Category Archives: Beacons

WARG Practical and Information sessions – Meetings

WARG is changing the way meetings are run to include more informational/practical sessions. We’re considering bi-monthly General Meetings, where the alternate month will involve informational/practical sessions. We’re also looking at the restructure of formal General Meetings to ‘compress’ the formalities to enable simular informative sessions to follow.

Please let us know any topics you’d like to learn about related to Repeaters/AR.

Some Ideas we have so far…

Meeting:

Radio measurements – Bring along your mobile/HT radios and we’ll test things like audio levels, deviation, power output, frequency shift etc.
Learn how/why different stations sound different via the repeaters

Meeting:

Roleystone site visit – Come along and see what a repeater site looks like.
Learn about all of the devices required for a repeater, how they connect, and what they look like.

Meeting:

WARG network and features – Learn what repeaters are out there and what features they have availabale to users.
APRS network – Learn what APRS digipeaters/gateways are out there and what features they have availabale to users.

Meeting:

sweep/tune a complete set of new cavities for Tic Hill
sweep/tune/test other cavities in container
test/refurbish spare antennas in container

Meeting:

Repeater theory – Learn how a repeater works, what parts there are, what functions are available
building up spare repeaters

Meeting:

Program up APRS digipeaters x3
Manufacture/mount APRS enclosures x3
presentation on APRS graphs/monitoring

Meeting:

Brainstorming/presenting smart controller features for smart linking
old network design
current network design
future network design
System Expansion planning
System refurbishment planning

Meeting:

Build new DC distribution boards x3
testing of old Walliston Batteries

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VK6RBP – NCDXF – International HF Beacon

VK6RBP NCDXF International HF BeaconĀ  is now back in service.

After extensive onsite testing by Graham VK6LV and Heath VK6TWO the HF beacon was found to be faulty and removed from service for repair.

Anthony VK6AXB has now repaired the faulty TS-50 with input from the NCDXF and Will VK6UU. The issue was found to be a common problem with the ALC circuitry.

The Beacon went back into service in Jan 2012.

Thanks to VK6LV, VK6TWO, VK6AXB, VK6UU, NCDXF.

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Roleystone (6RAP, 6RWN, 6RUF)

A HUGE amount of money, equipment and time has been spent on our ‘Hub’ site at Roleystone VK6RAP in the past couple of months. We have installed 3x new LDF5-50 coax runs to the top of the 80m mast, Installed new Diamond X5000 and X6000 Triband (2m/70cm/23cm) antennas, refurbished the coax/mast, tidied up the cable entry from the mast to the shack, fitted cable glands for the coax entry to shack, installed a new Diamond Triplexer, relocated and installed the 4 DSTAR repeaters and installed new WiFi data link enabling Internet connectivity for the DSTAR Gateway. Many signal reports have indicated that coverage from the site is now exceptional. Photos can be found here:


The Roleystone site has the following WARG services: VK6RAP 6m & 2m & 70cm voice repeaters, VK6RUF 70cm voice repeater, VK6RWN 2m & 70cm & 23cm (DV+DD) DSTAR repeaters, the WIA newslink Hub for VK6, the NCDXF International DX beacons on 14.100, 18.110, 21.150, 24.930 & 28.200. It’s WARG’s crown jewel hub site and has been given a very high priority for the initial stages of the network expansion and upgrades. No point in upgrading anything else if the core isn’t up to scratch!

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VK6RBP International Beacon

Some troubles were reported with the NCDXF International Beacon at Roleystone on Saturday 29 September 2007.

A visit to the site by Cliff VK6LZ and interested observers that day found that the beacon was shutting down on the 17 metre (18MHz) transmission cycle and resetting the transceiver.

The beacon was shutdown until a site visit on Monday 2 October 2007 by Anthony VK6AXB, Dennis VK6KAD & Heath VK3TWO/6.? Tests found that the power supply for the beacon transceiver was faulty. It was removed for repair and a backup power supply was fitted to the beacon and returned to service.

Thanks to all who attended.

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