Broadcast - 14 September 2025
The NTARC club rooms opened last Wednesday night for a live presentation on the REAST YouTube channel covering Vector Network Analysers. Considering the inclemency of the weather, it was well attended by members. It was very informative and will be followed up at the next club technical night with some hands-on practice for club members and their VNAs. Thanks go to REAST for providing the feed of the evening’s forum.
Now for a couple of items from the last club technical night.
As you may have noticed there is a plethora of internal battery powered soldering irons on the market at the moment, it was indeed interesting to see a variation at our last club technical night and was definitely deemed interesting enough to be mentioned. Ian VK7IG had recently purchased one intended for a slightly different market.
Sold under the brand name FNIRSI, this model is the HS-02 and is marketed as an “Intelligent Soldering Iron with Portable Soldering Toolbox”. This iron has no internal batteries and is powered via a USB type “C” connector and cable. It feels as though it is meant for longer periods of field or bench work as it can be powered from a battery bank or pack. This would effectively give it a much greater run time than one with an internal battery. Usability is excellent, it is rated as a 100 Watt iron with a usability time from standby, while in its holder, to tip tinning within 2 seconds of being picked up! It really does come up fast.
Construction of the handpiece is brushed aluminium and silicon with its weight about 60 grams, making this extremely light and comfortable in the hand. Incorporated is a 25 mm high resolution wide angle colour display, mainly for actual tip temperature, but it also incorporates menu setup options and three user defined memories for pre-set temperature. Standard soldering tips range from 0.1 mm cones to 4.5 mm wedges. The handpiece even has a grounding point to eliminate static electricity if needed.
For comparison the “Tool Box” or rigid enclosure it comes in is about the size of a battery powered tooth brush case. It opens up to reveal space for five spare tip and element assemblies. Also included is a special high temperature silicone slag area to wipe hot solder and a captive “copper wool” for tip cleaning. An aluminium alloy soldering iron holder that tilts up from the case when in use and an inbuilt solder reel that dispenses from the side of the case. Well worth looking at if you are in the market for a new iron.
Lionel VK7ZLB presented a series of photographs showing his typical Winter VHF and above field day setups when he is in competition mode. He covered location, setups, usage and safety considerations for this type of portable or temporary equipment set ups including “the inquisitive passers-by”. Lionel combined all this with propagation considerations and ionospheric predictions for a well-rounded presentation. The technical aspect in itself was very interesting, but there were some pretty spectacular panoramic views. You can see why there are SOTA and POTA enthusiasts!
Now back down to earth, Lionel also brought in a couple of new items. Firstly a brand new, home-made, 1296 MHz T shaped power divider or phasing harness. This was constructed using back to back soldered SMA sockets for the antenna feed connections, plus a ¼ wavelength of 35 Ohm co-axial cable to the SMA socket on the bottom of the T which is the input to the power divider. All very neatly protected in heat shrink tubing. Lionel’s intends to use the phasing harness to feed his dual 1296 MHz Yagis as part of an ongoing project. He then covered the need for precision and accuracy in construction if you are after that fraction of a dB, then a fraction of a millimetre does matters.
The other newly acquired “toy”, well if you can call something that comes with its very own Rohde and Schwarz calibration chart, including attenuation to four decimal places, a toy!! It was a high precision 100 kHz to 12.4 GHz 50 Ohm dummy load rated at 50 Watts. It also has an inbuilt 50dB attenuated output suitable for testing and measurement. Thanks for the presentation and a look at your toys.
As always pictures will be available on the NTARC Web site under “Blogs” for this broadcast. NTARC Blogs
UPCOMING EVENTS
On Air Test and Technical Net session - Every Wednesday, 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 Room Technical night - The next session will be on Wednesday the 17th of September 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, Stefan VK7ZSB.
