Message:21066 In: BCAST.WW
From: VK7AXDate: Sun, 19 Apr 26 02:28:00 Z
Newsgroups: BCAST.WW
Subject: VK7 Amateur Radio News 19Apr26
Message-ID: <10780_VK7AX>
Path: N2MH4|GB7BED|VE2PKT|VK3AT|VK7AX
R:260419/0240Z 30382@N2MH4.#SENC.NC.USA.NOAM LinBPQ6.0.24
R:260419/0239Z 10018@GB7BED.#21.GBR.EU LinBPQ6.0.25
R:260419/0229Z 5796@VE2PKT.#TRV.QC.CAN.NOAM LinBPQ6.0.25
R:260419/0229Z 23706@VK3AT.#MEL.VIC.AUS.OC LinBPQ6.0.24
R:260419/0228Z 10780@VK7AX.#ULV.TAS.AUS.AUNZ LinBPQ6.0.24
VK7 Amateur Radio News 19Apr26
Text edition:
VK7 AMATEUR RADIO NEWS
SUNDAY 19th April 2026
Welcome to the VK7 Amateur Radio News for the 19th day of April 2026, your gateway to what’s happening across the airwaves in Tasmania and beyond.
Coming to you from the Tasmanian Amateur Radio News Desk is Peter, VK7PD with the latest updates, stories, and insights from our amateur radio community.
We’re broadcasting far and wide thanks to our dedicated team:
DMR Talk Group 5 & D-Star Reflector 91C via the Digital Group
HF relays:
1.860 MHz – Graham, VK7GS - Please note change of frequency
3.670 MHz – Ross, VK7ALH
7.140 MHz – Garry, VK7JGD
14.130 MHz – Any Takers
28.525 MHz – Mark VK7FMAC
And locally in Hobart on UHF CB Ch.24 also with Mark VK7FMAC. There is no HFCB24 broadcast this morning.
Missed it live? Catch the replay Tuesday 8pm on repeaters VK7RAA (North), VK7RHT, and on UHFCB24/HFCB24 (South).
Stay tuned, and enjoy the news!
--------------------------------
Statewide SSTV Nights
A busy net night that saw the following participants, VK7s –
ZAB, AX, KT, OO, ZCF and PAK, all sharing forty five photos.
The main themes were:
You never know what you might find on the moon, maybe Pink Floyd artefacts and the Epstein files
SSTV decodes from ARISS. Photos from series 31 that commemorates World Space Achievements such as
45th anniversary of first Space Shuttle flight
65th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s first flight
100th anniversary of first liquid fuel flight
And down on earth, lightning and radio telescopes
Again Tony VK7AX interconnected VK7RJG to his SSTV International Gateway and VK7s exchanged photos with PC1K and PA3EKI in the Netherlands. Please remember to leave a 30 second break between transmissions to allow the European countries a chance to send photos.
Note - Ken VK7KRJ’s and Steve VK7OO’s fully automatic 24/7 monitoring sites that allows anyone testing, to send a picture and the ability to check their transmission on these pages almost immediately, any time, both South and North Tasmania.
If you missed the net there are archives of these SSTV nights on Ken’s and Steve’s websites or on NTARC’s website under blogs.
https://vk7oo.tasme.com/vhfsstv/
https://sstv.vk7krj.com/scrolling%20web%20gallery.html
https://www.ntarc.net/blogs
https://www.qsl.net/vk7ax/sstvgate/index.html
73 from Andre’ VK7ZAB
--------------------------------
Tassie Ham-E-Con Radio Conference
Preliminary program released
The theme of the conference for 2026 is -
Hack the Ether: Education, Ingenuity, Connection
Hack the Ether celebrates the experimental DNA of amateur radio—where education meets invention and community meets curiosity. The 2026 conference invites participants to push beyond nostalgia and build the hobby’s next chapter through practical learning, creative collaboration, and purposeful leadership.
The conference will again be fully catered.
Tassie Ham-E-Con 2026 is the meeting point of amateurs, experimenters, educators, and storytellers.
There are four focus areas to the conference:
1. Hack the Mind focusing on Education and Learning Futures
2. Hack the System focusing on Ingenuity and Experimentation
3. Hack the Culture focusing on Engagement and Connection and
4. Hack the Future focusing on Leadership and Purpose
The preliminary program under each of these conference theme areas is available on the Conference Website and the booking form is going live next we the others, got up to mischief, spending the journey, loosening and removing the toilet on the train. Railway officials inspected the train on its arrival, and the soldiers on the carriages were required between them to pay for the damage.
