February Branch Meeting - Cheap Chinese Mobile radios

Branch Award for Sangster Shield Contest Wellington Branch 50 NZART (WARC Inc) won the inaugural trophy for the most active branch in the Sangster Shield Contest. This award, in memory of Tony Fletcher ZL2ALJ - a long-time Branch 50 NZART member, was presented to the Chair by the Sangster Shield contest coordinator, Glenn Kingston ZL2KZ at the Wellington Branch meeting on 18 November 2015. WARC Inc thanks Tony's wife for the gift that enabled the trophy fund to be established. While Wellington Branch won the trophy this year, it is to be hoped that other branches will encourage their members to participate in the NZART Sangster Shield contest held each May. The contest involves contacts over two evenings in early winter on QRP CW. Sangster Shield Branch Award Certificate

It 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…

Marconi Centre, Poldhu, Cornwall We heard tales of trips "home" to Cornwall from Bob Morris ZL2AVM. There was a pirate mentioned... just one as it happens, but Bob ZL2AVM took us on a fascinating illustrated communications romp through parts of Cornwall over several centuries. From coast-top beacons, flag signalling, telegraph experiments and undersea cables he lured us into his world as a lad growing up. His family links with the area helped set the scene for a discussion of Marconi’s activities (with special reference to Poldhu and Porthcurno, and to the impetus the development of railways gave to electrical signalling requirements. There was even a glimpse of Goonhilly (further west) which began as a satellite telecoms tracking station, only to change its nature as reliable undersea cables and “stationary orbit” satellites became dominant. The site of Bob’s first amateur station G3KYB was disclosed, and he asserted that while he had been tempted, he never did run an antenna from the shack up the adjacent church tower.