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Hmmm... Many of us may not call this Amateur Radio. However we need to embrace new things, this is what our hobby is all about. MOVING FORWARD What would our hobby look like if we did not embrace AM, SSB, then FM and now Digital modes. This may not be for everyone but, give it a try.. It's not hard! No doubt you have heard of DStar, DMR, Fusion etc etc.. AllStar Although it does use the internet to connect to other users, hubs, repeaters etc, it is not classed as a digital mode as it uses FM to connect to a AllStar connected Repeater, or your personal Node running on a Raspberry Pi mini computer. Well.. here is another way to access the AllStar system. An Apple IOS App called RepeaterPhone . It allows your Apple iPhone to connect to the AllStar network and it's very simple to use. There is one thing you need to do, prior.. Register for an AllStar Node . Note: This app is for licensed Amateur Radio operators only . RepeaterPhone provides the ability to connect your mobile device to EchoLink or AllStarLink nodes , including repeaters and conferences. Push to talk today ! You will need an account with either the EchoLink or AllStarLink networks . Please see https://www.echolink.org or https://www.allstarlink.org , respectively, for more details - Push-to-talk interface - Browse or search the directory for available nodes - Mark favorites with a star for quick access - Supports various audio devices, including Bluetooth headsets - Fully integrated into your phone's recent call system - Includes a watch extension for dialling favourites and controlling push-to-talk - Sharing your device with a licensed family member? Switch accounts easily Turn your Apple iPhone into a Hand Held Radio.. You can chat to other Nodes and AllStar Connected Repeaters. It works and sounds great.

How To Select Feedline For A Repeater, By Todd, KY4TS APRIL 30, 2018 By Todd, KY4TS A common overlooked part of putting together a repeater system is the selection of proper feedline. "But, coax is coax, isn't it?" "I use LMR-400 for all my stations at home. That should be good enough for a repeater, right?" Well, not necessarily.   So, why is the selection of feedline so important? First, on many tower installs, if you or your club don’t own the tower, most all commercial sites will require a bonded, professional crew to climb the tower for any work that needs to be done. This gets expensive very quickly. Using a poor quality or incorrect type of feed line WILL cause a failure of your system. Hiring a crew (any professional climb will require at least 2 people) to replace a faulty feed line will wipe out any savings you made with your coax. Add to that, you end up buying the more expensive, correct feed line anyway. So what is incorrect feed line? The following is from Mike Morris, WA6ILQ and  repeater-builder.com  : “In duplex service you want to avoid any coax that has dissimilar metals rubbing against each other (such as Belden 9913) or any LMR-(any 3-digit or 4-digit number) cable since both use an aluminium foil shield rubbing against a copper braid (and they are not the only ones with that type of construction). In a coax cable, any dissimilar metals in contact with each other are bad news. Aluminum oxide is formed when raw aluminum is in contact with oxygen, and the chemical reaction that converts the top few molecules of the exposed surface of aluminum into aluminum oxide is almost instantaneous.   Aluminum oxide makes a dandy diode. All those millions of contact points between the copper braid and the aluminum oxide layer on the aluminum foil become millions of little tiny diodes. In the presence of high RF power levels all those little diodes cause RF noise. The amount of noise energy on any one frequency (such as on your repeater input frequency) is a low level, but when you have the noise source inside the same feedline that feeds a sensitive receiver it doesn’t take much level to be audible.  I repeat – any cable that has dissimilar metals pressed together, even inside a jacket, will sooner or later create wideband noise (sometimes called duplex grunge) when hit with RF power. Even something as simple as a 1-foot-long jumper between the feedline and the antenna at the top of the tower can cause major desense problems (and for a long time the major antenna manufacturers were shipping 9913 jumpers with their antennas). 9913 is usable in an indoor simplex environment, but you will find that 9913 or any dissimilar metals cable, especially LMR-(any 3-digit or 4-digit number), is a disaster just waiting to happen on a duplex system.” In that case, what is the correct type of feed line? Again, from WA6ILQ: “First of all, despite what you read elsewhere, “hardline” is not Heliax™ and Heliax™ is not “hardline”.  True hardline (sometimes called rigid feedline or rigid line) is most commonly used in broadcast (AM, FM and TV). It does not flex – it’s based on concentric pipe with an insulator between the inner and outer conductor. From the outside it looks like flanged pipe. Common sizes range from 3/4 inch to over 8 inches in diameter. It is much lower loss than coax or even Heliax." “On the other hand, RG-214 has two silver-plated braids and a silver-plated inner conductor. RG-393 is similar but has a Teflon® outer jacket. Both are the larger diameter (i.e. RG-8 / 213) size coax and RG-142 / RG-400 is the smaller diameter (RG-6 / RG-58 / RG-59) size. Please save yourself some grief and use real Mil-Spec RG-214 or RG-393 as the jumper between the feedline and the antenna. And please be a very annoying and nagging perfectionist about the installation and waterproofing of all feedline and jumper connectors outside the building.” "You will minimize your feedline problems if you stick to Superflex, RG-214, RG-393 or RG-400 on the radio side of the duplexer, and Superflex, Heliax and RG-214 or RG-393 on the antenna side of the duplexer. Use RG-214 or RG-393 as the jumper between the duplexer and the Heliax, and between the Heliax and the antenna. Note that RG-400 has more loss than the larger diameter cables – it’s spec’d at 9.6 dB of loss per 100 feet at 400 MHz. It’s short jumper material, not feedline material!   You will want to use all silver plated connectors and absolutely minimal adapters (and those need to be silver plated) in your connections from the transmitter or receiver to the duplexer, from the duplexer to the feedline and from the feedline to the antenna. NO nickel plated or chrome plated anything in the RF path anywhere! Nickel and chromium are ferrous metals and as such both are an intermod creator anywhere around RF. It ’s detectable at 10 meters and 6 meters and has proven to be a real problem at 2 meters, 220, 440, 900 and 1200 MHz. Mark Abrams WA6DPB said it well when he said “One nickel or chrome plated anything can really ruin your whole day”. Another rule is nothing but Teflon® insulated silver plated connectors and minimal adapters on anything above 30 MHz." Before you plan out or purchase anything for your system, go to  www.repeater-builder.com  and read everything you can. It will save you a huge amount of frustration! 73, Todd, KY4TS

