I'm here with Malcolm fade from the Manley Weringer Radio Society Radio Society and we're at their amateur Radio meeting. Is this weekly? or is it a monthly? It is weekly. It is weekly. Uh, one Wednesday a month.

we have our business meeting one uh Wednesday a month. We have a lecture which we've had tonight from Gavin and the uh. other two or three are just free for alls We come along, talk and we've already. Yeah, by as you do, we have radio, so tell us some of your gear.

Take us around your little shop here I Can tell you about some of the newer things. I'll leave the older stuff to somebody more experienced than I. Go for it. Um, we've got an HF set here from Yu Yep This is our main radio that we use for long distance contact.

Above it, we have an antenna Rotator We have a Yagi on a tower outside, so we're able to talk around the world with that and direct the antenna in the right direction. Okay, um, we've got here an Icom radio IC 2820 which is a dual dual mode. It's FM uh, analog and or FM voice and digital voice as well a Mode called D where the Uh voice is encrypted or not encrypted, encoded in digital form and transmitted and decoded at the other end, the man ringer Radio Society hosts uh repeaters up at Terry Hills Just not far from here. there's 2 m, 70 CM analog voice repeaters and also we have 2 m and 70 CM D repeaters soon to have a 23 cm D and we also have an Epco 25 repeater as well on 70 CM So we're sure the HS out there are all salivated know exactly what you're talking about I'm sure they do they.

uh, we're in a good location here. we can service a lot of lot of Sydney Um, it's a very old and established Club The earliest reference we can find to the club is uh, back in the 1920s, right? Wow, It's quite a history excellent and it's still going and you've got this place pretty much all yourself now. Almost. We rent the uh, we rent the hall from the Girl Guides Um, it's still used by various organizations and the Girl Guide so we don't quite have uh, free, uh, completely free use of it.

But we've got our own little radio room here that's uh, that's well stocked where we can have fun and play radio and some antennas outside as well. Excellent. Well got to have antennas show us and what other stuff you got. Well, we have a few other older radios I will leave somebody else to talk about right? So, but these are your main two bits of Kit These are our main kits.

this one. this is fairly new, we only bought that last year. Yep, oh there's a few other any homemade bits of Kit Anything homemade, very good, make everything, not everything. No.

but they do enjoy quality of radios that you cany. It's uh, not really worth it. the um. but we do modify and a lot of us do home brew smaller things, smaller kids.

One of the gentlemen here who unfortunately isn't here tonight, plays with uh, software defined radios. He builds his own which is fantastic, but how can you compete with a transceiver like that home built? You really can't Exactly, you can't software defined radios is the closest you can really get where you can do everything in software. and it takes a smarter person than I to write demodulators and modulators for that. Got it? And with this is your world map over here.

Yesd one, that's our world map and uh, it includes the call sign prefixes for various countries around the world. Yep, and we can see ZL my homeland VK for for Australia and you can see the third letter of the pre prefix. two for new Southwest. Oh, okay, got it.

Three? Yep. Victoria And where we were talking to before was OE OE. So somewhere in Austria or is that may that's either Austria or Slavia. it's AIT hard to tell on there right and is um English the default English is the deao ham language same as a you know, if you want to be an airline pilot International You got to it when we arrived before.

Um, one of the gentlemen from Canada that's a member here. he was talking to a guy in France and French. Oh okay. so uh, once you made a contact, speak another language you want or is that frown? Maybe.

Is it people want to listen in? They want to. Not really. No cool is. Is there a lot of idiots on you know? like on CB radio? You know the idiots took over and they own that.

Sort of. Does fan get a lot of No It's it's really well controlled. The reason for that is because it is. It is licensed and the Acma who is the regulatory body in Australia and the parallel bodies in other countries are quite strict about the use of the radio spectrum and uh, you'll get knocks on your door if if you do bad things.

So how does the antenna Rotator work? Well, There is a motor up the tower. yep, the connected to a shaft and that shaft is connected to the antenna. Uh, if I move the push the button. it rotates the antenna around the horizontal axis and will point to whatever point on the compass that you yep, wish it to.

There is a potentiometer attached to the shaft up there and that's what gives the feedback to the needle. right? Can you? um, set it to automatically do sweeps and then stop when it finds a particular signal on a not um, not really. What you can do this one doesn't do it is some. You can rotate the needle and then the antenna will just follow it in its own time, right? We've found some home brew stuff.

By the looks of it, there's some. they're all Mor keys by the these are all home brew. Mor Keys There's another one down here. Hambur Mor Cute one made from PCB nice and that looks like a bought one.

It certainly is. Yep, Pro do you do much? Mor here the guys are into Mor Um, still the great thing about an amateur radio club is different people are into different scen. uh I enjoy it for the tech and I enjoy radio a little bit as well. Some guys really love the F and making long range contacts.

