Equine Endurance Event - The NTARC Safety Communications Team has been asked to provide safety communications at this year’s Tasmanian State Equine Endurance Ride Championships.
This is the major event for the year and it will be held on familiar territory at Santarena Park, Scottsdale on Saturday the 5th of December. The rides will be 160km, 95km and 50 km. The 160km is a 24 hour ride that starts at 00:00 hours Saturday morning. We will be providing Base Communications, checkpoints and RFID tracking. There is still a need for additional crew members to handle this event, so if you can spare some time on that Saturday, why not pop down to Santarena Park, Scottsdale, a pleasant 1 hour or so drive from Launceston. If you like, you could utilise your radio skills, or even help by handing out lollies and containers of water to competitors, all this interspersed with the tranquillity of the bush. Please advise if you are able to assist by emailing secretary@ntarc.net or catch up with Idris, Andre' or Stefan at a coffee morning or Wednesday technical night session.
CW course - Please note that last Wednesday night was the final formal session for 2026, yes the year is starting to send us into hibernation and Nic, VK7WW is going to take a very well earned break until next year. However, knowing Nic, I am sure he will be “stooging” about the frequency and more than happy to catch up informally.
Mug Order - the ones that have our club logo on one side and personalised with your name and call sign on the other side. We are placing another order so if you would like one then please email secretary@ntarc.net to place an order. Please specify what name is to be printed above the call sign. The final price will be about $15 depending on eventual quantity ordered.
End of year NTARC social get together is rapidly approaching, it will be held on Wednesday the 2nd of December. Last year we trialled a Thursday night, unfortunately it seemed to clash with too many members’ end of year engagements, so the general consensus was to revert back to a Wednesday night. Due to popular requests, it will be held at the Iron Horse Bar and Grill located at 468 Westbury Rd, Prospect Vale. We will be in a quiet function room at the rear of the dining area. Those who wish to attend please register the number of places required by e-mailing the Secretary or on the registration sheet at the club rooms. Tables have been booked under the name of NTARC and the Menu is a-la-carte. We will be arriving at 6pm for a 6:30 meal. If you are free and wish to attend, now is the time to mark the date on your calendar!
A link to the Iron Horse location and menu information is available in the text version of this broadcast. Iron Horse Bar & Grill
Let us end on a soon-to-be-created, historical event in radio communications.
Last technical night there was deep discussions on tolerances, not the human kind but for individual components and systems. Basically we covered: - Component tolerance, Component ageing and drift, Longlife electronic reliability, Thermal reliability, Radiation effects on electronics, Redundancy and fault-tolerant designing. It was a brilliant general topic of discussion that ended up on ruggedized space hardening and of course NASA’s space program.
Anyway to cut a long story short, that metaphorically rang a bell in the back of my mind. It was to do with some notable land-mark or in this case “space-mark” about Voyager 1. After some digging I found the article, once I validated it with the NASA web site, it appears that next Wednesday about 21:15 our time it will officially take 24 hours for one way radio communication to Voyager 1 and 24 hours for a return signal to complete its journey back to Earth! Have a bit of a think about that……. One Light Day……..
A link to NASA is included in the text version of this broadcast, Voyager 1 or Where Are Voyager 1 and 2
UPCOMING EVENTS
CW course - Is in recess until January 2027.
On Air Test and Technical gathering - Wednesday nights, on 3.567 MHz from 7.30 pm.
Club Room Technical night - The next session will be Wednesday the 25th November 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. End of year social - Wednesday the 2nd of December at Iron Horse Bar and Grill.
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, Stefan VK7ZSB.
