VK3KID and the 2010 VK trans-Tasman Contests
Well today is the 2010 VK trans tasman contest. Going to be fun for the club at the Sherbrooke community school. Starts at 8:00 UTC today =)
Lots of fun.
~Ivy
Well today is the 2010 VK trans tasman contest. Going to be fun for the club at the Sherbrooke community school. Starts at 8:00 UTC today =)
Lots of fun.
~Ivy
Been playing round with dash code, and have made a little mobile version of this blog. I will set up something to auto redirect mobile browsers to this later.
It’s now available here.
Well today ACMA released their white paper on the “400MHz band” Which covers 403MHz to 520MHz. As this covers the 70cm band we use (420MHz to 450MHz as a secondary service) this paper effects us as amateurs.
As the ACMA puts it “The The way ahead – Decisions and implementation options for the 400 MHz band consultation paper outlines a number of final decisions for the future use of the band and proposed implementation plans.”
In the original ACMA proposal was that for 403MHz to 430MHz was for the exclusive use of federal, state, and territory governments. This would mean for us amateurs that we would loose the bottom 10MHz of the 70cm band. Though this section of the band (420 to 430MHz) is restricted in some states. For example in the “Melbourne” area the excluded sections of the 70cm band are as follows:
While in the “Perth” area all of 420 to 430MHz is already disallowed.
These exclusions can be found on page 28 of the Radiocommunications Licence Conditions (Amateur Licence) Determination No. 1 of 1997.
So under this new ACMA paper, all of the 420 to 430MHz section of the 70cm band is lost to the amateurs who could use it.
From 430 to 440MHz this paper states that “The 430-440 MHz rage is used for defense purposes and by the amateur service, including amateur satellite, in line with internationally harmonised allocations.” And ” …hence there is currently limited scope for general use of these services in this band.”
So from 430 to 440MHz There will be no changes.
But for 440MHz to 450MHz there is no mention of amateur services, only the following:
“Spectrum in 440-450MHz will be made available in consultation with the Department of Defense on a temporary basis. Users in this part of the band in high and medium density areas will be required to relocate by 31 December 2012. Users outside of high and medium density areas will be required to relocate by 31 December 2013.”
Here there is no mention of amateurs at all. Which is worrying. But it may be that we are still able to use this section of the band as a secondary service as we do now.
Oddly unlike the minor mentions of the amateur service. There is an entire chapter of this paper dedicated to UHF CB radio.
Unfortunately this document doesn’t really tell us as amateurs what will be happening to the 440-450MHz part of the 70cm band at all.
Edit, just looked at one other part of this document, and it says the following, “Arrangements for the radiolocation and amateur services outside the scope of this plan.” So it looks like we may not lose any more than the bottom 10MHz of the 70cm band.
DE
VK3IVY
Well Hannah and Myself have moved to a new house in Pakenham. RF wise it’s reasonably quiet which is good.
All we need to do is get some proper antennas up. Right now there’s a 40m dipole (that really needs tuning correctly.) It works okay but really could do something better with it.
~de VK3IVY
The wia has a pdf of all of the repeaters in Australia. Unfortunately they don’t give this information in formats that might be useful when using a computer to program your radio.
Anyway I’ve now managed to get the data for the 6 metre, 2 metre and 70 centimetre repeaters into a csv file, and an excel spread sheet.
Anyway the excel file is here and the csv file is here. If there’s any errors pleas mention it.
de Vk3IVY
Well went to the Kynton Hamfest last weekend. Lots of fun lots of junk, and lots of shiny things.
Ended up getting a new HT from the Strictly Ham stall. A Yaesu VX-7R as our old VX-5R had seen better days.
Anyway it’s an interesting little radios, it does 6 metres, 2 metres, and 70 centimetres FM at 5 watts. It’s also got general receive from the AM broadcast band to 999MHz. Also it can out 300 miliwatts on 1.25 metres (not a band we have allocated.) And the fun thing is that it can also do 6 metre AM with 1 watt.
So far a nice little handheld and I have no gripes with it (though the rubber duck antenna is well a rubber duck antenna.)
Also TTS Systems had a nice stall with the beautiful TENTEC radios and the BudiPole range of antennas.
Then there was the Junk and bits and other bits and pieces. Some bits and pieces, and lots of “shiny things”
Nearing the end of the day I went saw Jim VK3AMN, and Ed VK3FEET talk about what we’re doing with the school and I was able to answer some questions regarding the ARISS contact we did last year.
All in all a fun day.
de VK3IVY
Well I’ve managed to resolve an issue I was having with my wordpress blog. Where the post screen was a white font on a white background. Not much fun.
Oh well it’s fixed now.
Anyway should be posting a little bit more now.
de VK3IVY
Well I just aquired an iPod touch. Nice little device though I am still getting used to it’s keyboard.
One thing I noticed is that there didn’t seem to be many ham applications for the little device. I hope I can fix it with a number of little useful applications. For example a call sign look up tool.
~ivy
Well it’s all official, Sherbrook Community School is getting their Ariss contact sometime in the last week of October.
So happy for the kids and kinda jealous too. I’d would of loved a chance like this when I was in school.
So Arks Academy did their last foundation course for the year, and yet another 100% pass rate. Which makes me very very happy.
Next year is going to be a lot of fun with foundation courses, standard and advanced upgrade courses, and not forgetting one or two regulations courses.
Lots of fun.