FROM THE EDITOR: RELEASE# 151007

Next year Branch 30 hosts the NZART Conference and celebrates its 80th Anniversaryon August 9th 1928–a busy time for us all!

As the end of this year approaches a reminder of our upcoming Annual GeneralMeeting on December 5th - please try to get along so you can take part in our clubsformal proceedings.

Attached to this newsletter you will find the nomination forms for next yearscommittee plus your Branch 30 subscription form. Your prompt and early attention tothese matters would be appreciated.

If you have anything you would like to submit to this newsletter I am always happy totake your contributions via post or the email address below.

Have a happy and safe Christmas / New Year break.

73

PAUL - ZL4PH / zl4ph@nzart.org.nz

BRANCH 30 - HONORARY LIFE MEMBERS:

H.G Hedge (ZL4FD), P.W Johnson (ZL4LV), A.J.H Gilchrist (ZL4PZ), D.W Carr,A. Watson (ZL4WAH), D.K Watson (ZL4GR), W.D Bailey (ZL4RW), D.J Stevenson(ZL4SB)

BRANCH 30–COMMITTEE:

(Pres) Arthur Curline (ZL4TIK) 488-4032 / 027-488-2802 zl4tik@freenet.co.nz (V/Pres) Mark Lambert (ZL4US) 489-1900 / 027-435-7468 /

hondajenny@yahoo.co.nz (Sec) Ross Chapman (ZL4RC) 487-6825 / 027-481-6260 / zl4rc@slingshot.co.nz (Treasurer) Bob Smith (ZL4OC) 477-0969 / rfsmith@business.otago.ac.nz

Lindsey Ross (ZL4KS) 488-2191 / 021-116-1686 / zl4ks@woosh.co.nz Ken McVie (ZL4NR) 476-3464 / 027-381-8763 / kenmc@xtra.co.nz Alan Wilden (ZL4FM) 453-4420 / 021-145-2682 / alan@navcom.co.nz Mike Beattie (ZL4DM) 476-6120 Dave Stevenson (ZL4SB) 454-2527 / 027-435-7307 / d.stevenson@xtra.co.nz

BRANCH 30 - OFFICERS OF THE CLUB:

AREC Section Leader Dave Stevenson ZL4SB 454-2527Work 455-5440

Deputy AREC SL Martin Balch ZL4JH 454-3262 Contact Officer Ross Chapman ZL4RC 487-6825 Awards Manager Mark Lambert ZL4US 489-1900 Contest Manager Ken McVie ZL4NR 476-3464 EMC Officer Peter Johnson ZL4LV 489-5884 Club Librarian Anne Watson ZL4WAH 467-5620 Branch Newsletter Paul Hayton ZL4PH 456-4246 QSL Manager (ZL4) Dave Adams ZL4OZ 453-3274 Repeater Trustees Martin Balch ZL4JH 454-3262

Don Watson ZL4GR 467-5620 ZL4AA Webmaster Paul Hayton ZL4PH 456-4246 BBS Sysop Mike Beattie ZL4DM 476-6120

FAST FACTS:

Annual Subscription: Full $25.00 / Family $30.00 / Junior-Associate $11.00 Meetings each Wednesday evening at 7.30pm (except holiday period) Postal Address: ZL4AA, Otago Branch 30, New Zealand Association of Radio

Transmitters, P O Box 5485, Moray Place, Dunedin. Branch 30 - WWW Site http://www.zl4aa.org.nz Branch 30 - Packet BBS / DUD Digipeater (144.650 MHz) Branch 30 - 2 Meter Club Net 7.30pm every Sunday (146.900 MHz) repeater Branch 30 - 80 Meter Club Net around 8pm every Sunday (3.613MHz) National Repeater System Local Node (439.925 MHz) Mosgiel Link to 146.900 (438.200 MHz simplex) Queenstown Link to 146.850 (431.000 MHz simplex) Dunedin 915 Repeater (439.150 MHz) Dunedin 665 Repeater (146.650 MHz)

SUNDAY NIGHT (690) NET CONTROLLERS– WHO’S ON & WHEN?

OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER

7 ZL4FM 4 ZL4PH 2 ZL4RC14 ZL4OC 11 ZL4SB 9 ZL4FM21 ZL4LDS 18 ZL4WAH 16 ZL4OC28 ZL4US 25 ZL4TIK

The Branch 30 weekly net runs most Sunday evenings of the year from 7.30pm forapproximately 30 minutes. Logins are a mixture of local, out of town and Echolinkoperators who want to take part. Balclutha 675 has also begun to be linked to 690(receive only) for the benefit of South Otago listeners. Monthly the NZART nationalbroadcast is linked in to the 690 repeater from 2000 hrs at the end of weekly net.

If you are scheduled as a net controller and are unable to host the net on yourallocated night please arrange cover prior to your allotted net.

PROJECTED ACTIVITIES–WINTER 07:

October 10th - Activity Night & monthly committee meeting.October 13/14th - ZL4A activated for CW section of the Oceania contest.October 17th - Activity Night at Branch 30 clubrooms.October 20th/21st–JOTA–this year again held at Harwood, contactLindsey ZL4KS if you would like to be part of this annual event.October 24th–Activity Night at Branch 30 clubrooms.October 31st - Activity Night at Branch 30 clubrooms.November 7th - Activity Night & Conference 2008 committee meeting.November 14th–Activity Night & monthly committee meeting.November 21st - Activity Night at Branch 30 clubrooms.November 28th–Activity Night at Branch 30 clubrooms.December 1st–Old Timers afternoon, Branch 30 clubrooms from 2pm.December 5th–Annual General Meeting, Branch 30 clubrooms from 8pm.December 12th - Activity Night.December 19th–Christmas function & end of year break up, Branch 30clubrooms from 7pm onwards.Visit www.zl4aa.org.nz for an updated list of events at any time.

PRESIDENTS REPORT:

The days are getting longer and the weather is improving so now its time toget out the unfinished projects and bring them to the club on open nights.From the microphone that doesn’t work to the transceiver that needs fixed.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the committee, conferenceand club members for all the work they have put in.

We have four new members who are wanting to sit there exam. We are nowrunning classes where I’m using the DVDs from NZART, the way I’m running them is every night we play a DVD then they have the opportunity to take ithome with them to study, like a library book when they finish with it theyreturn it to me for the next person. When we are running the DVDs and theyhave a question I pause it and answer the question then carry on. I would liketo thank Alan (ZL4FM) for his help with the classes.

It is good to see the licensing for packet radio for the club rooms has comethrough. It looks like the smart system is not working for MED.

The committee is looking at ATV and we may be getting someone down togive us a talk one Wednesday night. We have a licence for it so we may as welluse it.

We are still looking for people to give talks at the club once a month and itlooks like Bede (ZL4KX) will give us one when he returns from the ice.

ARTHUR CURLANE - ZL4TIKPRESIDENT BR 30 NZART 2007

NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

The Annual General Meeting of the Otago Branch of the New ZealandAssociation of Radio Transmitters (Inc) will be held in the clubrooms, 109Macandrew Road, South Dunedin, on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007, at8:00 pm.

BUSINESS

1) Apologies2) Minutes of the 2006 AGM3) Presentation of Annual Reports4) Presentation of Annual Accounts5) Election of Officers6) General Business

Ross Chapman ZL4RCSecretary

CONTESTING GROUP UPDATE–CQ TEST:

Ken (ZL4NR) has this update for us this month:

“Hi all just a reminder that the Oceania CW contest is on 13th / 14th October0800z sat - 0800z sun.

As you all know we took part in the SSB section last weekend and there was agood turn out of operators and helpers. Thanks for that.

Mike ZL4OL did the night shift (as is his usual practise) and apart from somenight time antenna troubles on the 80m antenna and tuner all went well.

Mike thinks we did ok, he has had a look at the logs online but the proof will bein the final scoring by the judges.”

KEN MCVIE - ZL4NRCONTESTING GROUP BR 30 NZART

BUY / SELL / SWAP:

Do you have something to sell or are you looking to buy?

Send us the details to buysell@zl4aa.org.nz and we’llinclude them in theupcoming summer issue.

CLUB WEBSITE NEWS:

Branch 30’swebsite www.zl4aa.org.nz has been attracting 600–900 visitorsa month since it’s re-launch in March of this year.

zl4aa.org.nz–Branch 30 website

The popularity of our audio downloads is particularly notable however thelevel of posting made to our online forums remains somewhat disappointing.At the time of writing these forums were offline and may be replaced with adifferent mechanism to encourage users to contribute more content to thesite.

