Category: Meetings

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November meeting at Maritime NZ HQ – Avalon Studios

Our November meeting was held at the Maritime Radio NZ headquarters at Avalon in the Hutt Valley a week earlier than normal on Wednesday 14 November.

This was a chance to see the Maritime operations centre in action, with three active searches under way including a Mayday call while we were visiting.

Supper was available and we supped up large on special treats (leaving some for the Maritime NZ team).   We also honoured the unexpected Silent Key of Doug ZL2AOV, whose funeral was held earlier in the afternoon.

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Blackwood Cup Contest -17 October club meeting

This year there were three entries in the Blackwood Cup contested at the October meeting ( Wednesday 17 October) at the Lutheran Church Hall, King St, Mt Cook, Wellington.

Bernard ZL2BD showed off a couple of SWR meters. One of these covered both HF (using a standard pair of toroids in a bridge circuit) and VHF/UHF (using a stripline circuit).  Bernard separates the sensor components from the metering components so that the bridge can be located somewhere remotely as required.

Mike ZL1AXG showed off his completed “Hiland” 0-30v 0-2A power supply and talked about a couple of the glitches he uncovered.  Occasionally when turning the unit on, the supply will not move off zero volts.  This is thought to be a function of the slightly different specs for the op amps, which were substituted.  The other fault is in the cheap $2.70 Aliexpress digital volt/ammeter.   The ammeter reports double the actual current!

Doug ZL2AOV talked to his uBITx transceiver and an extensive range of modifications, including built in battery,  VOX and S-meter.

The Blackwood Cup moves on from Mike ZL1AXG’s shack to Doug ZL2AOV’s shack, as he was declared the winner by Malcolm ZL2UDF.

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September 2018 Club Meeting: Youtube clips

Our meeting of 19 September 2018  featured youtube clips on amateur radio topics.   We watched the following clips.

How to build a dummy load

The new Yaesu FTDX101D

A very simple arduino nano based CW keyer

A kitset bench power supply 0-30v

QSX transceiver from QRP-LABs

The µBITx transceiver

Win4icom Windows Software for the iCOM 7300

Magnetic loops

Teddy shoots into space above Auckland

 

 

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Who had the competitive edge? The August meeting

At the August 2019 meeting we set out to find out which team had the competitive edge in finding a set of crystals that would be useful in a 12 MHz crystal filter?   Bernard and Frank found 3 crystals within 30Hz of each other.   They were part way to getting a set of eight.   A bit harder than everybody thought, but many learnt some techniques in sorting out crystal suitability.    The other two teams each found 2 pairs of crystals that would meet the required specifications.