Branch 50 (Wellington) NZART – Known as the Wellington Amateur Radio Club
Everybody is welcome to attend our regular meeting on Sunday 17 May 2022 from 1pm to 3pm at The Collective Hub, 1/33 Johnsonville Road, Johnsonville. Mike ZL1AXG will be speaking on the topic of serial and USB ports and their evolution over the years to the current USB-C standard, and it’s ability to provide up to 100w of power (PD100) to a device. Malcolm ZL2UDF will demonstrate his USB cable testing unit.
Tea, coffee and biscuits will be available following our meeting.
The Branch AGM took place on Tuesday 19 April at around 1.50pm following the RemoteDX Inc AGM (which commenced at 1pm).
The venue was the Collective Hub, 1/33 Johnsonville Road, Johnsonville. Ten members were present, meeting our rules for a quorum. Mike ZL1AXG also gave a short talk on “virtualisers and emulators”, although he had trouble with his computer projecting on the larger screen, so was unable to demonstrate some of the features he discussed. The meeting concluded with tea and coffee at around 2.50pm.
The Agenda and Reports are available below:
13:00 – 15:00 ZOOM meeting due to Omicron:
Bernard ZL2BD and Mike ZL1AXG gave a Zoom talk on assembling a basic set of test equipment to support typical operating and antenna and equipment construction projects undertaken by amateur radio operators. This equipment is so very affordable today. The talk discussed relative priorities for purchases, and how to avoid making costly mistakes.
For anybody who has been around in amateur radio for a while, the ZC1 will be well known. It was developed by Collier and Beale during WW2 for use by the NZ armed forces. As it covered both 80m and 40m, it was highly prized by hams, in an era when commercially made equipment was hard to come by.
On Sunday 6 March 2022 Bernard ZL2BD gave a talk (on Zoom) on a ZCI test jig that he built, and has used to test the working of several ZC1s. The club owns a ZC1 that is for sale to any member interested in purchasing it and was tested using this test jig.
Bernard also demonstrated a replacement vibrator that doesn’t require modification of the ZC1 power supply. He is still working on variants to perfect this.
11 members and visitors joined in on the Zoom session, which was very well received by those attending.
