IARS

Greetings to all members and visitors to the website of the Illawarra Amateur Radio Society Inc.

The next club meeting of the IARS will be held at 7.30pm on Tuesday the 14th of July 2009 at Industry World Coniston.

Our Annual General Meeting is also coming up on the 11th of August 2009. Financial members please consider nominating for the committee at the AGM. It has become increasingly difficult to keep the club financially rosie as there are too few doing too much. For those that are considering getting involved we are only too pleased to assist with mentoring new committee members. I remember only a few years ago being nervous about not knowing what to do. Fortunately at that time some of the club members assisted with the process. The additional committee members also ensure important decisions are made by a greater majority of members.

Not a club member? Please seriously consider joining. Club membership is still only $25 and $20 for concessional members. Membership fees have not risen for many many years. We expect a direct deposit system to be available soon. Stay tuned for account number and BSB information to be listed on the website shortly.

Please support the club that now has Eleven, thats right, Eleven repeaters! Unfortunately now with the Department of Lands tax for all our sites have become even more expensive. If we cant attract more members and raise more funds some of our sites may have to be abandoned. I am sure you will all agree this is the last thing anyone wants to do. Current Members and those regularly utilising our repeaters should receive a letter soon asking that they renew their membership or join the club to show their support.

Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for your valued support.

Cheers

Tony Stone VK2TS

Club President - Illawarra Amateur Radio Society Inc.

Attention all members and interested Amateurs…

The VK2RMP 6 Metre Repeater is back up on air at Maddens Plane on 53.650MHz  with the usual 1MHz negative offset. A 123Hz CTCSS tone is required for access. John VK2AAL has built in an interesting feature. 5 ptt keys of carrier will put the repeater in to temporary Carrier mode to allow those without CTCSS to access the system. After a set time the repeater automatically reverts to CTCSS mode to prevent the ongoing interference problems which made the use of CTCSS necessary.

Thanks to John VK2AAL for his great work modifying and installing the repeater back on site.

Have a play, its lots of fun.

Cheers 

Tony Stone VK2TS - IARS President

Wollongong Council and the Sustainable Illawarra project are holding a free e-waste collection day.

This is a great opportunity to get rid of all (or at least some) the accumulated detritus of a lifetime as a radio amateur!

Date: 26 April 2009
Venue : Kembla Grange Racecourse
Time: 9.30am - 3.30pm.
Domestic quantities accepted.

Dispose of your e-waste responsibly by bringing domestic quantities of electronic waste for recycling. Electrical wastes that will be accepted include televisions, monitors, projectors, desktops, electronic games, laptops, joysticks, all computer peripherals, printers, CDs, DVDs, tapes, photocopiers, cameras, servers, DVD players, video recorders, electronic components, speakers, network equipment, sound equipment, scanners, faxes, mobile phones and landline phones. Remember if the goods are in working order, please check with local charities and second hand goods if they will accept them before bringing them to the e-waste collection day.

Items NOT Accepted - Smoke Alarms

This activity is open to residents of Wollongong, Shellharbour and Kiama Council areas only.

Congratulations are in order to Brian ”Golden Tonsils” Farrer - VK2AH, and Ted Thrift - VK2ARA, for taking out third and fourth place respectively in the Ross Hull contest 2009. I just spoke to Brian and he said we will have to try even harder next year. Ted took out first place on 6Metres. Could Brian and Ted achieve an outright win for the very first time for VK2 next year?

We will have to wait and see:)

See the complete results at http://www.wia.org.au/members/contests/rosshull/documents/Ross%20Hull%20Contest%202009%20Results.pdf

Well done guys!

Cheers

Tony Stone

President - IARS

Rob VK2MT and I visited the Madden’s Plains repeater site this afternoon to see if we could sort out what the problem with the VK2RDS D-Star gateway. It appears that there was a dodgy connection on the CAT5 cable that runs outside to the Avalan 900MHz Ethernet link system. A bit of wiggling of plugs and the gateway server, which had been running the whole time, was back in service.

Let me know if you have any further problems.
Neil VK2VNJ
VK2RDS D-Star gateway administrator

The VK2RDS D-Star gateway server at Madden’s Plains appears to have lost its Internet connectivity. We are looking into it, and will let everyone know when it is working again.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Neil VK2VNJ
VK2RDS gateway administrator

The VK2RDS D-STAR system, located at Madden’s Plains, has taken another big step forward. The D-Star Gateway server is now running. Once you register with the gateway, you can use the it to easily communicate with D-STAR operators through other D-STAR systems around the world.