Andrew VK7XR and Ross VK7WP brought boxes of radio equipment that either could be purchased with a small donation going to the club, or were giveaways, everything found a new home
After afternoon tea, we pulled the pin, and back sumably to indicate transmit activity?
The amplifier didn’t have that all too familiar “let the smoke out of a semiconductor” smell. Instead, it had the other classic aroma: a vented and disgorged electrolytic capacitor. A closer look at the circuit revealed there was no internal reverse polarity protection, so it appears the main filter capacitor absorbed the full impact of an accidental reverse power connection.
It shouldn’t be a difficult repair, but the real question is what else further down the line may have been stressed. Fingers crossed for Ross.
As usual pictures will be available on the NTARC Web site under “Blogs” for this broadcast. NTARC Blogs
https://www.ntarc.net/blogs
UPCOMING EVENTS
On Air Test and Technical Net session - Every Wednesday night, Test-Net and CW course on 3.580 MHz from 7 pm, then a Technical Net on 3.567 MHz from 7.30 pm till 8.30 pm. Your host for the evening is Nic, VK7WW.
Club General Meeting - Has been moved to Wednesday 22nd April at 7:30pm. Held at the NTARC Club Room, Rocherlea Scout Hall, Archer Street, Rocherlea. If you have items you would like added to the agenda please email the secretary at: secretary@ntarc.net .
Club Room Technical night - The next session will be Wednesday the 29th April and will commence at the usual time of 6.30 pm at the Club Room Archer Street, Rocherlea.
Coffee Morning - Held every Friday in the NTARC Club rooms. Time is from 10 am to noon.
Finally - If you have any items of news please email them to the Secretary at the following address news@ntarc.net all items to be received no later than 5 pm on the Friday prior to the Broadcast.
That’s all folks,
73 from Stefan, VK7ZSB, Secretary NTARC Inc.
--------------------------------
NEWS FROM THE SOUTH
TAS MARITIME RADIO seeks volunteer radio operators.
Over the past months Tas Maritime Radio has had a number of retirements due to ill health and operators moving interstate.
Operators usually do one or two shifts per week. There are three shifts per day, 7 - 11am, 11 – 3pm and 3 – 7pm.
Tas Maritime trains the operators over a period of around three weeks, with two shifts per week, and pays the cost of the required Long Range Operators Certificate of Proficiency.
Operators come from all walks of life and find it interesting and rewarding and in a lot of cases it enables them to ‘give something back’ for all the years they enjoyed boating.
Tas Maritime is regarded as an essential service and has dealt with many distress situations over the last forty nine years of operation. Just in the last eleven years it has dealt with 1,060 incidents, 193 of which were urgent PAN PAN situations while a further 90 of which were Mayday situations. Log entries since 2015 total 142,258 and last month 1,279 calls were logged.
If you are interested and would like further information give Barry McCann a call on 0417 581 789 or ring Tas Maritime Radio and leave your name and number.
Kind regards
Barry
--------------------------------
Radio and Electronics Association of Southern Tasmania
https://www.reast.asn.au/
https://www.facebook.com/reasttas/
https://www.youtube.com/reasthobart/
Wednesday Experimenter’s Group (WEGs)
https://www.youtube.com/live/h4Al0rdrntw?si=6SzZNd5muGbRlILR
Last Wednesday in the studio, Rex VK7MO and Dr Andrew Klekociuk took us through the latest developments in their aircraft scatter experiments.
With Rex transmitting and Brodie VK3MAP then Grant VK3ZPE receiving and then analysing the audio files using the remarkable application - Spectrum Lab.
https://www.qsl.net/dl4yhf/spectra1.html
Rex and Andrew shared new insights into how signals interact with aircraft, including significant findings around ground reflections, diffraction effects, and how grazing angles can dramatically influence results.
They also demonstrated practical techniques, alongside detailed analysis using Spectrum Lab and ADS-B tracking. There was a slightly frustrating six weeks of chasing a frequency jumping issue and the culprit turned out to be the Raspberry Pi decoder, proving once again that sometimes the problem isn’t physics, it’s your hardware.
The session wrapped up with some impressive modelling, including the estimation of the aircraft length that came remarkably close to reality, highlighting just how far this research has come.
Thanks to Rex, Andrew, Brodie and Grant for sharing their research.
Wednesday evenings kick off early, with members drifting in from about 6pm, many armed with takeaway containers or home-cooked dinners.
This coming Wednesday night we have an interesting look into the history of the Simplex Autokeyer which is the only Australian made Autokeyer with Steve VK7OO and Justin VK7TW.
