Branch 50 (Wellington) NZART – Known as the Wellington Amateur Radio Club
The third in a series of Broadband-Hamnet (Mesh) SIG meetings was held at the Tawa Community Centre on Thursday 22 October at 7.30pm. A slightly smaller group turned up, due to proximity to Labour Weekend and hte.
John ZL2HD provided an introduction to how to get a node working when it didn’t seem to be responding to your computer.
Mike ZL1AXG provided an update on the mesh coordinating group meeting earlier in the week, and mesh developments.
James ZL2ET, Doug ZL2AOV, Ted Zl2TB and Mike ZL1AXG were up on Mt Climie on Saturday 26 September at the invitation of Branch 63. We installed a temporary 20dBi Airgrid M2 at the site pointing towards Colonial Knob.
We were somewhat surprised to find that the radio lock in (at least intermittently) with the tell-tale red light showing on the Airgrid.
However, we had issues in connecting a PC at the “shack” end. The cold and sleet meant we didn’t pursue this any further when we had trouble removing the Airgrid from its extension shaft.
On arrival back in Wellington it became clear that the Airgrid was actually connecting intermittently with the Ngaio node. This had not been anticipated or we would have aimed the dish in a slightly different direction!
It is hoped to install an Airgrid soon at Colonial Knob to connect more reliably with Mt Climie.
There’s lots of things going on with Broadband-Hamnet. The mesh network is expanding. On 22 August 2015) new nodes were established at Gloaming Hill (to provide coverage in the Titahi Bay area) and at the Titahi Bay Branch 42 clubrooms. This also brought on board another amateur station. In addition an additional node in Johnsonville has resulted in improved stability for the link to Ngaio (with Nanostation M2s in Johnsonville pointing both north and south to provide the bridging path).
A successful SIG meeting was held in Tawa on 6 August with 18 enthusiasts turning out. A range of speakers whipped up interest amongst a range of local hams from branches across the region to join the mesh. The next Mesh net SIG meeting is scheduled for Thursday 17 September. Catch you there!
Several Wellington amateurs also caught up with Rob ZL1FLY on 24 August over some 807s. Rob is a mesh champion in Auckland and has an active role in providing IP services to NZ amateurs on the mesh. Since meeting up with Rob, James ZL2ET has extended on of his mesh nodes to be a virtual tunnelling (VTUN) client and has connected the Wellington mesh to the global mesh scene. This provides even more services and amateur connections. Fun!
A range of services are now available on the Wellington section of the mesh, including websites, VOIP and chat services. Check out the NZ Broadband Hamnet website for more information and to keep up to date on mesh happenings!
Christmas Dinner at Evan’s Bay Yacht Club has been and gone. It was a very good Christmas ham meal with special vegetables and salad. We all enjoyed the great view over the water and the quiet and peaceful setting. I imagine we may want to return again next year!
All the best of the season to our members. Don’t forget the BBQ at the Chairman’s home on Wednesday 21 January at 6pm. Everybody is welcome! See the contacts section for phone contacts.
Mike ZL1AXG