Here in Sydney (on 27th/28th Nov) and probably most of east coast, it was solid wind and rain, so I did not venture out to do the contest.
The next WIA VHF UHF Summer Field Day contest to be held on 15th/16th January 2022, fingers crossed for better wx and no more lockdowns.
For those not familiar or not active in DMR or P25 modes, then here are some of the local activity on VK-DMR and also local P25 and some of the international P25 talk groups, as seen from my Pi-Star nodes.
VK-DMR :
P25:
vale Bill Somerville, G4WJS - Amateur Radio experimenter.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
WSJT-X 2.5.3 GA Release (Win64 only)
Dear WSJT-X Users:
As most of you know, we are mourning the recent death of our friend and
colleague Bill Somerville, G4WJS, who since 2013 has contributed so much
to the WSJT project.
One of Bill's many WSJT-related tasks was creating installation packages
for Win32, Win64, Linux (Debian, Fedora, Raspberry Pi, ...), and macOS
for each new program release. At present we have a straightforward
system for building the Win64 package -- the best choice for the
majority of WSJT-X users -- but no systems in place for building Win32,
Linux, and macOS packages.
WSJT-X 2.5.3 includes a feature of special interest to users who will
enter the ARRL January VHF Contest (January 15-17, 2022). For benefit of
those users, we have decided to release WSJT-X version 2.5.3 for Win64
even though we have not yet made prebuilt packages for the other
operating systems.
Differences between WSJT-X 2.5.2 and 2.5.3 are minimal and described in
the Release Notes:
https://physics.princeton.edu//pulsar/k1jt/Release_Notes.txt
The new feature for the ARRL VHF contests is an enhanced macro facility
for Tx messages, aimed at making it easier to ask another station to QSY
to a new band. The feature is described briefly here in the User Guide:
https://www.physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/wsjtx-doc/wsjtx-main-2.5.3.html#TXMACROS
Additional information will likely appear on VHF-contest-related forums.
A link for the Win64 installation package for WSJT-X 2.5.3 is now
available on the WSJT-X web page:
https://physics.princeton.edu//pulsar/k1jt/wsjtx.html
Pre-built packages for Win32, Linux, and macOS will be added when we
have created new means for creating them.
-- 73 from Joe, K1JT; Steve, K9AN; and Nico, IV3NWV
some more interesting Amateur Radio Club pages :
MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi "The Doctor" no.46 finished his last race, held in Valencia yesterday, in 10th place, after 26 seasons, 432 grand prix races, 9 World titles, and 115 wins. Always there to entertain his huge fanbase with skilled, competitive racing.
These UHF and microwave beacons repaired and on-air
432.440 MHz
1296.440 MHz
2403.440 MHz
3398.440 MHz
5760.440 MHz
10368.440 MHz
24048.440 MHz
this looks pretty cool. VHF-UHF-SHF SDR transceiver
Langstone Project - UK Microwave Group Wiki (microwavers.org.uk)
GitHub - g4eml/Langstone: Langstone. An SDR Transceiver for the VHF, UHF and Microwave bands.
I noticed the last few days that the activity I monitor on P25 Talkgroup4 has suddenly gone quiet.
Today I went looking for the various dashboards for duckdns.org on the web and they have disappeared.
The lookup entry in Pi-Star admin menu for selection of P25 gateways also shows TG4 also gone.
The only web presence I have find associated with VK4TUX is the multi-mode repeater site Pi-Star device
VK4RBX - Digital Voice Dashboard (rfcomms.com.au) which seems to be linked to TG10100.
That's a shame to lose TG4, as we already lost TG50525 a few months ago.
as we starting to come out of Covid lockdowns, we can start thinking about amateur radio contests again
Spring 2021 - 0100 UTC Saturday 27 through 0059 UTC Sunday 28 November (differs in VK6). Summer 2022 - 0100 UTC Saturday 15 through 0059 UTC Sunday 16 January (differs in VK6). Winter 2022 - 0200 UTC Saturday 25 through 0159 UTC Sunday 26 June (differs in VK6).
that means the WIA Spring VHF/UHF 2021 contest will be on 27th and 28th November. which is a little over a month away.
