FAMPARC Search

We at SPARC (Southern Peninsula Amateur Radio Club) have received the distressing news that many items of radio equipment were stolen recently from the home of the late Bob Crowle VK3CDV (SK). His son, Chris Crowle, has informed the police and provided them with a list of the stolen items, with their estimated resale values (list below). Serial numbers are shown for three* of the items, but have not yet been determined for the others Please be on the lookout for anything suspicious about such items being traded at a Ham/RadioFest , car boot sale or similar - or if you come across any other information that might be relevant - please let me know and I'll put you in touch with Chris Crowle. Best address to contact me is secretary@sparc.asn.au Thanks, Jim VK3JST Secretary, SPARC ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here is the list of items that were stolen, along with estimated resale values: * Update 25 May: Serial number added for Yaesu FT-60R Hand-held transceiver.

A few weeks ago one of our members Stanley VK3BOT made mention that he was heading bush for a few nights. I asked him if we could make this a Famparc Event for all members.. He agreed so I posted the details on our blog post. See here.. The camp ground is called The Poplars which is around 8k from the tiny town of Noojee. We arrived on the Monday and setup, what a loverly place and especially on a week day, with only 3 others camped. Craig vk3ncr, Stanley vk3bot. There are lots of designated camp sites for all types of camping, Tent, Swag, Camper Trailer, Caravan and Motorhome. Monday afternoon after setting up, Ken, vk3mjf managed to find the camp ground after a few adjustments to his route.. LOL!! Both Stanley and I were surprised that he did not bring his swag or tent, but after a little bit of convincing, he returned home and drove up the next day with his kit. Ken stayed one night with his woofer.. The following day, Wednesday after Ken departed, Murray vk3fadx and his wife Rose dropped in for an hour. I'm sure Murray will be saying longer next time. The camp site offers as mentioned above, many sites, as well as 4 drop toilets and a small Shelter Shed. Other features that I really enjoyed was the peace and quiet, and the walks along and around the camp ground and the adjoining Loch River.. A great place to simply relax and breath in the clean fresh air and enjoy the bush. The weather was just perfect with those still Autumn days with lots of sunshine. See Gallery Here. The band conditions were remarkable with absolutely no QRM, with stations that had no S point on the meter coming through loud and clear. We were running own setups, having both the IC705 through a 40M End Fed. A simple yet a very effective station. A wonderful few days/nights away, relaxing, cooking, camping and playing radio. Let's hope we have more of a take up for the next Famparc Camp Out ! Thanks to Stanley for arranging this and selecting a superb campsite.. I'll be back sooner rather than later. If any members have a similar campsite drop us an email. Camped: Stanley vk3bot, Craig vk3ncr, Ken vk3mjf Visited: Murray vk3fadx

Some of you may or may not know that there is a Victorian DStar Users Group Club. The club was formed many years ago to support both DStar users as well as the funding of the VK3RWN DStar repeater located on Mount Dandenong. VK3RWN is a very popular DStar repeater having both 2M and 70cm repeaters. 2M Port C is connected to the 23C DStar Reflector, and the 70cm Repeater, is either connected to 001C Reflector or at time idle and not connected. Note: both ports can be connected to the many other Reflectors around the world. INVITE (Sat. 1st June) Before Covid hit, the Club use to hold a regular get togther at a MCDonalds Restaurant on the Princes Hwy just out of Dandenong. Some time has passed and a few in the group decided to re-activate the regular get together. David VK3DLR has arranged for the club members to meet on the Saturday 1st June at 1pm. It has been mentioned that DStar Club members drop into the Famparc Club rooms prior to the lunch. What a great idea. Also, the DStar Club has extended an invitation to all Famparc members to attend the lunch!! So make the date clear for Saturday 1st June 1pm. McDonalds Dandenong Location Click Here See you there Saturday 1st June 1pm.

