HADARC held its Monthly meeting on Tuesday 27th September. And what a great night it was. Carmel VK2CAR presented the largest Low Frequency coil we have ever seen. It is used to detect underwater objects and stands over 3.8 meters tall and over 1.5 meters wide.

We were privileged to hear David Burger VK2CZ explain the different antenna modelling software packages available and how he has used them to optimise his Beams and other antennas. It was impressive to hear about the trade-offs between SWR vs Gain vs Noise, and you can’t have perfection on all three at once. Despite the challenges of a torrential downpour mid presentation, David’s session and expertise was well received.

HADARC was pleased to have a new member join the club and also have a visitor attend with a strong interest in obtaining a Foundation licence. It’s great to see the new WIA foundation manual hot of the press to aid new members.

At next mid-monthly experimenters meeting, bring your soldering iron, solder and pliers. We will be helping club members build balun kits and also having a look at how they perform using a restored BC-221 Frequency Meter.

Have you noticed how good the DX conditions have been on 20 meters? Club member Jack VK2PCH was heard working Italy, England and Bosnia just this week. Local conditions have been noisy so turn on your noise blanker and join one of our nets. HADARC runs weekly nets on 147.250 Monday’s, 3.6085 Wednesday’s and 7.106 Friday’s.

73’s for now - Let’s keep Radio Active !

Matt VK2BAI

HADARC is excited to announce that for its next monthly meeting, which is next Tuesday night at 8pm, our key note speaker will be David Burger, VK2CZ. David will speaking on “Professional Antenna Modelling” and show us how to use software from his deep experience in designing and building antennas. David is a Senior Life Member of the IEEE and has been a ham for 50 years. This will be a great evening to ask lots of questions and perhaps seek ideas for putting up that new antenna, all ready for summer time use.

For those who purchased and are making the popular Balun kits, please follow the instructions carefully, especially winding the toroid. If you have not had a chance to collect your kit, they will be available at the Club meeting this Tuesday night. Please bring the exact cash to cover what you ordered. If you forgot what is due, please email the President using the HADARC web site inquiry section.

Have you noticed how good the conditions have been on 40 meters? It's a good time to join a net, or just stop by and say hello. Perhaps turn on a radio that has not been used from a while and warm up those tubes and caps. HADARC runs weekly nets on 147.250 Monday’s, 3.6085 Wednesday’s and 7.106 Friday’s.

73’s for now - Let’s keep Radio Active !

Matt VK2BAI

President, HADARC.

Last week HADARC held a social dinner at Magpies. There were record level attendees and many great radio stories were told. Stuart VK2BMX showed his new HF vertical and Carmel VK2CAR displayed a new loading coil she had developed. We handed out many baluns kits with enthusiasm high to build these kits ready for summer operations. In the case you did not collect your kit, they will be available at next Monthly meeting.  Please bring the exact amount of cash to cover your order.

HADARC is excited to announce that for its next monthly meeting, our key note speaker will be David Burger, VK2CZ. David will speaking on “Professional Antenna Modelling” and show us how to use software from his deep experience in designing and building antennas. David is a Senior Life Member of the IEEE and has been a ham for 50 years. This will be a great evening to ask lots of questions and perhaps seek ideas for putting up that new antenna, all ready for summer time use.

Did you know there was a secretive CSIRO Radio Telescope at Hornsby between 1947 to 1952. They used yagi’s, rhombics and broad side arrays to study solar bursts. Hornsby has a long radio history. So, why not be part of the history and join one of our weekly nets. HADARC weekly nets are on 147.250 Monday’s, 3.6085 Wednesday’s and 7.106 Friday’s.

73’s for now - Let’s keep Radio Active !

Matt VK2BAI

President, HADARC.

At last week’s HADARC Monthly meeting, a presentation was given by Matt VK2BAI outlining the 4 priority areas for the Club. The areas are: Community Focus, Member Engagement, Radio Disciplines and Practical Impact. Together these are called ‘HADARC 100’ and we aim, in time, to have 100 members.

Carmel VK2CAR presented on new sea wave technology that generates sustainable power as well as the new eBit-X SDR transceiver. Tony, VK2BTL presented on his success with his Moonraker vertical HF Antenna system.

