio magazine carried articles for changing the mixing crystals in the 23 channel radios to put them on accepted amateur frequencies in the 10 and 11 metre bands.
These days there are collectors who pay seemingly outrageous prices for veteran CB equipment and from pictures I have seen, there have been numerous tables at ham fests seeking to move the same types of gear on to new homes. The difference is that the amateur event sales are usually at much lower prices.
Here we have a combination of things. Good conditions and a source of less valuable radios than the all singing, all dancing commercially produced amateur radios. There are radio clubs that make available gear to new members at cheap prices or on loan to allow the freshly minted ham to burn brightly when the urge is new.
What if we managed to get some of this old CB gear and set about having a conversion project within our clubs? There would be many amateurs who have relics of past activities sitting on shelves and in the magic junque boxes and who would like to know their treasure was given a good home instead of finding the rubbish skip when the Last Post has gone silent.
Maybe we could see some of the construction and conversion articles pulled from the archives and updated with the use of currently available components.
We have just heard the cry of the Budget with its reminder of the high cost of living and, just perhaps, we have a means of doing some club activities which would help newly interested people get the feel for radio. Being able to adapt and modify has been the hallmark of the amateur and there is nothing more satisfying than the sound of a project that is completed and working.
I’m Geoff Emery VK4ZPP and that’s what I think….how about you?
5 min