To register with the VK2RDS gateway, go to:

http://vk2rds.iars.org.au

and follow these instructions.

Note that you should register with only one D-STAR gateway, and you should choose the one you will normally be using. If you live in the Illawarra or south of the Sydney CBD, use VK2RDS. If you live north of Sydney CBD, you should register with VK2RWN instead.

The Australian D-STAR web site has lots of useful information for getting started with D-STAR and using the D-STAR gateways. I recommend you visit there and explore the information available.

Please note that we are still in the process of fully commissioning the VK2RDS D-STAR gateway. In particular, we do now have as much Internet bandwidth as we would like. As a result, we are leaving the 23CM digital data repeater off for now, and limiting the number of digital voice (DV) connections through the gateway to three (2 normal plus one via DV dongles).

We also still need to install a UPS for the gateway server, which will require us to schedule downtime at some point.

If you have any problems or questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me or Rob McKnight, the IARS D-STAR coordinator.

73’s
Neil Justusson VK2VNJ
IARS D-STAR Gateway Administrator

Greetings to all members and visitors to the website of the Illawarra Amateur Radio Society.

IRLP Node 6018 has been upgraded to become an ECHOIRLP Node. What does this mean to you? Well IRLP is still available and works exactly as before. I have enabled indiividual user access only for echolink at this stage as I feel that allowing the linking of conferences, repeaters and links may shall we say make the Coastlink system too busy:) We can however in special cases such as emergencies or special events allow the temporary connection where required.

If you want to access Echolink then push your PTT button, announce your intention to connect to echolink and then dial # followed by the echolink id number.

Example: If you wish to call VK2TS you would dial #99327. To hang up push your push to talk button announce your intent to disconnect and you can either dial hash or as with IRLP, 73 to disconnect. Conversely if you are on your computer and want to call the Coastlink system simply look for VK2TS-R and connect to it. It is really as simple as that. Please disconnect when you are not using the system as it will make the IRLP system busy. At this stage I have allowed 3 Concurrent echolink connections.

Once we gauge the level of activity we may perform modifications to provide additional features to the system.

I am sure the system will be particularly handy when club members are on holidays, at work, the weather is too wild to go the shack, or if members have moved out of the area and want to keep in touch with their mates in the Illawarra.

Have lots of fun - that’s what it’s all about.

Cheers

Tony

VK2TS - President - Illawarra Amateur radio society

The last IARS Bunnings fund-raising sausage sizzle is scheduled for Saturday 29 November. We are looking for volunteers to help the club raise funds to cover the ever increasing costs of running our repeater network. We have raised on the order of $500 to $700 for each of our first three Bunnings fund raisers.

We need six people to man the barbeque, take and fill orders, and so on.  We operate from about 8:30 am to 3pm on the day, however you wouldn’t necessarily need to be there the whole time.

If you can spare some time on the 29 November, please let our illustrious Secretary and sausage coordinator Maeva Bennett VK2HUG know on 4297 6065 (email to Maeva is not working at the moment due to a nasty electrical storm last week).  It would be great to get some fresh faces involved.

Hope to see you there!

Neil VK2VNJ for Maeva VK2HUG

Well it is that time again! Eveyone looks forward to the November auction. To make it more enjoyable and to ensure the auction runs smoothly I have listed the rules of engagement below. Let me take this opportunity to thank Simon VK2XQX in advance for doing the owners once again as the club auctioneer.

IARS Auction rules for the club auction November the 11th 2008:

• Please no junk. If you bring it, and it doesn’t get sold, you must take it home. Anything found left at the end of the night will be disposed of at our discretion. Please don’t complain you didn’t know.

• All goods for auction to be booked in by 7.00pm, no exceptions to this rule. The meeting will begin at 7.30pm sharp.

• 10% of all sales to go to the IARS to help keep our club going, unless kindly donated to the club which will then attract 100% of the takings.
  John 2KEJ will organize settling this after the auction has closed and things have settled down. It does take time to work the totals out. Rest assured Simon knows what he is doing and he knows the rough value of all goods.

• Status of equipment to be the seller’s responsibility. If it doesn’t work make it known as any argument’s after the sale will be between yourself and the buyer, it has nothing to do with the IARS.

• All transmitting equipment should only be sold to those known to, or can prove that they have an amateur license, or they can convince us they are studying for it and their license issue, is inevitable. This of course does not apply to non transmitting items such as cable, components, accessories, receivers etc.

• Remember this is a fun night and we all should get a bargain. Let’s finish the night off with a well deserved cuppa and rag chew.

Look forward to seeing you all!

Cheers from Tony VK2TS, IARS President