As always any contributions to the site are most welcome so feel free to emailyour news to the webmaster@zlaa.org.nz at anytime.

Keep an eye on the site over the coming months as Branch 30 gears up for theNZART 2008 Conference. The intention is to provide lots of useful informationto out of town visitors wanting details about the upcoming conference as wellas what Dunedin and Otago have to offer.

NEWS IN BRIEF:

Silent Keys:

ZL4BW - Brian Williamson, Cromwell–3rd August 2007 ZL4AN - Maureen Shaw, Roxburgh–30th July 2007

Alan (ZL4PZ) kindly provided the following profile on Maureen along with acopy of a 1993 QSL card confirming a contact with her.

Maureen was licensed as ZL4AN in 1990 while residing in Roxburgh. Shepreviously held the call ZL1UQZ, then ZL1AXW in 1989 while at Port Waikato.

She and her husband Eddie travelled around New Zealand extensively in theirmotor home for some years, meeting up with hams in all sorts of places.Occasionally house sitting for people while they were away on business orholiday.

After Eddie passed away Maureen continued to live in her motor home andcontinued in the way of life Eddie and her had become accustomed to.

PAGES FROM THE PAST: BREAK-IN EDITOR LOOKS BACK

Supplied by Alan ZL4PZCheck out his “Amateur Radio - south of the Waitaki”CD at www.webs4u.co.nz

Sir Stanton Hicks - an early "spark" exponent 1908/1909Photograph from Break-In March 1976

‘1906 Stanton Hicks and Rawson Stark, two pupils at Otago Boys HighSchool, became interested in wireless and began home experiments. Intheir search for parts from local electrical merchants, they establishedcontact with Cyril Brandon, a boy serving his apprenticeship in electricalengineering.

These three young lads set out to build three transmitter / receiver units, twoof which were used on the evening of 10th September 1908 for New Zealand'sfirst public demonstration of wireless telegraphy.

Messages were exchanged across the Otago Harbour, between the Mayor ofDunedin at Stark's home in Andersons Bay and the Mayor of West Harbour atHick's home in Ravensbourne.

These two experimenters were aged 16 and 17 respectively. However, theydesignated themselves as engineers-in-charge and had the services of PostOffice telegraphists A.J.Talbot and D.G.Mitchell as Morse operators.

BCB MPF120 RECIEVER:

Stew (ZL4TH) has submitted this helpful article covering a constructionproject for beginners–read on:

“I have been asked for a simplebeginner’sproject that could be built withlittle difficulty in one session. This Receiver although designed for the BC AMBand could be used at low frequency as an I.F/detector stage of some largerproject. Basically it's an infinite impedance detector with very high inputimpedance to help with selectivity.

The recovered audio is clear with less distortion than my many ZN414(MK484) (72DB gain) radios. This project might suit children and newpotential hams as a starting point a bit beyond the crystal set.

Current is so low that a fully charged electrolytic will run this receiver formany minutes. Hope this is of interest, comments are welcome.”

SOFTWARE FOR THE SHACK:

The Voice Keyer is a free Windows based voice keyer developed by SM3WMV.It’s easy to use and handles up to seven messages. You can find this softwareat http://www.sm3wmv.com/homebrew/voice_keyer.php

Voice Keyer Control Panel

By connecting your computer soundcard to your radio it's possible to justpress a button and the computer will CQ for you sparing your voice. Thesoftware will also PTT your radio via the LPT port.

SHOW US YOUR SHACK:

We invite you to share your shack with the rest of the world! If you have apicture of your shack that you feel up publishing here please send it our waywith a brief description to accompany your photo.

We all agree that it's always fun to visit another Hams shack and see justwhere they operate from and the gear they use to do it. Here's a way to do justthat and not have to drive/fly there - thanks to Dermot (ZL4DMM) for sharinghis ‘Winter Shack’with us this month:

“Hi Paul - The sad thing about this shack is that it’s the best I have ever set up and by the time it's shown it will be down. Cheers Dermot.”

If undelivered - please return to:

ZL4AA, Otago Branch 30New Zealand Association of Radio TransmittersP O Box 5485, Moray Place, Dunedin

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