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ODDS
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REPORTS:
2008 Buy and Sell.
About 400 eager amateurs crammed through the doors of
the Goodwood Community Centre on Sunday November the 9th
, to take part in our most ambitious ever club event.
The hard work of the committee and other club members came to a
most pleasing fruition on that day.
The presence of a good number of commercial vendors lent an air
of excitement to the event, loosening many purse strings
(including the editor’s!)
The committee acknowledges the efforts of those club members who
helped set up and clean up; AREG; the visitors from interstate,
including WIA representatives, and the various interstate and
local commercial vendors too. We hope that all who attended had
a good time on the day, and we welcome any constructive
suggestions for next year. |
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Barry Williams (VK5ZBQ) and Denis
Haseldine (VK5FHHH) at one of the bargain tables. |
Dave Symonds, of Altronics (Aztronics,
Adelaide) in a spin. (Photo fluked by the
Editor). |
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D-STAR LAUNCH. Icom guru, Peter Willmott
explaining the workings of the system to the large audience. |
Richard Hoskin, VK3JFK, the WIA expert on
the D-STAR system, presenting the WIA’s involvement in the
project. |
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AHARS committee members John (VK5EMI), Christine (VK5CTY),
and Leigh (VK5KLT) at the first raffle draw.
(Prize donated by Christine).
Note the special Officials' jackets! |
Kristy from Bushcomm
presenting Paul VK5FPAU with his antenna prize.
(Photo David, VK5KC) |
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Crazed bargain-hunters in the Main Hall.
(Photo David, VK5KC) |
Our fine concierge group at the entrance: Bryan,
Joy and Shirley.
(Photo David, VK5KC) |
GENERAL
NOTICES:
FOUNDATION
LICENCE TRAINING
December 13 and 14th.
Please contact Sasi Nayar or Barry Williams
(Back Page) for
further details.
SAFETY ISSUES
Next year we will have a
Safety Night.
All those aspiring to live to a good age are urged to come
along!
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NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL
MEETING
The Annual General Meeting of
the Adelaide Hills Amateur Radio Society Inc
will be held on Thursday 19th
of February, 2009.
Start time:
7:30 pm. Venue: Belair Community Centre, Belair.
For Nomination forms, Minutes
of the 2008 AGM, and the Agenda for the 2009 AGM,
click
here |
PICNIC:
DATE: Saturday January 17.
VENUE:
Bridgewater Lion's Park
UBD Map 146. 15E
START TIME: About 12 noon.
Please bring salads or dessert, drinks,
chairs, and tables.
AHARS will provide bread, butter and meat. Please let
Barry Williams
know if you intend to come.
Phone 8339 5683 or email
[email protected] |
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 |
Whyatt by kind permission of Allison Curnow,
Licensing Manager, Whyatt Cartoons. |
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OUR FINNISH SISTER CLUB:
OH3NE.
Our
much-travelled Vice President, Leigh Turner (VK5KLT), as you will
remember, has been busy forging links with the Tampere Radio Club in
Finland.
Last month I reported that they had adopted AHARS as their sister club
in Australia, and we have now similarly adopted them as ours.
On a recent trip to Finland in October, Leigh had the honour of being made an
Honorary member of that club.
On the night Leigh also entertained OH3NE club members with an impromptu
guest lecture / interactive technical discussion on the subject of small
but efficacious magnetic HF loop antennas and gave an overview of
amateur radio in Australia and a little history about AHARS.
”
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 |
Leigh with his Member of Honour plaque,
presented by Hannu, (OH3KW), the President of OH3NE (at left). |
Some of the club members present at the
presentation.
Note the well-equipped clubroom. |
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 |
Pictures about the presentation of Leigh Turner,VK5KLT about magnetic loops 9th October 2008 in OH3NE club Tampere, Finland.
Leigh is a member of the Adelaide Radio Amateur Club and a honoured
member of OH3NE club.
(From the OH3NE website. It's worth a look at!) |
Where our sister club is located.
|
More photos of this event are on their website:
http://oh3ne.ham.fi/wiki/index.php/OH3NE_ENGLISH#Home_page
|
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RECENT
MEETINGS:
September 18. TALK - Sea
Rescue Squadron Operations
Club member, Sasi, VK5SN, took us on an illustrated adventure upon the
seas, explaining the workings of the Sea Rescue Squadron, and its
importance in creating a safe environment for small boat users, and also
as an organisation which people can belong to and contribute to.
The importance of radio in
maintaining the safety of those who go down to the sea in ships was well
shown.
See below for further information on this important activity.
September 27. VISIT - SA
Sea Rescue Squadron
About 22 AHARS members attended
a most interesting and educational visit to the SA Sea Rescue Squadron.
Our own AHARS member, Sasi, VK5SN, is the radio guru
for the organisation.
Our party was split into two, with Sasi taking one group, and Skipper
Craig Wilson the other.
