Category Archives: Projects

Projects

Cheap Solar Panels

Hi all,

Steve Kennedy (VK6SJ) has kindly donated some solar panels to anybody that makes a donation to WARG ($10 per panel). They are 270W 35VDC panels and Steve has 10 left at this stage. (As of Sunday morning)

If you would like to make a donation and score a free solar panel in the process, please contact Steve – steve@kennedy-sj.com.au

Donations can be sent to:
WA Repeater Group, Bendigo Bank.
BSB 633 000
Account No. 144144953
Comment: Your callsign or name, and “SOLAR PANELS” or “DONATION”.

Email evidence of the donation to Steve.

Subject to availability. Please contact Steve to ensure there are still panels left.

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Next WARG Meeting 7th February 2022 – Remote

Hello All,

Apologies for the late notice, but the next WARG meeting this Monday 7th February will not be an in-person gathering, but take place remotely, via a Skype link.

The link has been set up courtesy of Matt VK6ML, It will be opened up at 7pm  on Monday 7/2/2022, and stay open for the duration of the meeting.

For visitors and others wishing to join the meeting, please ask them to contact myself, WARG Secretary VK6AXB via secretary@warg.org.au , I will contact them and email the link to them directly.

WARG Committee has decided not to proceed with a face-to-face meeting this Monday for two main reasons – firstly, the uncertainty about Covid cases circulating in the metro area, and also because several key members can’t attend in person on Monday night (myself included), but are OK with remote attendance.

I am finalising documents for the meeting and these will be sent tomorrow….

73, and Best Regards,

Anthony VK6AXB

Secretary, WARG

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Pogo Stick Antenna Build night

At the General Meeting last night, we also held a Pogo Stick Antenna build night.

Most of the night was spent testing different lengths of cable to get the perfect SWR for the antenna. As is the case with R&D it always takes the majority of time…..

Finally we were able to get a good SWR for 146MHz or 1.1:1

Big thanks to Craig for fetching supplies, Anthony, Trevor, Mark, John, Bob, Ray, Trevor and Christine for attending and helping in one way or another.

1st November will be the next WARG General Meeting, and we will be building even more antennas on the night.

Pogostick antennas are available from WARG Shop. They can usually be bought at Swap meets that we attend.

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Next WARG meeting 4th October 2021

The next WARG meeting is to be held Monday 4th October 2021 at the 1st Pelican Point Sea Scout Group, 12 Australia II Drive Crawley. (Down the end past the yacht club) Doors open at 19:00 for a 19:30 start. Tea and coffee are available. All are welcome.

We will also be holding a Working Bee, building 2/70 POGO Stick Antennas for anybody that is interested.

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Next WARG meeting 6th September 2021

The next WARG meeting is to be held Monday 6th September 2021 at the 1st Pelican Point Sea Scout Group, 12 Australia II Drive Crawley. (Down the end past the yacht club) Doors open at 19:00 for a 19:30 start. Tea and coffee are available. All are welcome.

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WARG and WIA Members survey

Hi all,

To keep our records up to date, I need to submit for insurance purposes, how many WARG members are also members of the WIA.

Can all members please visit this survey page submit your details. It’s very quick, takes less time than a 59 plus on a contest call.

https://tinyurl.com/warg-wia-2021

Cheers and 73

Regards,

Carsten Bauer VK6PCB
Membership Officer
West Australian Repeater Group

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WARG AGM POSTPONED; on-air net/meeting tomorrow instead

Hello All,

Given the events of the last 24 hours with more COVID cases in the community, and this morning further restrictions announced, the WARG Committee has taken the decision to postpone our face-to-face Annual General Meeting, which was scheduled for tomorrow evening, May 3rd. Instead of the AGM, we will be holding an on-air general  meeting / net tomorrow evening (which will NOT be the AGM), I will separately circulate advice / agenda re this.

Our apologies for the short notice, and the inconvenience – however in the current situation we felt it’s not wise to continue with the face-to-face meeting as planned. While it seems there are no restrictions (as yet) that would absolutely prevent us travelling or meeting in person – given the present situation, it’s better that we don’t do so. The announcement of further restrictions could be imminent…

The AGM advice circulated in early April foreshadowed this possibility, and stated that if the physical meeting was not possible, the AGM would become an on-air meeting instead. However, on further reflection Committee members felt that postponing the AGM until the next scheduled face-to-face meeting date (Monday 14th June) was preferable to trying it as an on-air meeting again.

