Broadcast - 18 May 2025
We start off this week’s broadcast with an update of last Wednesdays Club room technical night.
Firstly cast your mind back a month, when Colin VK7ZCF brought in his “Shack in a Backpack”, everything that was required to set up a portable station contained in a backpack, it was a work in progress.
Unlike standard backpacks his was very innovative and opens very similar to a tool roll. When opened an aluminium backing panel dominates the centre section and provides the mounting for the electronic equipment. Most notably an Icom IC7000, an automatic antenna matching unit model AT100 and an 18 Amp Hour Lithium deep cycle battery. You may remember that power distribution was the last missing component in the system. The aluminium panel now sports an extra enclosure, needless to say it was 3D printed by Colin. The enclosure houses all power distribution and provides blade fusing to individual equipment items plus an external switch for overall power on–off and charging options. The enclosure also provides externally accessible sockets for powering extra equipment, very neat. No doubt we will soon hear how the field trial results go. An excellent construction and to a very high standard Colin.
Ross VK7ALH brought in a very newly acquired Swan 140 Single Sideband Transceiver. Manufactured by Swan Engineering in California USA, Circa early 1960’s. It was in excellent condition for a rig with sixty year under its belt. This unit is a 40 Metre mono-band transceiver, meaning it only covers one amateur band and in this case only one mode is also supported namely Single Side Band. It requires an External power supply unit as well as external speaker. This is an all Vacuum Tube unit with approximately 80 Watt PEP output. One nice touch was that all valve sockets had the corresponding valve designation printed on the chassis next to it. It will be interesting to see if and how well it fires up on the work bench Ross.
Stuart VK7ES had a little ripper of a USB Cordless Micro Soldering Iron, about 200 mm long and 15 mm in diameter. 1000 mA hour capacity and is recharged via a USB type-C socket. It has three levels of temperature control between 300 and 450 degrees Celsius. It even incorporates an auto turn off after 10 minutes of being on. The instructions hint towards 8 Watt capacity, it is intended for small printed circuit board work. Soldering an XL-R connector would most likely be outside its capacity for a quick solder joint. It comes in a plastic carry case with space for solder etc. If you wanted the deluxe version with LCD display pay the extra $2 and for $22 Australian you have a very cost effective emergency iron for your kit. Thanks Stuart.
Andrew VK7DW had his newly received “Amateur Radio on the International Space Station” certificate of participation or more specifically his “ARRISS SSTV Award”. To quote the award you must have, “Received SSTV images from the ISS, broadcast on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the End of World War II. The images were sent via an amateur radio system installed on the Russian Segment of the International Space Station”. Andrew also had a selection of images he decoded from the dozen that make up the 27th series featuring Russia. Laminating the images certainly does make it easier for group pass arounds, thanks Andrew.
Stuart VK7FEAT had his newly acquired Victron Smart MPPT Solar Regulator with Bluetooth connectivity. Victron certainly have proven to be a reliable product in the solar marketplace. This very versatile 400 Watt solar regulator should mesh in well with Stuart’s “Off Grid” and substantial mobile battery capacity. One more job for the dryer weather Stuart.
As always pictures will be available on the NTARC Web site under “Blogs” for this broadcast. NTARC Blogs
UPCOMING EVENTS
TestNet and TechNet session - Every Wednesday, TestNet/CW course on 3.580 MHz from 7 pm, then a TechNet on 3.567 MHz from 7.30 pm till 8.30 pm. Your host for the evening is Nic VK7WW.
Club Room Technical night session - The next session will be on Wednesday the 28th May, 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 and we look forward to seeing you all there. So why not pop in check the QSL cards and join us for a cuppa, there is endless tea and coffee along with biscuits available for a donation.
Finally - A reminder to all members that if you have any items of news you would like added to our weekly roundup, no matter how trivial, then 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, Secretary NTARC Inc.
