A team of hardy souls took the club station VK2MB portable to participate in the Winter VHF/UHF Field Day 20-Jun-2026 at the JJ Melbourne Hills Memorial Reserve, just north of the Forest Hills Pony Club at Terrey Hills. The goal of the Field Days is to contact contest operators on 6m, 2m, 70cm and 23cm. […]
June 2026 lecture: 2026 Buildathon Preview
The June 2026 lecture is now available on the club YouTube channel VK2MB-TV. Richard VK2ARH talks about the new projects for the club’s 2026 Buildathon Program, which starts in July. The lecture has been split into two parts, one for each project. Part 1 features the main project this year, an implementation of Jon Dawson’s […]
Friday at The Brickpit – Portable Radio with Style
Article from Colin VK2JCC aka Professor Portable – Friday 12-Jun-2026 If there is one thing that can be said about the Friday 40-metre portable operators, it is that no two stations ever look the same. This week’s gathering took place at The Brickpit, Thornleigh, with the net being expertly controlled from the comfort of Cherrybrook […]
May 2026 Hamfests Galore
“The reports of my death were greatly exaggerated”* … who said ham radio was dying when a small city like Sydney can run 2 (TWO) hamfests on the same day and have armies of people attending, notwithstanding the fact that a group of keen amateurs were able to attend both of them. Was this done […]
MWRS POTA – Hornsby Quarry 22-May-2026
Brian VK2AXC Dropped in just in time to see MWRS members signing onto the HARDARC Net 9am on 7.106MHz, Friday 22-May-2026. Colin VK2JCC (Professor Portable) chose a great venue, and it was filled with six participants spread around the park grounds in sunny conditions. Brian left at 9:30 just as the rain drops started and […]
February 2026 Lecture: Field Programmable Gate Arrays: Zero to Blinki...
The February lecture presented by Clifford VK2CLF is now up on our YouTube channel, VK2MB-TV. Software Defined Radios rely heavily on digital signal processing. The high data rates require specialised hardware, usually a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). Programmed in Verilog or VHDL, these chips run complex computations in parallel synchronous logic, unlike the sequential processing of conventional computer […]
April 2026 – 5th Wed – Games, Toys & Contests
The invite stated: “We are looking for technology based games, toys & Contests. Think any games or toys using new or old technology to run, including radio controlled toys and skill based games. Pacman and flight simulators, battery operated board games. Also looking for great radio contest stories.“ Mal VK2TMF’s Display 80s Taito Cocktail Cabinet […]
MWRS POTA at Wahroongah Park 17-Apr-2026
Article supplied by Brian VK2AXC. Colin VJ2JCC and Carmel VK2NO continue to set a fine example with their regular POTA activity around various Sydney Parks. The only criteria are trees, a nearby coffee shop and participation on the Friday HARDARC Net 9am to 10am 7.106MHz. Brian VK2AXC tagged along on Friday 17-Apr-2026 to learn via […]
April 2026 lecture: Helical Travelling Wave VHF Antennas
The April lecture presented by Carmel VK2NO is now up on our YouTube channel, VK2MB-TV. Carmel VK2NO talks about the discovery she made when researching traveling wave helix antennas, while building her own axial mode antenna. Normally used for satellite operation in the higher bands, these antennas are cumbersome and too large for the lower […]
March 2026 Working Bee – Antenna service day
A working bee had been called in at the last business meeting principally to service the aerials to be held Saturday 28-Mar-2026. As a storm hit Sydney few days before the working bee, it was also an opportunity to work on the grounds. Just a recap of what we were able to get done earlier […]
March 2026 Lecture: Colin VK2JCC’s AI Adventure!
In this mini-lecture in March 2026, Colin VK2JCC (aka Professor Portable) tells of his recent experiments with Artificial Intelligence, and how he used it to make a short video about the Amateur Radio.See it here.
March 2026 Lecture: New Life for HamClock!
If you run HamClock in your shack, you may be aware that the back-end services that power HamClock will be ending in June 2026. Some enterprising Amateurs have stepped up to provide replacement services to the Amateur community. In this March 2026 mini-lecture, Simon VK2YU explains what’s going on under the hood, runs a quick […]
John Moyle Memorial Field Day 2026
The Society couldn’t pass the excitement of participating to this year’s John Moyle Memorial Field Day contest held on the 20-22 March 2026 weekend. Following the success of last year’s site, VK2MB/p decided to operate from Tommy VK2AHA’s place in the Watagans, about 90 minutes drive from Sydney. Camping and operating was all HF Bands available […]
Annual Pilgrimage to the Victorian High Country (Dec 2025)
Story from Dominic VK2JNA. We drove down with Simon VK2YU down to Native Dog Flat just after Christmas time. Also there were Greg VK2XE and Andy VK2EAH, as well as our friend Shonky and his mate Tim. We’ve been camping in Native Dog Flat, not in our normal spot, but we’ve really quite enjoyed it. […]
2025 Xmas BBQ
The annual xmas BBQ ritual was held Sunday the 14 December 2025, a week earlier this year as otherwise it would be too close to xmas. At first some overnight rain and dire predictions from our BOM got us worried, but it turned out to be almost the perfect day with the mercury reaching 32C. […]