While we did last years’ AGM as an on-air meeting, that was relatively early in the pandemic, and at a time when it was unclear how long the COVID restrictions would be in place for. We now know that the lockdowns don’t last forever, and it’s possible we could be back meeting face-to-face in a few weeks, much more preferable for an AGM. Our experience of the on-air meetings is that they are inferior to face-to-face gatherings in many respects, and given the nature of the AGM and discussions, the possibility we will need to vote on office bearers etc, it would be desirable to try for a face-to-face AGM at the next opportunity.

There is no problem with this re our rules – we have 6 months from the start of our financial year (1st April) to conduct the AGM – gives us until the end of September, worst-case.

(Naturally, if in the next weeks the situation became drastically worse and the lockdowns were to continue for an extended period, we would then revisit this and look at doing the AGM on-air or remotely somehow – hopefully this does not happen, however).

Happy to discuss or clarify as required. Thank you to all members for your understanding.

73, and Best Regards,
Anthony VK6AXB
Secretary, WARG

On Air Meeting Details

The next WARG monthly meeting is to be held on air Monday 3 May 2021 on repeater VK6RLM (146.750), not at our regular venue. The meeting will commence at the regular time of 19:30 hours. Hope to hear a few people on the net.

If you wish to participate in the meeting, you can do so by the following:
Radio: Repeater VK6RLM 146.750MHz -0.6Mhz offset
ALLSTAR: Node 28608
Echolink: Node 909122

Echolink for Android
Echolink for iOS

More info at http://www.echolink.org

More info about AllStar https://www.warg.org.au/how-to-guides/


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WARG Subscriptions are now due for 2021/2022

To all members of the West Australian Repeater Group Inc.

Thank you very much for your continued support over the last year. With COVID-19 impacting our meetings so much, it has definitely been a difficult year for all of us.  With your subscriptions, you have kept WARG on air for another year, and helped improve our network of repeaters in VK6.

The time has come for subscriptions to be paid for the 2021/2022 period as of 1st April.

WARG Annual Subscriptions are still only $25 per year. Which is a small price to pay towards such a good cause.

Subscriptions can be paid by bank transfer as usual to the following account:

BSB 633 000 Account No. 144144953 at Bendigo Bank.
Remember to identify yourself with your call sign when transferring funds so we know who it is from.

Electronic funds transfer is preferred, but we still take cheques to PO Box 2513, Mt. Claremont 6010 or cash at meetings and events.
Sorry, no Bitcoin or Dogecoin yet.

For any membership enquiries, please email membership@warg.org.au

Membership Status
The following Spreadsheet is the subscription status of all current WARG members:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11FDYioJx9T-JLZFO4xGXG4d1TiPAg1FQb2g2UIbOF7o/edit?usp=sharing

Please view it to confirm if you are currently financial or not. I will try to keep it up to date as best I can but it might take a few days.



Update your details
After sending your Subs, can all members please fill out the membership
form at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfOyky9P6nxJM_zymV2vtrS8jZiaUeXTNaZxG3YnvXq1PgAcQ/viewform

 or fill out the PDF form on the website
(https://www.warg.org.au/member-services/membership/)

If you wish to join WARG, please also use the above methods.


Regards,

Carsten VK6PCB
WARG Treasurer and Membership Officer.


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Next WARG meeting 8th March 2021

Depending on the COVID-19 circumstances this meeting will hopefully be a Face to Face meeting. This will be SUBJECT TO CHANGE!

Face to Face Option
The next WARG meeting is to be held Monday 8th March 2021 at the 1st Pelican Point Sea Scout Group, 12 Australia II Drive Crawley. (Down the end past the yacht club) Doors open at 19:00 for a 19:30 start. Tea and coffee are available. All are welcome.

On Air Option
The next WARG monthly meeting is to be held on air Monday 8th March 2021 on repeater VK6RLM (146.750), not at our regular venue. The meeting will commence at the regular time of 19:30 hours. Hope to hear a few people on the net.

If you wish to participate in the meeting, you can do so by the following:
Radio: Repeater VK6RLM 146.750MHz -0.6Mhz offset
ALLSTAR: Node 28608
Echolink: Node 909122

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URGENT – FEBRUARY WARG MEETING CHANGE

Greetings all WARG members,

By now you have no doubt heard that southern WA is in lockdown for five days, starting from 6pm tonight.

This obviously means that the planned WARG meeting tomorrow at Pelican Point Sea Scouts cannot go ahead. Instead we will try an on-air meeting from 7:30pm on VK6RLM, 146.750, and connected AllStar links.

I will provide more information in a few hours – am working to get a few necessary things done before it all shuts down at 6pm.

73, and Best Regards,
Anthony VK6AXB
Secretary, WARG

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