The first solar storm in this train has hit! The storm is quite fast so the initial impact caused a momentary G4-level response. Right now we are sitting at G3+ levels due to a strong, but wildly fluctuating magnetic field. This is expected while we travel through the "turbulent" outer envelope of this fast-moving storm. Aurora views will likely grace the skies tonight through the weekend as this series of storms hit back-to-back Learn the details of how this solar storm train came about, learn where and when aurora will be visible, discover how these storms are impacting communications and navigation around the globe, and find out how they might impact you. This Space Weather News forecast sponsored in part by Millersville University: https://www.millersville.edu/swen Want early access to these forecasts, tutorials on Space Weather, & more? Visit:   / spaceweatherwoman   For daily and often hourly updates (during active times) visit me on Twitter:   / tamithaskov   For a more in-depth look at the data and images highlighted in this video see these links below. Solar Imaging and Analysis: SDO: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/  Helioviewer: http://www.helioviewer.org/ Flare Analysis: http://www.lmsal.com/solarsoft/latest... Computer Aided CME Tracking CACTUS: http://www.sidc.oma.be/cactus/out/lat... GOES Xray: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/rt_plots/xra... SOHO: http://sohodata.nascom.nasa.gov/  Stereo: http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/ GONG magnetic field synoptic movie: https://gong.nso.edu/data/magmap/stan... GONG magnetic field synoptic charts: http://gong.nso.edu/data/magmap/ LMSAL Heliophysics Events HEK http://www.lmsal.com/isolsearch Solar Wind: DISCOVR solar wind: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/rea...  ACE Solar Wind: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/ace... NASA/CCMC/M2M Enlil Solar Storm Prediction Model: https://iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov/IswaSystem... NOAA/SWPC Enlil Solar Storm Prediction Model: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/wsa... Magnetosphere, Ionosphere, Atmosphere: GOES Magnetometer: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/goe... Ionosphere D-Region Absorption (DRAP) model: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/d-r... Radio Propagation: https://www.tvcomm.co.uk/g7izu/atlant... Near-Earth radiation environment: https://spaceweather.gfz-potsdam.de/p... Auroral Oval Ovation Products: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/aur... Global 3-hr Kp index: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/pla... GEOCHRON Weather Display: www.geochron.com USGS Ground Magnetometers: http://geomag.usgs.gov/realtime/ Multi-Purpose Space Environment Sites: NOAA/SWPC: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov SOLARHAM: http://www.solarham.net/index.htm Spaceweather: http://spaceweather.com  iSWA: http://iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov/iswa/iSWA.html  Definition of Geomagnetic Storm, Radiation Storm, and Radio Blackout Levels: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/NOAAscales/ None of this would be possible without the hard work and dedication of those who have provided all of this data for public use. Images c/o NASA/NOAA/ESA/CSA (most notably the superb SDO, SOHO, ACE, DSCOVR, STEREO, CCMC, M2M, JPL & DSN teams, amazing professionals, hobbyists, institutions, organizations, agencies and amateurs such as those at the USAF/HAARP, NICT, NOAA, USGS, Environment Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Intellicast, Catatania, rice.edu, wisc.edu, sonoma.edu ucalgary.ca, rssi.ru, ohio-state.edu, solen.info, and so much more. Thanks for making Space Weather part of our every day dialogue.

Engineers found space in the geriatric spacecraft’s memory to deal with a stuck bit On 14 November 2023, NASA’s interstellar space probe Voyager 1 began sending gibberish back to Earth. For five months, the spacecraft transmitted unusable data equivalent to a dial tone. In March, engineers discovered the cause of the communication snafu: a stuck bit in one of the chips comprising part of Voyager’s onboard memory. The chip contained lines of code used by the flight data subsystem (FDS), one of three computers aboard the spacecraft and the one that is responsible for collecting and packaging data before sending it back to Earth. Read More Here....