We were shown Sea Rescue 1, a fine, modern boat, with all the
conveniences of modern technology, including a bevy of marine radios, a
Master-Slave GPS unit, depth sounder, and the like.
We noted the proximity to each other of the various aerials on the boat,
but were assured that they all worked well.
A look over the command radio van left us WICEN people drooling. Now –
if only we had one of those!
This roomy (cavernous?) vehicle has its own
generator, sink, and multiplicity of radios (including GRN).
The
Sea Rescue organisation has about 6 0 0
members, with about
150 operational members. The SA
SRS is looking for volunteers to
do radio
shifts or become sea going operational members. The squadron also offers
accredited courses in radio voice procedure (Marine Radio Operators
Certificate of Proficiency, 27 MHz marine radio awareness session and
SA-GRN user training), seamanship (SA boat operators licence), coastal
navigation and first aid.
If
you are interested, please contact the
radio base at 8295 5062 or visit their website
http://www.sasearescue.org.au/ for
more information
Many
thanks to Sasi, Craig and the squadron for a most interesting and
educational excursion.
October: 16:TALK –
Airstream
Air-Stream
devotees Kim Hawtin and Karl Goetz gave an illustrated lecture on their
other interest, the Air-Stream community area network (CAN or WAN).
Air-Stream
provides a network to its members and associated clubs, utilising
4 watts EIRP
on the 2.4 and 5 GHz ISM bands, and consumer and commercial WiFi
equipment, to its 80 active members.
The network is
made up of a backbone network run by the network team - built from funds
provided by membership and other funds raising activities - and members
maintain parts of the network and provide access to all the members
services and content on the network.
Air-Stream is
looking to extend the network to the North, East and South into the
Adelaide Hills. Anyone who can help with a suitable site would be
greatly appreciated!
For more
information, please visit the web site;
http://www.air-stream.org
or contact via email;
[email protected]
NOVEMBER 20 - CONSTRUCTION NIGHT.
Construction guru Graham Dicker (aided by the Master’s
Apprentice, Cameron), guided the club in the making of something
very interesting but different, this year – a Van Der Graaf
generator.
Two of our brightest sparks with
their creations: Cameron (VK5FCMD) right, and John (VK5UX),
left. |


|
Rumours that the Dickers
chose this particular project to clean out their recycling bins
have been hotly denied. |
WICEN
CLASSIC ADELAIDE.
Our second rally for the year was held from Wednesday November
18 until Sunday 23.
A total of 55 WICEN people turned up to staff the
headquarters and the rally stages. There were 34 stages,
covering from Gumeracha to Inman Valley.
The rally has grown over the years, and its current size is
stretching WICEN to its limit.
WICEN experts (Ian Clayton, VK5AIC, and others) spent many days
setting up and testing 8 temporary
repeaters and translators, to ensure that our “scoring”
(provision of car numbers and timing) was received by Rally
Control (in the City) in a timely and accurate manner.
Thanks to those 17 AHARS members who turned out to
ensure the success of the event, and to keep the flag flying for
Amateur Radio.
PS: It's a lot of fun (ed.)
TRAINING DAY:
WICEN will be holding a training, discussion and BBQ day on
Saturday February 21st. Please keep an eye on the
website, or contact the Secretary, John Dawes (ph 8388 2297 or
email
[email protected] for updates on this. |


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ALARA MEETS
There were two major ALARA MEETS this year.
The first in September, in Tasmania (attended by a goodly number of our
AHARS ladies), and another in October, in South Africa. Our
globe-trotting committee member, Christine, (VK5CTY) had the good
fortune to attend them both.
Brief Report from Christine Taylor on her YL Meet in South Africa:
"It
was amazing to find myself greeted time after time by "You were in New
Zealand weren't you?"
The
New Zealand YL International was in 2000, but people remembered me from
then. It was a great feeling. I felt that I belonged to a special group.
This Meet lasted over a fortnight. Most YL Internationals are only four
or five days, like Hamilton in ZL Land. The attendees usually arrange to
do a tour either before or after the Meet to see more of the country
they are in, but in South Africa very few extra tours were planned
because Vee ZS6ZEN and Janet ZS5JAN had made it possible for us to see
so much of the country.
We
stayed in a Zulu village (in tourist type accommodation), in a game
park, sleeping in tents, and we stayed in good class hotels. We had
tours of the game parks to see the elephants, rhinos, and lions in their
natural habitats, and we had visits to the Cullinan Diamond mine, a
radio telescope site, and a magnetic observatory. And there was lots of
time for the "shop till you drop" people as well."
See November AR for more.
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The Tasmania Meet. I count six AHARS ladies (plus one
virtual member!), and a few OM's, too. Good to see such good
representation. (ed.)
(Click on photos for an enlargement). |
Table Mountain, South Africa.
Christine (VK5CTY); with (L to R) Nori (7K3EOP), Gwen (VK3DYL),
Christine, Lars (ZM5CAI).
(Photos from Christine). |
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