The GippsTech weekend aimed for 6/7 Nov 2021 has now been [postponed until 2022, expecting it be back in the normal time of July 2022
I just reviewing logs from my Openspot to see what the main activity is from on the Brandmeister DMR network here in VK and ZL,
mostly TG 50525, which is tied to the VK3 AllStar network
next highest usage is TG's 505, 95 and 530, I noticed the two ZL's TG's getting some regular usage, I hearing more ZL-VK traffic in there.
then 53099, another ZL TG, certainly being used in past week. I not noticed this one used much before.
and the rest are state TG's 5051, 5052, 5053, 5054, 5056 and 5057 which are linked to their equivalent State TG's on VK-DMR network
next is Private Calls (station to station)
I have two DMR handhelds I listen to both DMR networks (as well as the P25 network) each day whilst working, I got to say that activity on both VK-DMR and Brandmeister is much the same. I have noticed quite a few QSO's operating across the VK-DMR to Brandmeister links, which I think is great, as people use either VK-DMR or Brandmeister based on their local situation. The interface between VK-DMR network and Brandmeister network helping encourage on-air activity.
I have been taking more note of activity on the P25 TalkGroups, TG10700 has been more quieter, but I seeing more activity each day on TG4 and TG10400, whereas a while back TG4 was very quiet.
Slot 1 | Slot 2 |
TG1 – worldwide | TG505 – all VK repeaters and hotspots |
TG13 – worldwide English | TG3801-8 – state-based TG (trailing number=call area) |
TG113/123 – User activated chat channels world wide – used for DX | TG3800 – chat channel |
TG53, 3809 and 3810 – chat channels | TG9990 – Parrot (use slot 1 for hotspots) |
TG8 – keys repeaters in defined groups – i.e. all Sydney, FNQ, all Melb, etc. | |
TG9 – keys your local repeater only | |
TG3 – US wide | |
TG30 – JOTA | |
TG5 – nets/broadcasts only | |
TG8409 – CQ UK WIRES REF 4409 | |
TG8541 – Quadnet | |
TG8638 – US TAC 310 | |
TG8851 – South Pacific REF 4851 | |
TG1910 – AR NSW repeaters | |
TG1911 – Links FNQ repeaters only | |
TG1921/1922/1923 – Scout Victoria repeaters |
The TGs are explained in detail on the VK-DMR website
since NSW been in lockdown since mid-June, I taken opportunity of having the 4wd in the garage and in pieces, doing lots of upgrade and modifications including, fixing 12v DC cabling for radios, doing measurements of DC cable feed losses to radio with load and without load, one thing I discovered was that I had added two big 60amp relays evenly feeding the radios in the car, these are switched via the Accessories switching 12v direct from battery feed, via 300amp distribution box (which feeds battery to radios, spotlights and radiator cooling fans, essentially additional high current devices not handled by main fusebox) to the radios and split by the two relays to share the load between all the radios. Looking at volts at the battery and measuring at the radio, I only seeing a couple hundred mV losses end to end, at full TX power, most of that loss is across the relay. The 4GA cable is doing its job. I did add two new brass battery terminal connectors to replace the crappy terminal connectors supplied by Isuzu.
Realistically, I could have fed all the radios via one relay, as I not expecting to run multiple radios at once, even though two radios are for VHF & HF APRS, but they are short term bursts of Tx, anyway, I played safe by having two 60amp relays in case a relay failed, then I don't lose all communications, which is very important if travelling in the outback. Having overkill on the relays means not pitting contacts from on-off keying of relays every time I go in the car. The idea of the relays was ability to isolate radios from power, i.e I don't want a radio to fail or have it keying up by itself when the car is parked, so if I not in the car, then all radios are isolated, same applies to all other electronics in the car, isolated when switched off.
Also replaced some older antenna sockets, they manage to get moisture in the SO-239 bases, the gold centre pin plating gets tarnished, replaced them, now distant repeaters are much better in signal strength.
Did some more under body coating with Tar based paint, it 's to reduce the pitting of underbody frame and panels from driving on dirt roads, the paint inside the rear bumper looked like 20 years of sandblasting. I first cleaned it all up with high pressure water cleaner, repainted with satin black rust guard, then coated over with Tar paint. This should slow down the damage to underbody paintwork from driving on dirt roads. I also custom made some smaller mud flaps to go underneath, minimize rocks flying up and hitting things, particularly to protect things like brake and fuel lines and wiring near fuel tank.