The History of 10-4 and 10-Codes Trucking has a long and vast history, not only in the United States but worldwide. Everyone knows that truckers have their own version of communication over radio. People across the United States know the very popular 10-4, but like many other common phrases, not many know where it comes from. In honor of it being October 4th, let's take a look at the origin of the universal trucker lingo. Background in Radio To understand where 10-Codes come from, you need to know some background information. In 1896, Guglielmo Marconi invented the first rendition of the radio. After 20 years of experience working with telegraphy, Marconi was one of the only inventors at the time that experimented with Hertz, which were found in electromagnetic waves. In the early 1900s, Marconi revolutionized communication methods when he successfully transmitted his first wireless telegraphy signal across the Atlantic Ocean. Throughout the 1900s and 1930s, he created various versions of radios with a few being adopted by the BBC and other organizations for wireless broadcasting. Prior to the 1920s, radio was not commercialized like it is today with it only being used for contacting military ships out at sea. In those years, Morse Code was used for communicating because the signals to transmit messages were often unclear and spotty. In the outbreak of World War I 1914, the importance of radio was recognized because it allowed to relay messages in real-time to officers and soldiers on the front lines. After the war and throughout the 1920s, radio was no longer used exclusively by the military, and citizens started buying radios of their own. Enthusiasts really changed the way radio was perceived by the public, showing its potential as a leader in communicating with wider audiences and in 1920, the first commercial radio broadcast was used to announce the election results. The 1920s were an important decade in the history of radio, with the first radio advertisement being run, major organizations being created like the BBC, CBS and NBC. As with every business that takes off widely, rules and regulations must be in place so the Radio Corporation Agreement (RCA) was sanctioned by the government. Despite radio's success in the 1920s and 30s, the signals being transmitted still needed improvement. Transmissions were still difficult to understand with words being cut off or unintelligible, so in 1937 the Association of Public Safety Commissions (APCO) had an idea to change that. History of 10-4 Radio had expanded its reach to many, but the main user for the majority of its early years were police stations and officers. In the late 1930s, Charles Hopper, the Communications Director for the Illinois State Police started creating a type of brevity code to shorten speech when radio channels were in short supply for police officers. Radios needed time to charge up completely to send a message, so the one syllable word 'ten' made it easier for the transmitter to capture and send a short message. It took a few years to catch on, but by 1940, a list of 10-Codes had been created and finally in 1955, standardized for wide use among police officers. Police officers soon weren't the only group of workers who began using radios and the 10-Code. Truckers began utilizing CB radios for communicating with each other and getting updates on traffic reports in the area. They encountered the same issues with choppy transmissions, so truckers adopted the 10 code which has changed slightly from the police code. 10-Codes didn't really reach public popularity until it was adopted by Hollywood. The mid 1950s saw the creation of a new television show, Highway Patrol with Broderick Crawford. The show captivated audiences with its emulation of police officers who fight crime with patrol cars, fast motorcycles and two-way radios. Citizens Band (CB) radios started flying off the shelves and the number of radio enthusiasts grew and they quickly picked up the 10-Code system. Although the 10 codes were around, their popularity dipped slightly in the 1960s until another famous personality stepped in. The 1970s had a wave of blue-collar pride, and singer C. W. McCall came out with the song Convoy in 1975 which demonstrated a trucker transmission and again the 10-Code was brought back into pop culture. Later in 1978, the movie Convoy was released and the 10-Code was forever engrained in the public's mind. Today 10 -Code has for the most part remained the same, but now there are over 200 10-Codes and various versions depending on line of work and area. Here's the main 10-Code used by truckers today. Trucker 10 Code 10-1: Receiving Poorly 10-2: Receiving well 10-3: Stop transmitting 10-4: Ok, message received 10-5: Relay message 10-6: Busy, stand by 10-7: Out of service 10-8: In service 10-9: Repeat Message 10-10: Transmission completed, standing by 10-11: Talking too rapidly 10-12: Visitors present ... Shhhh! 10-13: Advise weather/road conditions 10-17: Urgent Business 10-20: Location 10-34: Trouble at this station, help needed 10-42: Traffic accident 10-43: Traffic jam 10-70: Fire at truck stop 10-73: Speed trap 10-99: Mission completed, all units secure 10-100: Gotta go No. 1 10-200: Gotta go No. 2 Information from: Click Here.

In this day and age, there are countless methods of communication, but let's not leave radios in the past. Although smartphones offer similar functions, radios are still a trusted form of communication, so much so the U.S. government is fighting to keep AM radio in your car. And while professionals like police officers and truck drivers use them daily, radio use may not strike you as common. Read More: Click Here

1 May 2024 Updates to amateur radio information, qualification framework and call sign policy In February 2024, the Radiocommunications (Amateur Stations) Class Licence 2023 (class licence) commenced and we released the amateur radio call sign policy and qualification framework. Updates to amateur radio call sign policy Following feedback from amateur operators, we have updated the amateur radio call sign policyto: Remove Jervis Bay from the list of external territories that amateur operators can apply for a VK9 call sign from, as it is an internal territory. Clarify that: VK0 call signs can only be transmitted when the operator is in the Antarctic. VK9 call signs can only be transmitted when the operator is in an Australian external territory. Provide better links to information about our fees for call signs. Specify that F-series call signs cannot be reserved or transferred to another amateur operator. Outline the information we require from the representative of a deceased amateur, when reserving or seeking to transfer their call sign. Updates to the qualification framework We have updated the qualification framework to more clearly outline the qualifications that allow amateurs to operate under the class licence without first obtaining an ACMA recognition certificate. Table 1 in the qualification framework now specifies exemptions for holders of Advanced Operator’s Certificate of Proficiency if they wish to apply for an ACMA recognition certificate. Web updates Our website has been updated to clarify: What information Australian advanced amateur operators can provide to overseas regulators to be recognised under the reciprocal licensing arrangements, and what information they should provide to us if requesting a written confirmation for long-term reciprocal licensing. That amateur operators who want to transfer or surrender a call sign that is on their active non assigned amateur licence will also need to surrender their non-assigned amateur licence. How amateur operators can apply for repeater and beacon call signs.

