From the WIA, original post here.

Date : 16 / 12 / 2016 
Author : Jim Linton – VK3PC

The callsign VK2FDU for FISTS Down Under has been on the air for six months with it operated portable by members who had a lot of fun.  So far it has been activated in VK2, VK3, VK4 and VK5 on a roster basis of usually a week with nine taking up the offer.  The same VK2FDU callsign program will be used in 2017 and roster slots are available.  Maybe the club’s other callsign ZL6FF in New Zealand will join the move.

The FISTS Down Under club runs two evening nets, the CW Net on Tuesday by Arthur VK2ASB and the QRS Net (Slow Morse) on Wednesday from Garry VK2GAZ.  The FISTS CodeMate initiative is available to help anyone learn or improve their CW skills.  See the URLs below:.

New FISTS website: Link  (http://www.fdu.org.au)
VK member volunteers for VK2FDU: Link
VK2FDU log: Link
Club net details: Link
FISTS CodeMate: Link

From the WIA, original post here.

Date : 08 / 12 / 2016 
Author : Jim Linton – VK3PC

Radio Australia will turn off its shortwave service to the Pacific and Papua New Guinea on January 31, in favour of more localised FM radio outlets and internet streaming.  The independent international media organisation is part of the government-funded public Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

The ABC International shortwave services will be replaced by a more robust FM transmitter network and an expanded content.  While shortwave has served audiences well for many decades, it was now nearly a century old serving a very limited audience.

At the same time, the ABC will end its shortwave service to the Northern Territory for basically the same reason.  ABC’s domestic shortwave service has stations at Roe Creek (Alice Springs), Katherine and Tennant Creek, with all three able to be received in parts of the Kimberley Region.  The ABC said the move is to dispense with outdated technology and expand digital offerings.  The majority of the Northern Territory audience currently access ABC services via AM and FM and all ABC radio and digital radio services on the Australian Government funded a free-to-air Viewer Access Satellite Television (VAST) service.

The ABC, working alongside SBS, is planning to extend its digital radio services in Darwin and Hobart, and to make permanent its current digital radio trial in Canberra.  Extending DAB+ to eight capital cities will ensure ABC digital radio reaches an additional 700,000 people, increasing the overall reach of the public broadcaster to 60% of the Australian population.

From the WIA, original post here.

Date : 27 / 11 / 2016 
Author : Jim Linton – VK3PC

The Wireless Institute of Australia (WIA) is keeping alive its advocacy that Advanced Licensees be allowed to use up to 1kW power.  The WIA Spectrum Strategy Committee has put to the ACMA the issue of high power beyond the present limit of 400 watts peak, in its “log of claims” after the now-infamous high power trial in 2013.

Many radio amateurs ask why is it that we just can’t have it, like in so many other countries – New Zealand, America, Canada, Japan and so on?  Spectrum Strategy Committee spokesman Roger Harrison VK2ZRH says the central issue comes down to that of compliance with electromagnetic radiation standards in Australia.  The ACMA uses the term “electromagnetic emissions” – abbreviated EME – but the acronym EMR (for electromagnetic radiation) is also widely used for the same thing.  Australia is unique in the world when it comes to radiocommunications regulation, embodied in licence conditions, and compliance with electromagnetic radiation standards.  Here, the two things are linked – but nowhere else in the world.

In Australia, our radiocommunications regulator – the ACMA – has the responsibility to ensure compliance, and every licensee (not just radio amateurs) is required to comply.  The ACMA has a responsibility to the public, to ensure that electromagnetic emissions from all radio transmitting systems do not present a harmful situation.  In fulfilling that responsibility, the ACMA needs to know where possibly harmful transmitter systems are located and that such locations are recorded on a licence.  With that understanding, the Spectrum Strategy Committee is working with the ACMA to develop suitable procedures under which radio amateurs interested in running high power can make an application that meets the ACMA’s technical and regulatory requirements.

From the WIA, original post here.

Date : 27 / 11 / 2016 
Author : Jim Linton – VK3PC

On a salt lake in Central Australia early next year a radio amateur will conduct tests of a wide area radio network destined for the planet Mars. Robert Brand VK2URB, of Thunderstruck Aerospace, reports that it is an essential part of a project to develop the Mars Nano-Lander and Methane detection system called MEDIAN, set to land in 2025.  Approval will be sought from the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority for use of the air space for the test.

The project calls for 10 separate penetrators to be ejected from the jettisoned heat shield at about 6km from the surface of Mars.  They are to spear into the surface of Mars and form a ring about 8km wide.  The radio systems will begin measuring distance between the other landers and map the network.  Robert VK2URB says they will then switch to a random packet mode and begin sending messages to an orbiting craft.  Even the orientation of each probe covering an area around the size of a small city, will be detected and used to calculate the direction that wind, and hopefully any methane, on the thin Martian atmosphere.

Robert VK2URB says that the audacious mission is a joint project with the UK Methane detection group at the University of Central Lancashire, and the Australian Thunderstruck Aerospace team.  Robert is the design architect of the landing system, the mapping, orientation, communications, data relay, and the on-going non-methane science package.  He says that never before has a network of probes been landed anywhere outside of earth and have impactors with the intention of surviving the process.  The possibility of microbial life on Mars has been discussed by scientists since the presence of methane gas on the red planet was found several years ago.  MEDIAN will map possible methane vent locations for a rover to investigate.  If the rover fails to land, the project will still relay local weather and subsoil information back to earth.  It’s expected that the tests in Central Australia will demonstrate the essential role that radio will play in mapping, locating, orienting the network and then relaying data around the network.

The tests will involve dropping a simulated heat shied from 3km altitude and having the impactors fire at 2.5km feet to simulate the impact that each would have on Mars.  Even the orientation of each probe will be detected and used to calculate the direction that wind is coming from in the thin Martian atmosphere.  The penetrators will stay vertical and elevate the science and radio package about a metre off the surface allowing for better radio connectivity and clear wind profile.

A metre diameter solar panel will provide adequate power and the network is expected to survive for at least six months on Mars relaying weather and sub-surface information.  An expected seven of the 10 spikes will survive the impact.  Ham radio will provide essential communications for the tests and for the event.  It is hoped a special event around the testing will attract the interests of radio amateur worldwide, and focus attention of the role that Australia is playing in Space Missions.