The September meeting of Branch 50 NZART was held on Tuesday 20 September from 1pm – 3pm at The Collective Community Hub at 1/33 Johnsonville Rd.
The Chair gave a report on NZART Conference 2022 held the previous weekend
The topic for the meeting was “DX Operating techniques and antenna options for your suburban lot for 20M – 6M band openings”. Members shared their DX hunting experience and there was discussion of importation of HF tribanders and monobanders.
Our regular August monthly meeting, held at The Collective in Johnsonville considered the nature of propagation and tried to answer teh question of “What time of day to look for DX from what direction and on what bands?”.
With magnetic activity increasing on the sun, the DX bands are now open, and they are not subject to the same QRM in the ‘burbs as 80m and 40m.
Mike ZL1AXG discussed how solar activity impacted on DX possibilities, through its impact on the ionosphere. This will be in a presentation and discussion format.
Where: The Collective Community Hub, 1/33 Johnsonville Rd.
Members enjoyed our annual shared lunch to celebrate the shortest day and got to catch up with Brian ZL1AZE/VK3MI who was back in Wellington briefly on holiday after more than 10 years living in Melbourne. Brian is an honorary life member of Wellington Branch 50 NZART and continues to follow the club’s activities with interest.
At around 1.40pm John ZL2JPM gave a presentation on the ENAMS equipment purchased and operated by RemoteDX Inc. He described the challenges of noise levels and the formula used by international authorities to determine the noise floor in different locations, before discussing the ENAMS hardware, data collection and access system and the potential opportunities for the future. He clearly argued the value to the amateur ccommunity of having standardised RF noise monitoring systems. The ENAMS equipment is operating in Wellington (now on the Kapiti Coast) and is part of a larger IARU experiment. The RemoteDX ENAMS monitoring unit is currently the only one in the Southern Hemisphere. John’s presentation was well received.