The DATV Studio broadcast begins at 7:30pm and goes out live on the REAST YouTube Channel. Around it unfolds the usual controlled chaos: lively debate, hands-on experimenting, gear tinkering, coffee consumption at industrial scale, the hatching of elaborate “cunning plans,” and the kind of wide-ranging amateur radio mischief and global problem-solving that somehow only ever truly makes sense inside the clubrooms.
https://www.reast.asn.au/news-events/live-stream/
https://www.reast.asn.au/special-interest-groups/amateur-tv/
https://www.youtube.com/c/ReastHobart/
See you there or on the stream.
https://www.youtube.com/live/h4Al0rdrntw?si=6SzZNd5muGbRlILR
73, Justin, VK7TW
--------------------------------
May Presentation
Tecnorama and Tour
What is Tecnorama I hear you ask?
https://technorama.org.au/
The vision for Technorama is that it becomes the focal point which brings technologists together, and supports their efforts. The objects for Technorama is to further the education and development of technologists within community broadcasting, and to provide opportunities for interaction like conferences, seminars and events in support of these aims.
What does this have to do with amateur radio? I’m glad you asked! The skill set of technologists in the Community Radio Sector is a mix of IT and RF engineering. Guess what it matches the skill set of amateur radio operators really well.
We are gathering for the night at the Howrah Community Centre for a short presentation on Tecnorama by John Maizels VK4APM via zoom then we will be taken on a guided tour through the brand spanking new Hobart FM radio community radio station by Community Radio Engineering Guru - Jim Parish.
This should be a fascinating night showcasing Community Radio technology and support.
Wednesday the 6th May at the Howrah Community Centre at 11 Howrah Rd, Howrah and park in the Southern Carpark - closest the river from 7pm. PLEASE NOTE IT STARTS AT 7PM. There is nothing at the Queens Domain clubrooms that night.
See you there for a fascinating night.
https://www.reast.asn.au/event/tecnorama-and-tour/
73, REAST Committee
--------------------------------
May Forum Night - Our New Band Plans
Wednesday May 13th from 7:30pm, it’s REAST Forum Night, and this time we’re diving into the new band plans. With recent changes affecting where and how we operate, this is your chance to get across what’s shifted, what’s new, and what it all actually means on the air. Whether you’re into digital modes, voice, or CW, understanding the band plan is key to staying effective, compliant, and not accidentally annoying half the band.
Join us in person at the Queen’s Domain clubrooms or catch the session streamed live as we walk through the major updates, highlight where different modes now sit, and help you make sense of the changes. If you’ve been wondering where to operate or just want to avoid becoming “that station”, this is one night worth showing up for.
https://www.reast.asn.au/event/may-forum-night-new-band-plans/
73, REAST Committee
--------------------------------
REAST Training and Assessment Update
https://www.reast.asn.au/information/amateur-licence-assessments/
Are you looking to join the world of amateur radio or upgrade your license? REAST has you covered with regular Training and Assessment Days for all license levels!
Key Dates:
Standard, Advanced, and Regulations Assessments: Held on alternate months, next is on 30th May 2026.
Foundation Training and Assessment Days: Held every two months with the next one on Saturday the 27th June 2026.
Check out the full schedule on the REAST Events Page.
https://www.reast.asn.au/news-events/upcoming-events/
Do you need to secure your spot or ask a question - email: reast.assessor@gmail.com and your inquiry will go directly to the Learning Organiser, who be in contact.
We have learning resources available including our Foundation Licence Training Videos that are a must-watch for beginners. Find them on the REAST YouTube Training and Assessment Playlist.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsnsP_zjw831mdC6sY4XqavRUY-53ZWUn
Practice Makes Perfect so, prepare with the WIA Foundation Trial Exams and the link can be found on the email edition of the broadcast.
https://www.wia.org.au/licenses/foundation/onlineexams/foundation.php
Whether you're starting your journey or leveling up, REAST is here to guide you every step of the way.
73, Reg, VK7KK
--------------------------------
Technology News
AERIS-10: Open Source Pulse Linear Frequency Modulated Phased Array Radar
The AERIS-10 project aims to democratize radar technology by providing a fully open-source, modular, and hackable radar system.
Whether you're a university researcher, a drone startup, or an advanced maker, AERIS-10 offers a platform for experimenting with beamforming, pulse compression, Doppler processing, and target tracking.
Available in two versions (3km and 20km range), it's designed for researchers, drone developers, and serious SDR enthusiasts who want to explore and experiment with phased array radar technology.
AERIS is an open-source hardware and software platform with fully available schematics, PCB designs, firmware, and supporting software. The two versions: the AERIS-10N offering around 3 km range with an 8×16 patch array and 2 watts, and the AERIS-10X extending to roughly 20 km using a 32×16 slotted waveguide array with 10 watts.
