This weekend, 4-5 May 2024, St Albans just north of the Hawkesbury River is again hosting the Convict 100 mountain biking event. Our friends at CREST are again providing safety communications, and spent last weekend and yesterday (Friday 3 May 2024) setting up repeaters and other gear along the course. Of course, the multi-talented Manly-Warringah […]
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Category: Emergency services
Building an outdoor ADS-B receiver
Article by Simon Mitchell – VK2YU Overview The aim of this project was to build an ADS-B receiver using the popular PiAware implementation (created by FlightAware). The installation and configuration of PiAware is very well documented so I will not elaborate on this in this text only to point interested people to FlightAware’s PiAware URL: […]
Setting up for 2023 Convict 100
The 2023 Convict 100 mountain bike marathon is on at St Albans on 6 May, and CREST NSW is providing communications support. MWRS members Des VK2TGJ, Dom VK2JNA, Geoff VK2WA, Richard VK2SKY, and Scott VK2SMF, along with Brendan VK2YMI, Craig VK2BTQ, Dean VK2DAC, and John VK2JV went bush to set up the repeater masts ahead […]
Member receiving National Emergency Medal
Richard Murnane VK2SKY, a long term member of the Society, was awarded a National Emergency Medal for the time he was volunteering during the 2019-2020 bush fires. The medal was presented to Richard and other of members of WICEN and other agencies, at the RFS HQ at Homebush Saturday 10-Dec-2022. The society is very proud […]
NavShield 2022 at Tarlo River National Park
While many club members were burning up the 160m band at Berrima, some 36km to the west sou’west, Richard VK2SKY and Simon Brown VK2TW donned their WICEN uniforms to assist with Bush Search and Rescue (BSAR) NSW’s annual NavShield event. As is normal for this event, multiple emergency service agencies were involved, both as competitors […]
Glow Worm Tunnel Marathon RF survey
On 7 May 2022, WICEN NSW Inc conducted an RF survey of a section of the Glow Worm Tunnel Marathon trail. The aim was to determine radio coverage for the Pipeline Track section between the campgrounds at Glen Davis and Newnes. WICEN tested the safety communication bases in both locations, as well as a third […]
1-May-2021 – The Convict 100 race & radios
My weekend radio adventure at the Convict 100 by Dom VK2JNA A successful event. Some incidents but nothing major: broken thumbs, collar bone, many scrapes & scratches & broken bikes. Didn’t have to evac by helicopter anyone (this time). I took out a few people by road from CP18 with roof rack stuffed with bikes. […]
WICEN FEBEX2 exercise at VK2MB, 9-10 Jan 2021
The weekend of the 9th and 10th of January was WICEN’s FEBEX-2 communications exercise. A year since the catastrophic NSW bushfires, and with COVID locking down everything since, WICEN felt the need to get members active in sharpening their message passing skills, trying out any new portable gear, and experimenting with new modes. It was […]
Your Fire Season Toolkit
(Updated April 2025: this post was originally published in December 2019. We’ve escaped bush fire Armageddon, and Tropical Cyclone Alfred didn’t get this far south, but this post is still being revised: suggestions welcome!) Five years Ago… The NSW Rural Fire Service has released this video to mark the fifth anniversary of the start of […]