Darling Downs Radio Club Incorporated

The Darling Downs Radio Club will be attending the Easter festivities at the Highfields Pioneer Village again this year. Come along and say hello or listen out for the VK4WID callsign.

Some photos from the John Moyle Field day have been uploaded here.

VK4WID logged over 700 contacts in total across the 80m, 40m, 20m, 2m and 70cm bands. Everyone that attended enjoyed themselves and the rain/ drizzle overnight did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm or commitment of the night operators.

It has been decided that the DDRCi will be taking part in next years John Moyle field day. An invitation is extended to all interested people would like to help out in some way. An invitation is of course extended to all interested people that would like to come along and work the radio/s or just say hi during the contest.

The club will be running in the class 24hour, portable, multi operator, all band and most likely all mode.

Location will be The Danish Flower Art at Highfields on the Highway.

http://www.wia.org.au/members/contests/johnmoyle/

The Darling Downs Radio Club's VK4RDD repeater is back on air.

After being off air for some time from a lightening strike the new Tait system is now up and running.

A very big thankyou goes to John and all the guys involved in getting the repeater back on air.

Some new photos added to the Gallery http://ddrci.webs.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=8784386

15/09/2011 Couple more photos added to the gallery.

Dear Club President, Committee and Members,

We are very pleased to be writing to you in 2011 with an invitation and a polite request.

The Bundaberg club will celebrate its 50th anniversary in September this year and we’re planning a reunion luncheon.

As you would be aware September is a very busy month for amateur radio and we didn’t want to clash so we’ve chosen Saturday 8th October as the day to party.

We will host a reunion luncheon at the newly refurbished Young Australian Hotel in Bundaberg. They have a separate function room and bar which holds 60-80 guests and tickets for the event are $35.

We will also plan tours of our extensive facilities should people like to see what we’ve been up to over the past 50 years.

With such a long history so many members have moved on and we have lost touch so we wanted to ask your club Secretary and publicity officers if they would assist us in finding past members and friends of the club who may like to come back to Bundy in October.

Any mention of our reunion at meetings or in publications would be greatly appreciated.

We will email again in the near future with ideas on accommodation with pricing and locations so people intending to come can choose something which meets their needs.

We also have club members who would be able to take visitors into their homes for the weekend of the celebrations.

We do hope members of your club will join us in turning fifty in 2011 and please RSVP by August 27th.

Please contact the secretary on secretary@barc.asn.au telephone 41561965 for any further information or to make reserve you seat for the luncheon.

I'm sure by this everyone has seen the email floating around supposedly from Ron regarding The Radio and Electronics School future.

I would also assume most seen the second email that followed.

The below was posted on the WIA website yesterday and I thought I would share here as well.

"The WIA makes the following statement for itself and for Ron Bertrand on behalf of the Radio and Electronics School.

The WIA continues to highly value the Radio and Electronics School as an extremely valuable contributor to the future of amateur radio in Australia. It is pleased to say that as a result of recent discussions the School is assured of the WIA’s continuing recognition of its role, and Ron assures everyone that the he has every intention that the school will continue to operate.

The WIA’s position is quite clear and is irrespective of any maliciously doctored version of an email from Ron that may have been circulated."

Link here although nothing else to read.

The Gold Coast Amateur Radio Society is commencing a Class Room Advanced amateur radio course next Monday (9th May) at the clubrooms 85 Harper St Nerang.

The Class is open to any person (you do not have to be a club member)

The Course starts from "beginner" through to the Advanced.

Lessons commence at 7PM and we try to finish before or at 9:30PM

We suggest you turn up a little earlier the first night.

It makes no difference if you have "no licence" now or either a Foundation, Standard or Advanced (already)

There is a donation to cover clubs costs (power etc) of $5 per night.

This is a thorough course leading to deeper understand of Radio Theory.

Mathematics is not an issue though if needed you will be taught how to use a Scientific Calculator. (preferrably one we provide you with)

The course will involve as many practical experiments as possible.

You can just turn up next Monday but it would be appreciated (and ensure there is a place left) if you let the secretary know of you intention to attend by emailing:  secretary@gcars.com.au

The course is designed to make the learning enjoyable.

All you need to bring is a medium sized note pad and pen.

The duration varies depending on the composition of the class but typical runs for 16-20 weeks

The trainer is Ron VK2DQ (ron@res.net.au)

Day 3 has passed with another nice day albeit a little cooler with some clouds floating around.

The club continued to make few a contacts on the last day with the call AX4WID for ANZAC day, surpisingly creating some interest with the AX prefix. 10 metres was open for a large part of the day into the states although competeing with all the beams pointing in the direction proved to be difficult.

A big thankyou goes out to all those that attended, helped and just visited us over the three days. All those involved had an enjoyable time and the club has been invited back next year. So with some more planning and thought we will be back next year bigger and better.

 Just added some photos from the three days.

The log for VK4WID has been updated on QRZ.com.

The log for AX4WID has also been updated on QRZ.com.

Day 2 was another glorious Autumn day at the village. Little bit of rain over night from the edge of the rain storm they had in Toowoomba, luckily no where near as much as they had in town causing damage to the Easterfest site.

As expected there was a lot more people in the village today after a slow start in the morning, of course it was Easter Sunday so all those Easter eggs left behind last night had to be found first thing this morning.

There was more activity on the bands today as well with VK4WID making many more contacts today via phone, cw and slow scan.

John Kirk brought along a cw key connected to speaker and a sheet with morse code on it for the children to make some noise with, it proved to be hit with the children, some returning for a second go and showing their parents and grand parents how they could spell out their names in morse code.

Tomorrow being Anzac day we will be operating under AX4WID, lest us forget.

Hope to hear you on the air,

73's

Well day 1 has passed at the village with a glorious Autumn day. Plenty of people in the park and some modest in the radio. The CW certainly attracted some interest from the vistitors. I personally had a couple of people ask me the process in becoming a ham, hopefully Ewan, Wayne and Dougal had some interest as well.

The bands seemed quite today with only a handful of contacts although admittedly we didn't do a lot of calling and never really set on a particular frequency. Ewan and Wayne done some voice with Dougal giving the paddle a working on CW. Jeff sent out some pictures of the activity at the village on 14.236 with slow scan, check here for the pictures.

Day 2 promises to be bigger, with more people expected through the village. It should be another lovely day, with VK4WID making some more noise on the radio bands.