Looking forward to lockdown ending one day, so I can take the 4wd out in the country. The guys in my local radio club itching to go away somewhere too. Hopefully, we can coincide a trip away with a radio contest.
the only changes in last few months have been in the Pi-Star Dashboard,
Pi-Star for Rpi is currently version 4.1.5
Dashboard is version 20120721 (21st July 2021)
There are two weekends of Oceania Contests, SSB weekend and CW weekend, first two weekends of October.
And then the Spring VHF-UHF Field Day Contest on 27th and 28th November, whether VK2 can go portable is another thing.
news from The Western Sydney Microwave Users group,
they have all moved to 2301.1 MHz. (from 2400 MHz)
We have VK2BRM, VK2AZ ,VK2YOC, VK2KQ VK2XAX all QRV on 2301.1.
Others are re-tuning to make the move.
VK2YOC is also running a 10mW CW beacon on 2301.1 for people to test against.
Come join us on a very quiet segment of 13cm :)
Liason frequency is on 146.450 MHz
I have bought a few different MMDVM boards to run with Raspberry Pi, such as JumboSpot, the dual HAT boards and some red colour S56AL clones.
These red boards I found to be best for P25, as the other boards typically have too much frequency drift, which makes the other boards like JumboSpot work fine for DMR usage, but for P25 usage it is much more critical, otherwise you get lots of artifacts in the voice transmissions.
Anyway, the first board I bought, was working great for P25, after 6 months it suddenly stopped receiving transmissions from the RF modem receiver, it just ignores any transmission, the Receive light no longer lights up, I spent considerable time looking for solder faults under magnifying glass, comparing the circuit diagram to the board, followed the path, but could not fix it. So I bought another two of the red boards, tested them, they were working, great I put them both to work, so I could run two different frequency P25 hotspots, about a month or so, one of them dies, no receive from the radio modem side, then after 4 months the second board dies, again, same fault, receiver stops decoding signals.
All three boards transmit perfectly. I also configured and tested these boards for DMR operation and it is the same deal, receiver does not work, transmits ok in DMR mode. I know it is not the mode. All three boards are using the onboard ceramic antenna, so it is not a case of RF overload, as it is same IC's and circuit used on my JumboSpot boards.
These boards are marked as S56AL v2.1 and coloured red. These are NOT boards from Alex S56AL, this red board is a chinese clone board based on S56AL's circuit design.
As it stands, I still running these boards in Tx mode, I can monitor 3 different P25 TG's at once now, as none of the boards can receive, so they won't be talking to each other. In the meantime, I am now looking for another MMDVM board that is stable enough for P25 usage and won't fail after a few months.
Here are the pics of the "Red" board. Note: JP1 to external SMA socket antenna is not bridged.
Also Note I added the 4 pin IDC sockets to my boards so I can plugin a OLED display
news that Steve VK2STG from south of Cooma runs a daily 160metre SSB net on 1860kHz LSB at 8pm eastern
here is a short video (almost 7minutes) produced by Hayden VK7HH from up on top of Mt.Wellington next to Hobart, in Tasmania.
We have a new Field Day van! Winter Field Day 2021 | Ham Radio - YouTube
I was just up at Mt.Wellington a few months ago, the trap with going up there is the weather can change so fast, we were in Hobart and it was sunny, we drove up the top of Mt. Wellington, 30 minute drive and straight into cloud that just swept in and smothered the top of the mountain.
Regardless, I still have it on my bucket list, to go back to VK7 (via the ferry from Melbourne to Devonport) to do one of these VHF/UHF/SHF contests portable from VK7, as Tasmania has so many damned good mountain sites (clear of trees and accessible by vehicle) to run VHF, UHF and above, as portable station.
PI-Star for MMDVM Release 4.1.5 and Dashboard 20210621 now available as of 21st June 2021.
I haven't seen a release note for it yet. Upgraded three of my units from 4.1.4
All of my units are running HS_HAT 1.4.17
finally got to visit the DX farm, since covid locked everything down.
We were able to get some work done on the remote DX shack.