Some people like Aprs packet radio. Uh, we have a Aprs uh dig P up here which receives Aprs packets from the Northern end of the northern beaches up to Wong in that direction that Digi PES up to an Iate which receives RF and pushes the Aprs into the global Aprs Network Um, other people enjoy H for four-wheel driving and making contact and keeping in contact with friends. Some people like building kits y there's all sorts of all sorts of things. Uh, we also help with the annual Jota Jamere on the air which is a scouting event.

Is that still? Uh, it was a big quite a few a decade or two back. is it still going? Still very active? Uh just a few weeks ago was when the event was and we had uh a few hundred Scouts and guides and cubs. Fantastic doing all amateur radio doing. uh what do you still do Fox hunts and fox hunts? Yep yep this was made especially for Scouts a Fox hunts antenna.

Oh that's brilliant. Made out of the tape measures it's absolutely fantastic. That is great. This is for 2 m little yagi.

It's the matching stub here and they are. If you're walk a tree they are a metal blade. EXA it Just Bins It's fantastic I Love it. Just don't take an eye off.

That's brilliant and it works fairly well. They do. They made some of the kids made one each right as a project. Fantastic and show us your T-shirt Oh a few years ago I was lucky enough to go to a make a fair in Austin Texas Oh I'm jealous.

Architech yes was one of the uh Primo things to see thing is to see a guy. They had the big cage and they didn't have the cage when I was there. but they did have the two Tesla Co the two Tesla coils and this is a schematic I guess of the driver of one of the original ones. Awesome! Thanks Malol! So how much is a rig like this? y you're worth? Um, when they when you're about $4,000 um, this is now probably 15year old technology.

We've had this radio for probably 12 years. Um, on the secondhand market now. maybe $2,000 Are there any advantages in the newer models? Got any newer capability? Or can you old gear? What? This sufficient. The old gear is sufficient to get you on air, but there's no comparison.

It's like Motorcars I Guess you could still drive to work in a Moris miner if you wanted to. But it's you know what? I'm trying to say, are you talking about tuna Tuna sensitivity and uh, the receivers are a lot more selective. The filters are better. This radio's got, um, two, basically two receivers in it.

They can receive on two different parts of the band. You can hit buttons and change from one Vfo to the other. Which means that you can reverse them. Um, you can decide which one you want to transmit on by just pressing the button.

You see that one's g red there. Now it's red here. So I'm transmitting on this one so you can. It's a lot more versatile and that's sort of only been happening in radio for probably how to say 15 or 20 years, right? Are there a lot of hands using software to find radio? It's becoming more and more popular? Um I Haven't had a lot to do with that, but it it.

what I have done is it hasn't got the feel of actually tuning like this. You know it's like but could you have a software defined radio with the nice knobs on the front with the read that that's coming too? Um, yeah. and it the ones that I've used. The put receivers are nice and quiet and seem to work really well.

but I haven't had enough experience to really commented on how they compare with the with these um, these units. Yeah. I Think you'll probably find that in another 10 years they'll probably all be software to find I'm just trying to. It's hard to sort of tune around and find a a M code signal and talk at the same time.

Okay, that was J in K He repeated his location. so yeah, K of somewhere in Russia in Russia Excellent. So what's the advantage this side by side? ke Okay, I'll turn the Cy off so I'm not transmitting and I'll explain that to you. What happens is one size does this one size does.

d So instead of having a conventional key like this where depending on how long you hold the long, you have to time it. This is timed by electronic circuitry within the radio. One size does. DS You can rest your arm on the bench and it's It's just a matter of you're working out your timing between your fingers and generally I'd say if you handy with one of these, everyone usually does their exam with one of these.

One of those, right? And to transform to one of these probably a weekend of practice right? So the that one's more accurate though. Oh yeah, faster, cleaner, better, you know it's I Think an analogy that one of the guys here uses is that a a builder could build a house using an egg to drill, but he chooses not to. He uses an electric drill, right? And that's what we do nowadays is we use electronic key, right? And the radio actually supports that builtin radio. It has it built in.

Yeah, um, a lot of radios these days actually have memories in there too. So you can. You can type your call sign um into the radio and you can your location. You can put all your commonly sent stuff, your name, your location, your call sign, and when someone you're talking to someone if you just hit memory number whatever, it'll send something like hello my name's Russ I'm in Sydney Australia and the weather's fine.

You know that almost takes the fun out of it, doesn't it? Yeah. I Don't use that sort of thing very much. You know? Well, you can almost get to a point where you can hook up a keyboard and type it in. Oh, people do that.

That is the step after. But for those of us that are purist, you can actually transmit faster with one of these than on a keyboard, right? Okay, how many words per minute could you look? It depends how much time you put into it. But Cly 40 is not out of the question, right? 30? 40? Um, there are plenty of guys that use do that sort of speed and even faster, but it becomes you know, gets to the stage where it starts to Fall to Pieces If you don't time it perfectly right, it's like handwriting. If if it's if it's nice and clean and done properly.

