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QNEWS APRIL 27 2025 - VK4 ON AIR

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WHY DIDN'T YOUR CLUB TELL ANYONE ABOUT AMATEUR RADIO THIS WEEK?

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THE FOLLOWING NEWS CAN BE HEARD FROM OUR AUDIO SERVICE
Available in Audio RIGHT NOW

Also search QNEWS (make sure it IS the Ham Radio QNEWS)
in your podcast.

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VK4 SILENT KEYS @ WIA YEAR FROM MAY 6 2024

SK CALL SK NAME DATE ADVISED BY

VK4PS ALAN STEPHENSON 23/05/24 (vk4zz)
VK4FANG ROGER HARNDEN 22/07/24 (vk4zz)
X/VK4TC Terry Harding Cain 30/07/24 (vk4zz)
VK4CWJ GORDON WEBSTER July 2024 (vk4vp)
VK4SWR JOE SEBAST5IANI 03/07/24 (vk4zz)
VK4TE ALEX McDONALD 27/09/24 (vk4ra)
VK4NL NOEL DESJARDINS 16/10/24 (vk4vp)
VK4RG RON GRANDISON 22/12/24 (vk4hit)
VK4NOE FRED WHITE 29/01/25 (vk4eht)

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DARLING DOWNS RADIO CLUB
wia.org.au/clubs/vk4/DarlingDownsRadioClub/
vk4wid@...

Hi - I’m John VK4JPM secretary of the Darling Downs Radio Club and this is
Sunday 27 April. Did you find the easter egg in last week's text version?
It did get a bit scrambled and reformatted, but you can look carefully
down the left side the start of each line spelled... "Happy Easter"


Before I get to club activity, here’s a shout-out to all other club
officers of Queensland amateur radio clubs. Hardly any of us have met,
which is a huge pity and if you’re going to be at the WIA AGM in Bendigo
next Saturday - PLEASE come find me and say hello.

Now to Darling Downs Radio Club news. Coming up on 10 May - that’s only
two weeks away - we’re running our inaugural annual club Foxhunt and
family day. The actual hunt will start at 1030 and will run no further
than a 15 km radius from the starting location at Peacehaven Park in
Highfields just north of Toowoomba. Fox frequency will be 145.650 kHz, and
the hunt is going to be staged so that experienced hands and rank
beginners can both have fun. Doesn’t matter where you are in the state;
we’d love you to come and join us - we already know of a few distant
households who will come to stay in Toowoomba overnight, and the aim is to
be as social as possible.


The hunt will start from Peacehaven Botanic Park on Kuhls Road in
Highfields, a truly lovely location that hardly anyone knows about.
Peacehaven Botanic Park is also the location for the post-hunt BBQ. Tons
of parking, easy access, wet-weather protection, and great family
amenities. OMs, YLs and Harmonics who aren’t hunting can turn up at 1145
and we’ll come and join you.


Bruce VK4MQ is a really good fox, and has made it easy to get going with
this hunt - our aim is for it to be fun for all and particularly social.
Tips, construction ideas, how to enter, location and BBQ details, and info
about the briefing session we’ll run on zoom, will all be on the club
website: www.ddrci.org.au, and click on the upcoming event notification
for 10 May. It’s that easy.


And in other coming up info: our next club tech session is on Monday 12
May when we’ll be joined by Simon VK4TSC from Brisbane WICEN group to
guide us the on the WICEN state of mind, and talk about the Hip Pocket
Challenge Horse enduro which has been rescheduled for Southbrook on 28
June. Simon’s team is looking for helpers from our club, and it’s a great
way to learn the ropes. Details about that on the website too.


Finally for this week, something off the wall. If you’re a fan of science
fiction movies, you might have heard of a movie from 2000, entitled
“Frequency”. It’s a typical amateur radio experience: due to unusual
aurora activity, a ham operator gets to talk to his son 30 years in the
future on the same transceiver that the father is using in the past.
That’s not normally what happens on 15 metres, but it’s a pretty cool yarn
involving firemen, cops, space-time-continuum, parallel universes,
baseball, and a HeathKit transceiver. For an undisclosed time, Frequency
is available to watch on ABC iview for free. Every ham should see it, and
it’s safe for a date-night with the YL. More info in the QNEWS Text
edition.
Drop a line to secretary@... and let us know what you thought.
I’m John VK4JPM, and I’ll catch you next week. Or 30 years ago, if I can
get on 15 metres. 73s!


