VK0DS, Davis Station, Antartica, QRT 13th November 2026

 Dave VK0DS (VK2JDS)  departing Davis Station, Antartica today. after stint working there.
here is the VK0DS ping on APRS sitting out on the ice shelf.

Happy Birthday Bill Wyman

 Happy 90th Birthday to Bill Wyman (ex-Rolling Stones bassist) was at end of October.
I watched a recent interview with him, he still going very well. Great memory and life stories.
Fascinating I sat listening for the 1.5hr interview on Youtube
Bill now referred to as the oldest Rock Star alive and I hope it stays that way for a while.
What I always remember of Bill and Charlie, in one of the video clips, we see mainly see Mick, Keith and Ron clowning around and the camera catches that moment when Bill looks at Charlie and rolls his eyes, they both smirk, you can read their faces as if they thinking "OMG"

VK2RWD - Goombargana, Southern NSW - QF34 - new FM voice Repeaters

 I found some new repeaters, these are at Goombargana QF34, n.w. of Albury, NSW
They are tied to VK-Link Network.

10 metre FM Band :
29.660 MHz Output, 29.560 MHz Input

6 metre FM Band :
53.500 MHz Output, 52.500 MHz Input

2 metre FM Band:
146.700 MHz Output, 146.100 MHz Input

70cm FM Band:
438.700 MHz Output, 431.700 MHz Input

Updating my Pi-Star MMDVM hotspots as of 25th October 2026

 Updating my Pi-Star MMDVM hotspots as of 25th October 2026

Just upgraded my MMDVM hotspots again today, 
from Pi-Star version 4.3.9 to 4.3.10
Upgrade went fine, no problems.
Dashboard is still on 20261008 (8th October, 2026)

VK DMR and P25 activity as of 16th October, 2026

 just checking activity on the different modes

VK-DMR IPSC3 Network

P25 TG 10700

ZL DMR IPSC2 Network

VK0DS Davis Station Antartica - going QRT

 Just spoke to Dave VK0DS (VK2JDS) he has packed up all the radio gear, in preparation of leaving Davis Station and returning home after 8 months or so on the ice.

Updating my Pi-Star MMDVM hotspots as of 15th October 2026

 I just updated my Pi-Star MMDVM hotspots as of 15th October 2026

Pi-Star version upgraded from 4.3.8 to 4.3.9

Dashboard upgraded from 20260911 to 20261008 (8th October 2026)

upgraded the five hotspots seamlessly and no issues.

Updating my Pi-Star MMDVM hotspots as of 14th September 2026

 Updated my Pi-Star MMDVM hotspots as of 14th September 2026

Done the latest upgrade to my Pi-Star RPi MMDVM hotspots

Pi-Star version upgraded from 4.3.7 to 4.3.8

Dashboard upgraded from 20260623 to 20260911 (11th September)

running on Kernel 6.12.75+rpt-rpi-v6

Both P25 and DMR hotspots running fine, nil issues.

This time better than 4.3.7 install, as when I created image for 4.3.7,

is that it didnt work, got the RED coloured tabs instead of GREEN, plus

it didnt recognise my radios talking to it, but issues fixed once 

I forced Update and it downloaded fixes, to make the hotspots work again.

Current monitoring VK-DMR IPSC3, FreeDMR AU, ZL IPSC2, P25 TG10400 and 

TG10700 and of course Brandmeister.

Ham Radio Ireland

Ham Radio Ireland

spotted comments from Richard VK2SKY, 

what caught my attention was mention of the Galway VHF Group, some of my ancestors came from Loughrea, Galway,  Michael Connolly and wife Maria Griffin, emigrated with their family to Australia, settling in Terranora, south of Sydney, during the potato famine.

so here is blog for the group back in Ireland

Galway VHF Group

access to their online newsletters

Ham Radio Ireland ~ Galway VHF Group

and their Facebook page

(20+) Ham Radio Ireland | Facebook

Updating my Pi-Star MMDVM hotspots as of July 2026

 Updating my Pi-Star MMDVM Hotspots as of  July 2026.

I had to upgrade the Kernel to get the latest image installed.

now Kernel is 6.12.75+rpt-rpi-v6

Pi-Star  version is 4.3.7

Dashboard is 20260501  (1st May 2026)

Once installed I found the  DMR and P25 tabs were not coming up and 

showing RED instead of GREEN so I ran the Update function on each Hotspot, 

while watching I noticed some fixes go in and also a later Dashboard 

which is 20260623, now everything starts up and get the GREEN indicator

and I started receiving traffic from DMR and P25 sources respectively.

I configured the first DMR Hotspot for the new VK-DMR IPSC3 network, 

but after a day or two I noticed I not hearing much activity, just TG505 

traffic, which confirmed from monitoring the VK-DMR IPSC Heard List.

Then I configured another of my Hotspots against the VK-DMR IPSC2 network, 

since then I now receiving the normal TG's that I had configured as STATIC 

on IPSC2. 

Currently I can monitor traffic from IPSC3 and IPSC2 Networks simultaneously.

I also configured two of my Hotspots for P25 TG10400 and TG10700 talkgroups.