October Meeting: Blackwood Cup

Blackwood CupIt was Blackwood Cup time again on Wednesday 21 October. Four members brought along home brew projects they had completed over the last 12 months and gave a brief talk on them.   John ZL2HD somewhat surprised himself by winning the competition, and taking away the cup.   Of course the winner gets to go and get the engraving put on the cup base!

John’s construction was a clock inspired by a clock he acquired from the estate of the late Bill Hamer ZL2CD.  However, this one is controlled within microseconds of the real atomic time and sources its time via an arduino and a GPS chip.   In a sign of the times, most of the project time was spent in writing the Arduino “sketch” or program that controls the clock.  Well done John!

The runner up in the competition was Col ZL2COL who produced a rugged lightweight box for his FT857, power supply, tuner and other bits and pieces, including a swivel out light for the portable shack!   This was put to the test on the South Coast at Karori Rock Lighthouse in the International Lighthouse Contest.

Other entries included James ZL2ET application of a Raspberry Pi to a miniature transmitter deployed on WSPR service.  Don’t know what that is?  Then come along to the February meeting to receive a full explanation and to see it demonstrated!

Ted ZL2TB showed us a very well constructed home brew interface between his rig and the sound card in his computer.   No RF in the computer with that one!

The fact that we are still getting a muster of entrants every year means Wellington branch members and still doing some home construction!

Bernard ZL2BD has been busy

Experiments with equipment for a remote site continue …  Bernard has now completed breadboards for connecting his Four Square remote controllers to Arduinos (both Mega and Uno arduino boards are on the breadboard) at each end (remote site and in Wellington).   Now, for writing the software …

Bernard Arduino Breadboard #4 Bernard Breadboard #3