It's easy to read, so you class yourself as a purist. so you use the traditional key. Is there anything else? Would you frown upon others who use the keyboard or automated? No, No, no, There's there's no elitist thing. No, No, no.

If people want to use a keyboard and a computer, that's fine. But um. I think you'd find that in most cases this is still a more popular key than a keyboard, right? Yeah, In in contests, memory keying is coming more and more popular. Um, there are programs that will actually number the contact you have and work out points at the end of the competition course.

You depending on the areas you talk to and the number of contacts that you have over the course of a weekend, you build up points. But um, and that's done with a computer keyboard. but just for having a contact on M and having a just a chin Wag The paddle key is probably the way to go. Fantastic! So we just spoke to someone from Russia 14.01 MHz Yeah, if know one, two or there abouts I moved the dial a little bit but somewhere about there.

Yeah, okay, is that common for this time time of night Would you be able to get them only at night during the day atmosphere rain out there? Yeah, no. Yeah, it does open up in different times of the day. and what happens is if you're on every day, you get a into a pattern of knowing what's going to happen tomorrow or having a pretty fair idea. but it changes that.

This band is particularly good. Um, at afternoons, um, early in the mornings and you follow your dark path. How it works is the where the sun is in. uh, in the sky.

It tends to be a little bit flat, so we're ahead of the rest of the world with the sun. Um, so in the morning you work the short path to Europe I used to get on at 5:00 or 6: in the morning and as the sun's Rising here it's still dark in Europe right? Um, and that's a very good path. Some of the Russian areas I don't know where he was actually look up on. the out was Kirov, but some of the Russia wraps around halfway around the world and part of Russia is due north of Australia and that's a dark path.

so we probably got him on a back. Um, so you'd be using a directional antenna. Absolutely always use a directional anten. Yeah, it's better if you can.

It depends on how much room you've got to put it up and and of course your budget. It's a hobby for people. Some people can only afford a length of wire, other people can afford a a very expensive toil antenna. But we've got a a six element Yagi up there.

And what's the bandwidth of that? Um, it. it does 40. Uh, sorry. Does 20 M, 50 and 10? Um, the band width depends on where you tune it to, but with the tuners that are in these radios, you can do the whole band right.

Yeah, been three bands, yeah and it works pretty well. It's it's a it's a great piece of. Kit Fantastic. Is there any interference from sunspots and of high solar activity? And every every every 12 years, right? 11 years or whatever it is.

11 years you get a solar solar peak and um, it's been flat. Now years it's been very, very flat. Almost zero Sun Spots has it. so must be good times for the it's starting to get better now.

Um, and I'm just thinking that I'll have to put my Yagi antenna up at home again. I've had it down for 12 months while I serviced it I Have to get back into it, but it's only in the last year. I Say that things have been picking up so we're up on. we up on pretty much a hill here at the moment, aren't we? So Perry Hills This is a good location for radio.

It's a little bit out of the CBD it's a little bit I Was going to say what about the urban El tow now how tow done to the well? not so much C Towers it's plasma TVs are a killer yeah, but um, here where we are, we're sort of on the edge of the Bush. We've got a few neighbors across the road, but they're far enough away that it's for being in Sydney It's a very quiet location. yeah, in the because Sydney's quite a big Suburban SC So yeah, and we're on sort of the Northeastern edge of it and you can pretty much contact any any point on the blow given the right conditions. Oh yeah, like we can certainly get anywhere, but you just have to pick your band and a little bit of luck.

Fantastic Yeah I My own part of the hobby I like working ad Mees which is 3 and A2 meges and it's a real challenge to work as many countries as you can on those lower frequencies. um like on 20. We just did it there. We got the man on the first call Easy not so easy.

we on 3 and a half Megs to get into Russia but it does happen, you know? So I I was reading something the other month about this huge Russian transmitter in the 60s. that um, it was it CH the Woodpecker the the Woodpecker that's it. is that our system not as much? oh like that sort of. I don't know how long ago I suppose I certainly was going in the late 7s and early ' 80s U I don't know exactly how long it's been off a but people used to say was it rushing Over The Horizon radar system I've seen it.

It's massive I've seen photos of it Huge, tall something and it used to chirp right across the band and uh, drove us nuts. drove us nuts for years and years and years you worked around it. It was just one of those things. you couldn't do anything about it.

Yeah, well. I Heard that some of the hands would actually some sort of sort of reverse the data was putting out and then rmed it to force them to change their algorithms and move bands and may well have done. I Didn't hear that. It's great.

Great story. No, it's a it's a very interesting hobby. There's all sorts of fabulous digital modes you can hook up to your computer and and transmit slow scan television. All sorts of weird and wonderful things.