Thanks to the hard work of many members, particularly Ian vk3ko, Colin vk3cr and Rakshit vk3dhr the Famparc Club Repeater has now been registered and approved by the ACMA and is operating.. Repeater Details: VK3RUV (The repeater's callsign is dedicated to our late member Bruce VK3UV) Callsign: VK3RUV Repeater Receive Freq.: 146.025 Mhz Repeater Transmit Freq.: 146.625 Mhz CTCSS Tone: 88.5 hz Dedicated Repeater Webpage Here.. Additional efforts are necessary to optimize the input and output of the repeater. The club is also exploring other locations to improve coverage. This is an exciting period for our club and its members, and having our own Repeater may enable members to stay in contact with one another. If you require help in setting up your Transcivers to access the clubs Repeater, please reach out to one our active members.

Some of you may know and some may not.. Ron VK3AHR, the legend that has run the 7.100 Net every day for well over ten years is standing down. Ron has been battling Cancer for many years and now in his late 80's he has been given the words that we never want to hear. So Ron has now moved in with his darling wife which has been residing in a care facility for some time now. I was blessed to talk to Ron for the last time over the radio today 4:30pm 20th June 2025. it was an upsetting conversation to say the least. I have been a regular on Ron's 7100 net and I must say he will be greatly missed. Ron has logged over 40,000 contacts via his regular net!.. An amazing effort! Ron has begun the terrible task of dismantling is Ham Shack. I'm sure we would like to wish Ron and his wife the very best for what life remains. Good on You Ron VK3AHR

Mosy of you would be aware that my wife and I just returned from a trip away. We towed our Caravan around outback NSW and QLD, we had a great time, however our 4G was pretty poor, as our supplier uses the Wholesale Telstra Network, meaning most of the way we had no phone connection. What did help was... The free wifi available at the many Telstra Phone Boxes, not all, but many, for Telstra users only. We would simply pull up next to the phone box and connect for free.. Very Handy Other places to find free wifi are town library and visitor / information centers. However, the next time we will be looking into a Starlink Mini, as we found many travellers using them. Stan, vk3bot has one. Cheers. Craig vk3ncr

QTC June 2025 out now. Welcome to the June edition of QTC. This month in QTC we have another interesting set of updates and articles. In this Issue:     - RASA’s reponse to ACMA LCD Consultation     - HamCamption 2025 Honours Mike VK6MB (SK)     - Maidenhead Locaters explained     - Remoting From a Loft – N9EEE     - FreeDV 2.0.0 released     - This is Amateur Radio website Update     - The 2025 GGREC Hamfest in Longwarry, Victoria coming up on July 5 ​QTC is published by RASA, the Radio Amateur Society of Australia. Enquiries to info at vkradioamateurs.org You can download or view QTC  HERE in pdf form and don't forget that it is available as a screen based flip book HERE in the RASA library, ready for your portable device.