Added another operating desk and shelving, as it was a bit squashed at one end of the shed trying to run several radios and laptop and paperwork and very difficult if multiple operators, so we cleared the shed and added the extra desktop at the other end of the shed. We also hung up some old rugs and pieces of carpet for sound proofing and echo reduction, so the background noise and echoes are greatly reduced now. The desks and shelves all have a gap at the back to allow cables to drop or rise behind the desk or shelf. It just needs another bulk head added to run coax cables in at this end of shed.
I also surveyed a couple spots at the site for running WSPR beacons and iGates etc for the times when not operating DX or contesting.
I discovered the CCARC (Central Coast Amateur Radio Club) Morning Tea Net on Wednesdays at 10am on VK2RAG 146.725 MHz FM repeater, which seems to run for about an hour.
Here is a short video showing some RFI coming from a LED sign from local club member, when start to look around you find many of these signs at schools, churches and shops.
This example is listening on a 2metre band FM radio. It be nice to find the manufacturer to let them know these signs are radiating RFI.
here are some DMR radio nets in VK :
RAOTC - 11am first Monday each month, on VK-DMR TG5
Sean VK3KK's King Arthur Round Table net - from 8pm each Wednesday night, on Brandmeister TG50525, P25 TG50525, NXDN TG50525 and VK3 AllStar network.
Simon VK3XEM's covid welfare net - 10am, Mon-Fri , on Brandmeister TG50525, P25 TG50525, NXDN TG50525 and VK3 AllStar network.
Peter VK4NBL's VK-DMR net - 7.30pm, Tuesday nights on VK-DMR TG5
having a listen on 80 metre band, on a Thursday night, came across two club nets, Ballarat ARC on approx 3.608 MHz LSB and Bendigo ARC on 3.655 MHz LSB around the 8.30pm local time (which is 10.30UTC) good signals from both nets.
if you in Sydney, you may wish to check out this catalogue, a tonne old of gear, valves, test equipment ,
look at the catalogue on the following page
Sale of the (Last) Century – 5th June-2021 – VK2MB: Manly-Warringah Radio Society (mwrs.org.au)
The Central Coast Amateur Radio Club (CCARC) held its 2021 Field day last weekend 30th May 2021,
it was held later than normal, due to Covid disruptions. Here are a few pics from Wyong by Phil VK2APL, one photo showing members of Manly Warringah Radio Society (MWRS-VK2MB) having a catchup, including visitor and past member Bruce VK4MQ who travelled down from VK4.
current versions of Pi-Star for MMVDVM is 4.1.4 and Dashboard is 20210517
the next WIA VHF UHF Field Day Contest is coming up on Sat 26th to Sun 27th June 2021, it's 24hour contest, as usual, to encourage portable operation as a field day contest.
Addendum: I corrected the date, it was published earlier as 19th and 20th June
while driving up to the Queens Domain lookout in Hobart, stumbled onto the REAST club site, and Tas Marine Radio operations site, formerly the Commonwealth coastal Wireless Station site.
Just near this site is the city water reservoir storage, two massive concrete tanks, up high, you can park near them, you can walk on the roof (thick concrete slab) you could take some portable microwave gear here to work across to sites like Mt.Nelson to do your 10 GHz up to 122GHz contacts, the concrete slab is surrounded by heavy duty railing, so easy to lash up a small lightweight mast for smallish 2metre yagi, or 70cm yagi., solar panel, battery, portable operation. Easy done.
visited the Mt.Nelson Signal Station, this was visual signalling, not RF signalling, it was used for flag semaphore from Colonial days. This site was impressive, this would be good for a RF Field Day Contest site, I hope the VK7's do use it, its great for VHF, UHF and SHF, a good clear 180 degree view, from west to n.w.. Tasmania , through nth, n.e and round through to ZL direction. Although Mt. Wellington is considerably higher, the unpredictability of the weather for top of Mt.Wellington makes it too much of a gamble when you want to run a radio contest portable station. I have a seen a video from Hayden VK7HH up Mt.Wellington getting blasted with wind and rain, that's not good when trying to work weak signal DX.
We were over at South Arm on a nice clear sunny day and within half an hour we could see this cloud appear then engulf the top of Mt.Wellington, and we also had that happen on the day we went up to top of Mt.Wellington, go from sunny day in Hobart, take 25minute drive to the top and find different weather, being engulfed in low cloud and freezing winds. I got a photo example of it here, showing top of Mt.Wellington there one minute, gone the next.
