September 2018 Club Meeting: Youtube clips

Club member Yan ZL4YY (also F1TUJ and XV4Y) talked about his operations from South-East Asia, where he lived for many years with his wife and son. He talked about the way amateur radio callsigns are obtained, licensing requirements, descriptions of other Vietnamese operators, and equipment at his home QTH (left outside on the verandah to reduce moisture damage). Yan demonstrated an impressive list of countries worked and DXCC twice over! Yan finally received his ZL licence last month, so you will no doubt hear him around the bands now that he has settled in to Wellington with his family!

In the September meeting Bob ZL2AVM recounted his experience in working at sea as a Marconi tech and then subsequently on the boats that brought "10 pound poms" to New Zealand. His talk last year on Cornwall and Marconi was very well received by members and this year's was also well received.

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…