VERY IMPORTANT!! Thanks to John VK3JDD who brought this to my attention. Rather than try and explain this on this blog, Hayden VK7HH has done a video. In brief, if you do not setup an account with the ACMA Assist portal and do not Reconfirm your Amateur Radio callsign/license, after five years, your callsign will be surrender AUTOMATICALLY. ACMA ASSIST PORTAL HERE. I advise you to watch this video, and !! setup an account via the ACMA ASSIST PORTAL , and reconfirm your callsign. I have completed all of this and reconfirmed my callsign, which now needs to be done again in April 2030. Thanks to online calendars and reminders, my Apple Calendar will notify me in early April 2030 to reconfirm my callsign. So, start this now. If you haven't done it yet, you have 4 years to complete it. A big shoutout to Hayden for making this video! Craig, vk3ncr

Hi Members, As many of you know, a few of us Famparc Members are heading to the Flinders Ranges S.A and staying at a Station Stay, Almerta Station. Of course we will be playing radio as well as touring around this wonderfull place. We would like to keep in contact with our fellow members back home, so I have created a page on our site with details. Images : Almerta Station

Famparc is the place to be! We have many activities planned this year, including a members' trip to the Flinders Ranges in SA. It's actually Terry's vk3bmx Holiday, but we're joining in on the adventure. Stay tuned here and on the members' forum for updates. 17 Incredible things to do in the Flinders Ranges that will put it on your bucket list

Noojee Day Trip From Daryl vk3hbp Hello, Last week I obtained my TZ-OCF-40 wire antenna and I would like to erect it at the Poplars campground (the same place we had the camp).on Thursday 10th April 2025. The campground is at Loch Valley and the road passes through Noojee Township and is signposted. It is an off-centre dipole and I will attempt to set it up with the two squid poles and some macrame cord and a nail or two. I might even bring my surf rod to throw a line over a branch. I’ve never done this before. Then I’ll connect my Icom 7300 and see how I’ll go. It is a 1.5 hour drive and my plan it to arrive around 9-10am and after a successful morning, have a counter lunch at the Noojee Hotel around 1pm. Perhaps have some yummy smashed pavlova. Daryl vk3hbp Plan B is the Little Red Duck cafe which closes at 2:30 or the cafe at Neerim South. If anyone wants to join me you’re welcome to do so. Thursday was selected due to the warmish weather forecast. I haven’t booked anything at the pub and times are rubbery. People not going to the campground could just go to the Noojee Hotel at 12pm. Details may be discussed at the Famparc club rooms on Wednesday. I’ll suggest we can use the simplex frequency of 146.500 MHz. That's 146.500 Mhz FM Simplex Noojee Pub Noojee

Matt vk1mhz, one of our club members who lives near Geelong, have a shack clear-out of Ham gear. Matt is wanting to sell off the gear on behalf of a mate. So from the images below, if you see something that you may wish to purchase, you can contact Matt via matt@mattomeara.com

2025 MDRC Hamfest Information WHEN: Saturday the 10th of May Doors open at 10.00am WHERE:   Kingston City Hall 979-985 Nepean Hwy, Moorabbin VIC 3189 . The MDRC Annual Hamfest is held in May on a Saturday. The 2025 MDRC Hamfest will be held on Saturday the 10th of May.  The MDRC Hamfest is widely renowned as the Biggest Hamfest in Victoria, with a huge turnout each year. Many attendees travel great distances to attend the MDRC Annual Hamfest from Interstate and overseas. In 2025 the MDRC Hamfest will be held at the Kingston City Hall 979-985 Nepean Hwy, Moorabbin VIC 3189. Ticket sales from 9.00am. Doors open at 10.00am Traders can purchase tables from the M&DRC Shop . 70 car spaces on site and more parking behind shops on Western side of Nepean Hwy.