The rollercoaster of COVID-19 continues – due to the current Delta outbreak tomorrow’s monthly meeting is cancelled.  Henry VK2ZHE writes:

The ORARC Monthly General Meeting scheduled for 2pm on Saturday the 3^rd of July 2021 in the SES Building in Port Macquarie has been cancelled due to the current COVID-19 infection situation. The inconvenience is sincerely regretted but we must put the health and well-being of ORARC members and visitors first. The club has a COVID-19 safety plan and ORARC must be fully compliant with NSW Health directives as well as with Port Macquarie Hastings Council and NSW SES requirements.

The ORARC Committee will still meet and the minutes of July Committee Meeting will be emailed to members.

The Oxley Region Amateur Radio Club annual Field Day will be held at the Wauchope Showground hall with all the usual field day activities on Saturday and Sunday the 12^th and 13^th of June 2021 during the Queen’s Birthday Long Weekend.  The Field Day dinner will be held at the Port Macquarie Golf Club on the Saturday night.  Mark your calendar now.  The Wauchope Showground permits camping so it is possible to stay on site in your own motor home, caravan or tent with power and amenities.

Click here to download a copy of the Field Day Program (PDF).

Here’s page 3 from the program, the Field Day schedule:

Our continued thanks go to VK2CLL’s daughter Jacqui for her continued fantastic Graphics Design work!   See everyone in June!

May is here, Covid is settling down and there’s some awesome events happening like our 45th Field day in early June!  If you’re interested in or new to DMR, be sure to check out Ian VK2GL’s comprehensive ‘Introduction to DMR’ article starting page 15.  Read May Oxtales here.  Thanks to all our Oxtales’ contributors plus John and Arthur for getting it to us.

Members should now have received their copy by email, but website copies of the current and past editions can always be found here.

We have some exciting changes with regards to the club’s repeaters at our Telegraph Point site!

Firstly, the club’s 2m repeater on 147Mhz was not working.  This has been resolved.  Unfortunately, it seems that our Yaesu DR-1X running the 2m repeater has suffered a failure and will be spending some quality time on the workbench.  In its place is the DR-1X that was running the 70cm repeater at the same site, reprogrammed for 2m duty.

This left the 70cm repeater frequency free – in its place we now have the Motorola DMR repeater kindly supplied by ARNSW.   This repeater is part of the VK DMR network and as such is linked with all other DMR repeaters in the network around Australia (of which there are currently 51).

Our DMR repeater is statically set to TalkGroups (TG) 5, 8/8 and 1910 on TimeSlot (TS) 1, and TalkGroups 505 and 3802 on TimeSlot 2.

These TalkGroups provide connectivity as follows:

• TS1, TG5 – VK wide, keys all repeaters, used for nets and broadcasts only.
• TS1, TG8/8 – All Central Coast, Hunter Valley, Newcastle & MNC repeaters – Somersby, Hunter Valley, Newcastle, Nelson Bay, Upper Myall & Port Macquarie.
• TS1, TG1910 – All repeaters provided by ARNSW.
• TS2, TG505 – All VK repeaters and connected hotspots.  Effectively the DMR call channel – Fine for short QSOs, please QSY for longer conversations.
• TS2, TG3802 – All VK2 (NSW) repeaters.

Of course, other TalkGroups can be connected to dynamically.  TS1, TG9 limits traffic to the local repeater only.  See here for more info.

If you’re new to DMR speak to one of the digital voice enthusiasts (nuts?) at a club gathering.  The learning curve can be steep but you can be on air quickly with a cheap handheld, member supplied Codeplug for your radio and a quick lesson in some DMR fundamentals.

Thank you to today’s helpers (listed in no particular order) Arthur VK2ATM, Dennis VK2DAM, Lyle VK2SMI, Tom VK2ATR, Ian VK2IDL, Paul VK2ICQ, Henry VK2ZHE (participating from home) and Matt VK2FLY (for our config and turning us on!).  Our thanks again to ARNSW for the excellent work they do supporting our hobby.

The current state of services provided by our Telegraph Point repeater site is as follows:

• 6m Analog FM (53.800) – Off Air
• 2m Analog FM and C4FM Digital Voice (147.000) – On Air
• 70cm Analog FM and C4FM Digital Voice (438.425) – Off Air
• 70cm DMR Digital Voice on VKDMR Network (438.425) – On Air
• 2m APRS Digipeater (145.175) – On Air

Please check our ‘Club Information‘ page for the latest repeater state information (including Offsets, CTCSS tones, etc.) as the info above will date.

It’s March and it’s wet, very wet.  We hope everyone is safe.  March Oxtales is here.  Thanks to all our Oxtales’ contributors plus John and Arthur for getting it to us.

Members should now have received their copy by email, but website copies of the current and past editions can always be found here.