==========================

To find the movie "Frequency": go to the ABC iView site, and navigate
through "channels and categories", then movies, science fiction, and
Frequency will be in the list if it's still available. Or try the
Programs A-Z link and scroll to "F".

One of these might be a direct link:
iview.abc.net.au/show/frequency
iview.abc.net.au/show/frequency/video/ZW4008A001S00

You do need to have a (free) iView signon to watch the movie, but the
trailer is open. And listen for the classic line: "want CW or LSB"? Yes,
their operating procedures are suspect - generally it's better to press
the button when you transmit - but we've seen worse technology portrayals
in movies.

==========================

Info on the club Foxhunt:
ddrci.org.au/events/first-annual-foxhunt-and-bbq/

More info will be added in the next few days, including how to register -
that will be in the article, along with a link to the map for the start
location and the BBQ location (almost the same place). No, we won't tell
you where the FOX is going to be found, but it won't be too hard, and
Bruce promises no dirty or sneaky tricks. We did a test a few days ago,
and you could possibly do the hunt with just a handheld and a whip
antenna, but that definitely would be the hard way.




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Hello, I’m Geoff Emery, VK4ZPP, and I’ve been thinking.


It was a comment about the quality of the image on one of the free to air TV
channels that started me thinking about progress.

Compare the sound reproduction of a portable cassette player to digital
machine and
you can appreciate the way things have improved.

With television, the images that we get when archived material is shown is
appalling
to the images we saw on the screens in our living rooms 30 or more years
ago. Just
as the digital TV was a vast improvement over the old PAL services the
newer HD is
another jump ahead in home entertainment.

This brought me around to thinking about the radios that I have used in
the past.
Budgets being what they are on the domestic front, most of my rigs have
been 2 nd
hand so already showing their ages by the time I got to use them. From
hybrid to
fully solid state HF radios there seems not to be much difference in
performance.
For someone who started listening on the large console receiver dominating
the
lounge room and then went through home made and commercial simple sets, it
was
amazing at the time, what the multiband and multimode brand name
transceiver could
do.

Still as most of us will have experienced, these older rigs had their own
characteristics which made them good but at times finicky and annoying on
reception.
They are perfectly usable but you have to tolerate overlapping signals and
front end
overload, from time to time, as they represent the technology of the
period of
manufacture.

More recently I was able to purchase and Asian but not big brand name QRP
transceiver which has provided a lot of fun when I have been able to use
it. It is
an SDR and it has been my introduction to the multicoloured scrolling
display. What
a great little rig that has yet to do duty out in the rig. It is versatile
and every
bit a good as the best shortwave rig that I have owned.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been fortunate to use a full blown
100W SDR
transceiver made by a major Japanese company. Before receiving this piece
of kit, I
watched several on-line videos and took note of what users and reviewers
had to say.

I must say that I have yet to put a signal on air and I have to fight the
electrical
noise which envelopes this QTH but the received signals and sensitivity
just blows
me away. I am using a shortened centre loaded vertical antenna in a poor
location
but pulling voices out of nothing is amazing. There can be no trace on the
display
and the audio is readable. There can be close by signals without
heterodyning and I
have yet to find out how this unit handles a really close by and strong
signal. I
suspect it will use the AGC to the best advantage and still provide a
clean signal
through the speaker.

I am impressed with the improvements that digital technology is providing
now and I
hope we all appreciate the engineering developments to our recreation.

I’m Geoff Emery, VK4ZPP, and that's what I think, how about you?


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Social Scene

VK - WIA AGM May 3 - 4. Hosted by Bendigo Amateur Radio & Electronics
Club and their Technology Expo (vk3gtv/wiacal)

VK - Australian Ladies Amateur Radio Association 50th anniversary
Glen Waverly July 26 president@... (vk2ayl)

VK4 - GOLD COAST AMATEUR RADIO SOCIETY – 2025 HAMFEST NOV 9 (vk4dmh)
Country Paradise Parklands 231 Beaudesert Nerang Road.




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