And the beautiful thing about technology nowadays when I first got to the Hobby in the is to send, um, slow scan television. um, one of the guys in this club actually bought the equipment to do it and it cost him about $2,000 in the late '70s Now that if you've got a laptop computer or even a desktop, the software is freeware and it cost you, It cost you a couple of resistors, a length of cable with a M with a microphone plug on it. so for 10 bucks worth of Parts you're doing slow scan TV TV Fantastic! So are there many young guys getting into it in? Sydney Since they dropped the Mor code requirement and and brought in what we call the foundation license, it's lifted the interest rate in young people a hell of a lot. and we've had probably a dozen young members join in the last 12 months.

Two years. Fantastic. What age bracket are we talking? ah, 20s to 30s and we've had a couple of teenagers teenagers. Fantastic.

Yeah, so it's one of those things, but the Mor CAD requirement was always one. The turn required a big commitment. You know how how long it take to get proficient enough to actually pass? I Did it in 3 months practicing every day. Wow.

but I saw it as a challenge the first time I saw it demonstrated I thought I'd never do it. So I put my mind to it. I did with about 20 or 30 minutes practice every day in three months. I Had the ticket fantas.

All right. Ross Tell us about some the gear you got. this is an old Kenwood TS 520 from early or mid1 1970. It's a transistorized receiver and but the the output stage is Val It's got two finals and a 12b 7A driver tube about 100 WS output and a beautiful beautiful old piece of Kit Nice, quiet receiver.

Um, to actually use this radio and receive it's every bit as good as this later piece of Kit Really, not quite as selective. hasn't got the feat of dual Vfos and that sort of thing. but as far as listening to someone talking or having a Mor code qso lovely piece of Kit to use. Nice old radio.

How much would they cost on eBay these days? if you can still find them, oh, you can still find them. In fact I looked at one yesterday I Just say it depends if it if it comes with a the microphones alone. This the desktop microphone's probably worth 100 bucks these days, but the radio itself about $300 right? So you can buy a radar for 300, a handheld microphone for probably 20, or a desktop for another 100. Um, put yourself a piece of wire in the air in the air and you'd be on air if you had a ticket.

If you just got your ticket, you want to spend 500 bucks, you can get on there very reliably for $500 Easy. Terrific. Um, and as we get a bit newer, this is a y piece of Kit belongs to one of the members. This is from probably about uh, what would that be 1980 or there about 1980 vintage a little bit later than that y the Kenwood 520 we just looked at.

that's about 1980. A few more features, um, bit fancier radio. um and what else can I show you? Oh, we got tuners, ventron tuner, another tuner up here. We've got all sorts of bits and pieces that the guys fill with oscilloscopes, but you know.

and then we get into D Sta. We got no homemade. Are you into homemade stuff? Um I am not. I' I rather operate than than build.

but some of the guys do. But the thing is, the homemade stuff tends to be hobby transmitters for one frequency. It's very difficult. It's not.

It's not difficult, you can do it. But the thing is, this stuff spoils you. Yeah, you know. Um, you know it's a bit like I Suppose there people out there can build their own motorc car or they can drive their whole commod.

or you know it's one of those exactly. So you mainly use the Um Yau down here. Yeah, that's our club radio. We bought that about 12 years ago and then short after that a gentleman donated this J F767, which is a few years old.

older than that, but that's another nice, really nice radio that's from probably 20 years ago. Um, but it's a great Hobby and this is a great Club Excellent thanks. Ross Okay, there's a guy calling CQ so 4u is a Russian so we're going to give him a blast. Okay, all right so we're talking to Russia Got him on the first call.

Nice work you. His name is in is Jean and he's in Kirov, Kirov, Kirov I think and they're testing a V 2 Transer this is Victor Kilo 2 Mexico Boston Calling Cqm standing by Oscar Echo5 Lemur X-ray Papa this is Victor Kilo 2 Mexico Boston Good evening to you Uh, the name this end is Greg Golf Romeo Echo Golf you're 5 and N into Sydney Australia Oscar Echo 5 Lemur X-ray Papa this is Victor Kilo 2 Mexico Boston uh 8500 28500 KY Big K I Was trying to call but ible to I move up on newy I'm happy to new Back to You o5 XP over yeah Oscaro 5 s X-ray Papa Victor Kilo to Mike Bravo you thanks for calling hands Um nice to make the contact. We just sort of uh, this is a radio club station in um in Sydney So uh, we've just actually been doing a little bit of a demonstration here for a video and we thought we'd actually put out a couple of calls on 10 m seeing there's so much action. But thank you very much for coming back to the call and um look to catch up with you another another uh day.

H Thanks for the call Oscar Eo5 Lemur X-ray Papa this is Victor Kilo 2 Mexico Boston.