Apart from that, I was impressed with Tasmania, I would like to go back, but next time take a car loaded with RF gear across on Spirit of Tasmania to do a Field Day Contest from VK7, that would be good for a bucket list. The VK7's have a lot of accessible mountain tops, with unobstructed water views back to the mainland, ideal for radio field day contests. I don't know what is best, go to Hobart work locals , or go somewhere up along the top coast of VK7 to work back to mainland.
visited Mawson's Hut Replica Museum in Hobart city centre, lots of good stuff to see, including radio equipment , as operated by famous ham radio operator Walter Hannam. You need a good 2-3 hours (or more) to really look this place over.
whilst on tour of VK7, stopped in to visit the Mt.Pleasant Radio Astronomy Observatory and Grote Reber Museum, located in suburb of Cambridge, north of Hobart, Tasmania. Tasmania was the later base for famous ham and radio astronomer Grote Reber (SK). This radio astronomy site operated by University of Tasmania.
the heavy rain and wind has made a mess of going contest portable on eastern seaboard,
but at least two groups out there portable :
Manly Warringah Radio Society (MWRS) gone portable to Gundaroo NSW QF45oa just north of VK1
to operate HF to 23cm as club callsign VK2MB/p
and also the
Eastern & Mountain District Radio Club (EMDRC) operating portable near Blackwood (n.w. of Melbourne) QF22dm15 operating as VK3ER/p 160m to 47GHz
VK2RCW 439.700 Mhz repeater is back on air as of today, after it had failed some time back.
It is now a multi mode repeater supporting FM analogue and P25 digital modes.
This repeaters belong to ARCWG (Amateur Radio Central West Group) and this repeater is
co-sited with the club's 2metre repeater FM repeater on 147.200 MHz.
Planned for the future, is to link the 439.700 P25 digital into the P25 network.
The Wireless Institute of Australia (wia.org.au)
I built up another two Pi-Star MMDVM's with Single HAT JumboSpots,
I grabbed the latest image file for Raspberry Pi for version 4.1.4,
I noted the later Raspberry Pi kernel is 5.10.11+,
comparing that to the last image which was probably 4.1.2 has kernel 4.19.118+
which I have on my original VK-DMR hotspot, so I will backup the config
for it and burn the latest 4.1.4 PiStar image onto the SD card.
Also noted latest dashboard as of today (13th Feb 2021) is 201210212
I noticed this morning on my PiStar MMDVM Dashboard consoles, that it was showing an alert message at the top of the PiStar (red) Dashboard page, advising me there was a new release and that I simply need to click the link to upgrade my two PiStars, one was 4.1.1, the other was 4.1.2.
Clicked the link, it upgraded within 30 seconds or so, and it ready to go, first my SingleHAT MMDVM went from 4.1.1 to 4.1.2, then clicked the link again from Admin console view to upgrade it to 4.1.3, then the Alert appeared again, I then clicked again to go to 4.1.4, I then followed same procedure to do my DualHAT MMDVM node, going from 4.1.2 > 4.1.3 > 4.1.4
This was so easy, OMG, that simplification of upgrade by the PiStar Development team was absolutely fantastic. The manual method of upgrade did not phase me, but I did wonder how non-computer related people would do the upgrades. But the answer to that dilemma is now right there in the latest dashboard.
Congratulations to the PiStar Development Team for the new automated upgrade process.
As of today, my MMDVM nodes have PiStar 4.1.4 and Dashboard 20210203 (3rdFeb2021)
Ross Hull Memorial VHF/UHF Contest - ran through the month of January 2021. Unfortunately, I had no time to participate this year.
John Moyle Memorial Field Day Contest - a amateur radio contest to encourage portable and field operation (HF and above). It is a 24hour contest.
This year it will be across weekend of 20th - 21st March 2021, starting lunchtime Saturday (0100z) and concludes lunchtime Sunday (0059z)
contest rules can be found here : The Wireless Institute of Australia (wia.org.au)
Summer 2021 - 0100 UTC Saturday 16 through 0059 UTC Sunday 17 January (differs in VK6).
Winter 2021 - 0100 UTC Saturday 26 through 0059 UTC Sunday 27 June (differs in VK6). Spring 2021 - tba in November, just my luck, it will be probably be same weekend as the F1 GP or Moto GP