DXing Welcome to meteor scatter. As the Earth moves along its orbital path, millions of particles known as meteoroids enter the Earth's atmosphere every day, a small fraction of which have properties useful for point-to-point communication. When these meteors begin to burn up, they create a glowing trail of ionized particles in the E layer of the atmosphere that can persist for up to several seconds. The ionization trails can be very dense and thus used to reflect radio waves. The frequencies that can be reflected by any particular ion trail are determined by the intensity of the ionization created by the meteor, often a function of the initial size of the particle, and are generally between 30MHz and 150MHz. The distance over which communications can be established is determined by the altitude at which the ionisation is created, the location over the surface of the Earth where the meteoroid is falling, the angle of entry into the atmosphere, and the relative locations of the stations attempting to establish communications. Because these ionization trails only exist for fractions of a second to as long as a few seconds, they create only brief windows of opportunity for communications. Here is a snapshot of my contact with Scott VK4CZ on 6m. You can clearly see three different pings over the receiving sequence of 15 seconds. The third ping is a loud, shot gun burst that generated multiple decodes. The two way contact could be completed within a couple of minutes or a bit longer, depending on the meteor shower. If you are already on 6m or 2m then you are ready for MS! Mode: MSK144 is a Minimum Shift Keying FSK signal used for amateur radio meteor-scatter contacts. It transmits 144 bit long packets at a Baud rate of 2000 bps using frequencies 1000 and 2000Hz. It is part of the WSJT-X suite. Where: on 6m band the watering hole for Australian stations is 50.230MHz. Skeds: random calling in morning hours is an option, however you will find more success by announcing your activity at http://www.VKspotter.com Note: VKspotter is not a 'casual' chat room. It is a place where dedicated chasers exchange time relevant information about openings, activities and scheduled skeds. Please join - but for a week or so simply observe until you get a feeling of what is appropriate and what is not. Of course, the group members are welcoming but they are not there to entertain you - or each other - but to watch the band for openings. Think of a business meeting atmosphere. If you join, you will learn a lot just by watching and listening. Meteor scatter is both visual and audio excitement. When a bounced signal is received, it creates a unique 'explosion' on the waterfall, accompanied with a equally unique sound. Once you decode your first MS signals, you will be hooked. See you on meteor scatter! Thanks to John VK3XM

In this video, I transmit at 5 different power levels, from 100 watts down to 1 watt. I record the audio from a station listening to my signal 250 miles away. You will be surprised how little audible difference can be heard when cutting your power! Thanks to Stanley VK3BOT for sending the video.. thanks mate well done ! CW Version SSB version

WHAT: MDRC Annual Hamfest WHERE: Kingston City Hall 979-985 Nepean Hwy, Moorabbin VIC 3189 Melways Ref: 77D4 Map: Click Here WHEN: Saturday the 11th of May 2024. The MDRC Annual Hamfest is held in May on a Saturday. The 2024 MDRC Hamfest will be held on Saturday the 11th 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 2024 the MDRC Hamfest will be held at the Kingston City Hall 979-985 Nepean Hwy, Moorabbin VIC 3189. Ticket sales from 9.30am. Doors open at 10.00am 70 car spaces on site and more parking behind shops on Western side of Nepean Hwy. More Here

On the 13th of May 2024 myself, Stan VK3BOT and Craig, VK3NCR propose a radio and camping trip to The Poplars Campground, Loch Valley Rd via Noojee. I am going on the Monday 13th May , returning home on the Saturday. Depending on Weather Conditions! WHEN: (updated new date) 13Th May for a Week Pending Weather WHERE: The Poplars Campground, Loch Valley Rd via Noojee (See Map Here) Click Here for more information on the camp ground. Club Members are invited to join us. The campground is accessible by two wheel drive and can be done on less than a tank of fuel. The campground has drop pit toilets. There is a river running around one side. There are loads of trees to hang antennas from. There is also a gazebo type structure to shelter in. I am taking two radios. I want to put in some learning time on my Icom IC-705 and play with antennas. So, if you would like to play radio, eat bad food, breath campfire smoke and generally have a relaxing good time, please do join us. Make it a day trip or stay as many days as you like. Regards, Stanley J. Mitchell Location Map PHONE RECEPTION: Telstra only and that’s patchy at best. 4G one bar dropping to 3G.