visit to Mawson's Hut Replica Museum in Hobart, Tasmania

 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.

visit to Mt.Pleasant Radio Astronomy Observatory and Grote Reber Museum (Hobart, Tasmania)

 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.

John Moyle Field Day Contest 20th-21st March 2021

 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 repeater back on air

 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)

Pi-Star for MMDVM updates

 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

Pi-Star Downloads - pistar.uk

PiStar for MMDVM Release 4.1.3 and 4.1.4 now available

 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)

PiStar Downloads and Releases

WIA - Ross Hull Memorial VHF/UHF Contest and John Moyle Memorial Field Day Contest - 2021

 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)

WIA VHF UHF SHF Field Day Contests 2021

   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

rules can be found here :

The Wireless Institute of Australia (wia.org.au)

Mobile Phone network saturation problem

 An issue that has been bugging me  for past couple years,  is the trouble when you go somewhere outside the city and find you cant get a data connection on 4G. One such location is up the back of Jenolan Caves (west of Sydney), we visit and stay here nearly every year. I noticed more in recent years the difficulty sustaining a data connection or ability to make a phone call or send an SMS, this is on the Optus network, we have gone with the family so there are several of us with various phones  all on Optus.  I blamed Optus for a poor network, as it getting worse each year.   Now the reason I question this is because =, I did some study into this as I can clearly look across the valley and see  4 or 5 cell towers, I used the Cell Phone Signal App to identify the towers I can see, where Optus operating from.  I can identify what their signal strength is and which bands they operate on.  In the recent visit last July, I also took note of the times I could and couldnt get access to the network (this is on iPhones6's and Samsung7 and Samsung8) 

Basically, I could only guarantee a connection very early in the morning  (ie 6-7am or very late at night) so this proved it based on the load of the network, or the concentration of users accessing the network. I found I had to drive into Oberon to get a reliable connection for phone, SMS & data.  This is interesting, because you can see the signal bars are showing the phone can see a cell tower, but it just unbale to establish a connection.

Next, on a visit to Tumut, did a drive up to top of Snowy Mtns, we drove to Kiandra, I noticed at one stage on the drive, signal dropped out, but up on top of the plateau  at approx 1500m ASL, none of our phone could establish a connection, even though, the phone showing several bars of signal, driving back to Tumut, can see there is signal, but no, it dont want to establish a connection,  arrive back in Tumut, all the phones re-establish  connection.   At this point  I getting pretty pissed off with Optus, I am thinking what the hell is wrong with their network.

Yes, I drove from Sydney down the Hume Highway,  coverage all the way, no data dropout, as I had my APRS Droid App running on my phone, I can see all the way from Sydney to tumut, 100%  coverage on Optus 4G. So question is why is it not working up in the mountains, when I know there is signal present.

Move to November 21st, 2020, the club I belong to go to Mt Allyn for a radio contest.   drive up, set up on top of the mountain,  1135m ASL, I need to get on the web to tell people where we are,  I notice the phone connection dropping out,  but I sitting on top of a mountain,  there are towns  just down the road, I can see them in the distance, and I know the phone  was working whilst driving, as I had the APRS  Droid App on. Then one of the other guys mentions his phone not working, he got signal, but no connection, he and another fellow are on Telstra, but I am on Optus. Now, the guy who has Telstra mobile , used to work for Telstra, setting up the sites for Telstra.  At this point, I realise this is common to Telstra and Optus.

Weeks go by from here, but I still thinking about it, then it clicks, my phones can receive a signal from the cell tower. the path is LOS, but we are still quite a few kilometres away from the various towers,  like the situation at Jenolan Caves and  Snowy Mtns, I am up high, in clear LOS with towers, but no connection can be established. Of course, I am distant to the tower, there are no other competing mobile device signals near me,  but I can bet for sure, there are many more mobile devices closer in nearer the towers, so I am competing  against many more devices that are providing a stronger signal to the tower, since they are closer.  It is not like back in the days  of 2G and 3G,  we now in the realms of 4G and 5G and many more devices other than phones are accessing and using the phone network.   Of course, now we have all sorts of devices with a mobile sim fitted, such as alarm systems, home modems, in car systems, tracking systems,  IOT, so we have a bucket load of more devices, all trying to establish a connection,  each cell does not have an infinite amount of connections, each cell has a limit. I noticed more and more often ,  your phone sends an alert to tell you that you missed a voice call and you think to yourself, I did not hear that phone ringing,  its a simple reason, the network cant establish a connection to your phone, as too many other competing  devices seen at the receiver of the  cell tower. 

This explains the high demand for spectrum by the Telcos, they just grabbing as much as they can, as the demand for access is increasing faster than they can roll out cell towers.  I can see, long gone are the days we need cell towers up high for maximum coverage,  now you need lots of cell towers with low  height to create lots of micro coverage areas.   I remember  Malcolm Turnbull sprouting that we don't need  NBN fibre everywhere to provide broadband services, , we just need to run broadband from mobile network.  Well,  its 2020 and that mobile network is now SATURATED. What use is a mobile network, if you can't connect to it ?  paying a fortune for a mobile service that is no longer reliably accessible.  Its a joke,  drive a few kilometres  out of a town and no mobile service, even though your phone can clearly see the signal from the tower,  going to 5G, is not going to help, when there are a large number of 5G devices, then 5G network will be saturated. Yes, faster download on 5G, but can I establish a connection as a I get further away from town ? probably not.  I cant see that Telcos can afford to put 5G cells every 500m  apart, the cost would be mind blowing. It still comes back to need of fibre cable everywhere, just to provide the backbone infrastructure to provide bandwidth for a whole bucket of micro cells,  as the concept  of 1 or 2 cells per suburb just wont cut it, the Telcos are going to need  dozens of low powered, low height cells  to provide micro coverage areas. The cost of expanding the network will make the service prohibitive to the end user.

I guess one way to do it with current cell towers  is multiple cells with arrays from a single tower,  run multiple directional arrays, multiple feeds,  rather than just the single  omni bays,  but again the cost becomes quadrupled, or as many times as you have directional arrays spread over a 360 degree coverage area. If you have multiple directional arrays spread out over the 360degrees, then each  node receiver has a limited aperture of devices in its view.

All of this high consumption bandwidth, just for the sake of watching  crap  tv and movies. How sad. Once upon a time the internet was for doing useful things.

just checking on Frank VK4HFK /MM

 

just checking where Frank VK4HFK/mm is,    back in VK.

YACHT-INFO VK4HFK (yachttrack.org)