Finally, Steve VK2AAV presented on “The Magic of MOSFETS”. Steve went into the theory, showed the spec sheets and then displayed some practical circuits. These devices are everywhere, so as a Club we wanted to know how to best use them. Did you know a MOSFET can be turned on with about 50 nano amps? Now that is small. Based on Steve’s presentation, we are looking at how we can make some practical MOSFET circuits in the coming months.    

Based on the very successful Balun Business evening, we now have 14 Baluns that will be constructed in the coming months. We appreciate the ARNSW support from Al VK2OK to create such enthusiasm.

Have your tried our recent Echolink upgrade to VK2RNS repeater on 147.250? HADARC would appreciate any feedback. Thanks in advance.

Next HADARC mid monthly-meeting will be a social at Magpies in Waitara starting at 6:00pm for dinner. We look forward to telling many radio and project stories over dinner. Please come along, meet the members and join a relaxed social evening.

HADARC run nets every week on 147.250 Monday’s, 3.6085 Wednesday’s and 7.106 Friday’s.

73’s  - Let’s keep Radio Active !

Matt VK2BAI

President, HADARC.

The 46 year History of HADARC was presented by Barry VK2AAB, Tony VK2BTL and Chris VK2YMW. HADARC has a great story to tell and is growing members almost every meeting. Just this meeting we had 3 new member join the club.

Dennis VK2PMI recited what is likely to be the first Radio Poetry just for HADARC.  

Carmel VK2CAR recounted the evolution of Floppy Disks and presented new and “intelligent road tiles”. Just amazing.

Matt VK2BAI presented the B-24 Bomber radio comms and of note was the 150 kilowatt pulse radar. We displayed an original BC-348-R receiver from the very B-24 bomber.

Next monthly meeting, Steve VK2AAV will be presenting on “The Magic of MOSFETS” and how to tame these great devices.   

Future Directions

HADARC and its Management Committee has recently developed growth plans to take the Club forward. Next meeting we will present the new direction. Radio has a strong future and the interest levels in the community remain high.

HADARC welcomes you as a member or a visitor to join us for another top evening for Radio Amateurs.

HADARC runs nets every week on 147.250 Monday’s, 3.6085 Wednesday’s and 7.106 Friday’s.

The History of HADARC

Coming up this month is The History of HADARC by Barry White VK2AAB, Tony LaMacchia VK2BTL and Chris Williams VK2YMW. This should be a great walk down memory lane for some, and a riveting history of HADARC and Amateur Radio in Sydney over the past 46 years.

HADARC Radio Poetry

Is there such a thing as Radio Poetry? In our Membership, HADARC has skilled professionals across many industries that aren’t just technical. But when you join engineering, radio, and prose together, you end up with Radio Poetry. This will be a first! Hear directly from acclaimed poet Dennis Robson VK2PMI whom has written a special poem just for HADARC.

B-24 Liberator Radio Comms

Australia has one of the few surviving B-24 Liberator planes in the world. And it holds some incredible comms gear, radios, transmitters, radar and more. We will hear from Matthew Ayres VK2BAI about the B-24 radio equipment and how advanced it was for its day and surprisingly how advanced it remains even to today’s standards.

It is membership renewal time and HADARC annual membership is excellent value at only $30. It is great to be part of the Amateur Radio community and trade our stories, our insights and read about the diverse ways each of us use our passion in the pages of QUA.

To make sure HADARC remains viable, please complete a renewal form and either e-mail the completed form to hadarc@hadarc.org.au and do a bank transfer to the HADARC account, or bring the form and your cash to the next meeting.

Congratulations to the incoming committee!

Matt Ayres VK2BAI is our new President, Rob Dolphin VK2DIO continues as Vice-President, Stuart Walker VK2BMX is our new Secretary, Andrew McNamara VK2TAN continues as Treasurer, and the remaining two Committee positions are filled by Steve Wright VK2KHA and Rod Gamble VK2DAY.

With Covid restrictions eased, HADARC 40m Portable operations have recommenced.

Stephen VK2KHA and Carmel VK2CAR were the first to jump at the opportunity to again set up Portable.

This is a regular event organised by Colin VK2JCC (of course, using his military manpack Clansman.)