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.
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!