The system features full electronic beam steering of ±45° in both elevation and azimuth, supported by on-board FPGA processing for pulse compression, Doppler FFT, MTI, and CFAR. It includes a Python-based GUI with map integration, GPS/IMU for real-time correction, and a modular architecture separating power, frequency synthesis, and RF sections.
In short, it’s a scalable, software-defined radar platform that lets you build something seriously capable without needing a defence contractor’s budget or a clearance level.
https://github.com/mitgor/PLFM_RADAR
Sourced from GitHub.
--------------------------------
Regular VK7 gatherings and events over the coming months:
VK7 Regular gatherings:
Sewing Circle Net – Daily on 3.640MHz commences at 6:30pm AEST.
Statewide SSTV Net - held every Thursday night via the North/South Link on VK7RAF/VK7RJG from 7:30pm. In the North and North West - VK7RJG on 438.55 -7MHz and in the South - VK7RAF (146.650 -600kHz) CTCSS tone 141.3Hz to link RAF North-South. Plus VK7AX International SSTV Gateway connected to VK7RJG for the duration of the net.
State-wide – MICROWAVE QSO Party – following the Sunday broadcast call-back on 1296.15 MHz FM. One group in the greater Hobart area and another in the greater Launceston area.
Then North-south digital contacts on 1296.2MHz using Q65-60B.
Stations in the Launceston area transmitting on the odd minute. Southern stations on the even minute.
REAST - 6m AM Net on 53.1MHz Everyday from 4:30pm
SOTA/WWFF Group – Meeting Mondays and Fridays 10.30-12.00 midday at Glebe Gardens Cafe, Henry St, Launceston.
NTARC TestNet and TechNet session - Every Wednesday, TestNet/CW course on 3.580MHz from 7 pm, then a TechNet on 3.567MHz from 7.30 pm till 8.30 pm. Your host for the evening is Nic VK7WW.
NTARC Technical night session - Wednesday 29th April from 6.30 pm at the Club Room Archer Street, Rocherlea.
NTARC Coffee Mornings are held every Friday in the NTARC Club rooms. Time is from 10am to noon in the Rocherlea Clubrooms.
NW VK7 – Wednesday from 8:00pm local – NW Tassie Amateur Repeater Group Net on 2M VK7RMD and Allstar Node 56780
NW VK7 - Thursday commencing at 8:30pm local - N.W. Tassie 2m DX Net 144.190 USB
VK7 Events:
WW - 18 April - IARU - World Amateur Radio Day
NTARC - 22 April - Club General Meeting from 2:30pm in the NTARC Club Room, Rocherlea Scout Hall, Archer Street, Rocherlea.
REAST - 6 May - Tecnorama Presentation and Tour of HobartFM Community Radio Station - Howrah Community Centre
REAST - 13 May - Forum Night - New Band Plans - Queens Domain clubroom from 7:30pm and streamed
VK - 7-8 Nov - Tassie Ham-E-Con Amateur Radio Conference - UTAS Sandy Bay
--------------------------------
A reminder to those people rostered for next week’s broadcast:
Newsreader: VK7TW
Repeaters: REAST, NTARC and in the NW thanks to NWTARC, WCRG, NWCRRA, VK7AX, VK7JH and VK7DC
160m: VK7GS
80m: Any Takers
40m: VK7ALH
20m: VK7JGD
10m: VK7VKT
UHFCB24 & HFCB24: VK7FMAC
DMR: Talk Group 5 and D-Star Reflector 91C - Digital Group
2026 Roster -
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iTod4MGlJRjXxi2vuDrHngoytZebSMph/view?usp=drive_link
--------------------------------
A big thank you to everyone who contributed to and supported this week’s broadcast of the VK7 Amateur Radio News.
That’s it for this week! If you missed the live transmission, remember you can always catch the rebroadcast Tuesday at 8:00pm on VK7RAA in the North, VK7RHT, and UHFCB24/HFCB24 in the South.
Got news, stories, or updates to share? We’d love to hear from you! Send them to vk7arnews@gmail.com by Friday 9pm. You can also join the conversation on our VK7 Amateur Radio News Groups.io page.
groups.io/g/vk7arnews
Stay tuned now for callbacks on this frequency, with each relay station using their own callsign.
On behalf of the VK7 News Team, this is Peter, VK7PD, wishing you good DX, and a great week ahead!
--------------------------------------------------------------
(Posted to the packet network courtesy Tony VK7AX)
Return To Bulletin List