(Coming events can be viewed on the Coming Events page)
Fri 11-Sep-2026: MWRS POTA at Ruddock Park
Setup starts at 8:00 AM sharp (Do not be late, or the best trees for wire antennas will be claimed!). Go-Live: Operations commence at 9:00 AM.
Fri 28-Aug-2026: MWRS POTA at Bannockburn Oval
This Friday 28 August 9am, the MWRS POTA location will be the Bannockburn Oval, Turramurra. Located on the border of Pymble and Turramurra, the Bannockburn Oval has served as a central sporting and community hub for Sydney for over 70 years. Whether you want to activate the park, test out your QRP rig, throw a wire into the trees, or just hang out and talk tech, we’d love to have you there. Care to test your portable operation skills on 40 metres? What does it take to erect an efficient antenna, provide power to your rig and generate a good signal heard far and wide. We can later argue over cup of coffee who’s signal was the strongest heard on air!
Mon 24-Aug-2026: Cub visit 6:15pm
Hi good operators, we have a cub visit Monday 24th August. We need around 4 volunteers for around 1.5hours Monday from 6:30 to 8 pm. To do some morse, HF contacts and build a station. 6:15pm for a 6:30 start till around 8pm. Refer to previous Cubs’ visits for introduction https://www.mwrs.org.au/?s=cubs
Fri 21-Aug-2026: MWRS POTA at Ruddock Park, Westleigh
Mark your logs and set your alarms — this Friday, 21 August, the mighty 40m portable circus rolls into Ruddock Park, Westleigh. Bring your rig, bring your antenna, bring your best excuses for why last time you couldn’t get an SWR below 3:1.
Wed 19-Aug-2026: Lecture – Coding with Claude Code
Mal will give a short talk and mostly demo live coding with Claude Code. Claude, and specifically Claude Code, is an AI agent that can assist with coding. Claude Code is a command-line tool that can also integrate directly into IDEs like Visual Studio Code or JetBrains IDEs (e.g. Android Studio, PyCharm). You can give it your program requirements in plain English, and it will attempt to write the code for you. This is colloquially called “vibe coding”. The demo will be coding a program. Maybe a remote control program to talk to a radio over a CAT cable.
Fri 14-Aug-2026: MWRS POTA at Karuah Park
This Friday, the Professor will be loading up the mobile command centre (The Rav4) and head into the wild. The mission? Conquer the 40-metre band in Karuah Park Turramurra. Corner of Eastern Road and Karuah. Operations start at 9am.
Fri 7-Aug-2026: MWRS POTA at Carrington Park, Hornsby
Here is a new park for us, lots of trees to throw antennas into, toilets are in the park and plenty of car parking spaces. We would need to relocate to Hornsby shops for Coffee. Set up 8am ready for the net at 9am. If travelling from Hornsby, turn off left from Junction Road into Coonanbarra Road and Carrington Oval is on your left hand side.
Fri 31-Jul-2026: MWRS POTA at George Christie Park – 9am start
Wed 29-Jul-2026: 5th Wed Show & Tell – Weird & Wonderful Electronics
Weird, rare or just unusual. Components, radio, electronic or mechanical, whatever is likely to raise curiosity and intrigue. Hard to find or near impossible to find via a quick search on the internet. Bring it along with a good story. Come one and come all. Dig that old widget out from the back of your junk draw, or behind your work bench. Bring the item and a good story. Voting will be by the usual way so bring your coins. The prizes this quarter are special so dig deep for that long lost treasure.
Fri 24-Jul-2026: MWRS POTA at Ruddock Park, Westleigh
Return to Westleigh! By Popular Request. 0900 Hours – The Net Goes Live: We will be on the air, hunting for those elusive 10-over signals and proving to the local dog walkers that we are, in fact, doing very serious scientific work.
Sat 18-Jul-2026: 2026 Trans Tasman Low-Band Contest
Held at the club house this year following the Buildathon.
Sat 18-Jul-2026: 2026 Projects Buildathon
A ‘Buildathon’ as been proposed for Saturday 18th July at the club with BBQ lunch (more details to follow), to build the Morse Decoder and Upgraded NTP Clock.
Fri 17-Jul-2026: POTA Golden Jubilee Field in North Wahroonga – CANCELLED due weather
Wed 15-Jul-2026: no lecture this month
Fri 10-Jul-2026: POTA at Wahroonga Park
We are going to do Portable Operations at Wahroonga Park this Friday, 10 July. School holidays are on, so parking congestion will not be an issue this time. Location/Operations: Wahroonga Park 9am, Social: Coffee at Magpies Waitara afterwards. Weather Contingency: If it is pouring rain, the outdoor event is cancelled. Instead, we will meet directly at Magpies for coffee at 10:00 am. See you there! Colin VK2JCC Aka Professor Portable.
Wed 8-Jul-2026: AGM
Make sure you pay your membership prior to the meeting to vote and be elected. Most positions are highly competitive, make sure your start your campaign early, but ensure your budget is within the Australian political campaign limit.
Fri 3-Jul-2026: MWRS POTA at Ku-ring-gai Bicentennial Park 08:00am local
It is time to extract ourselves from our dark, electromagnetic caves and simulate human interaction on actual green grass. The planetary alignment dictates a morning deployment tomorrow, Friday 3 July, at 0800 hours at Ku-ring-gai Bicentennial Park.
Sat 27-Jun-2026: MWRS Exam
Fri 26-Jun-2026: MWRS POTA at Ruddock Park, Westleigh
A fun day was had by all at Ruddock Park, Westleigh, then to a warm cafe. Setting up from about 8:00 am for a 9:00 am net.
Sat 20-June-2026: 2026 Winter VHF/UHF Field Day
On Saturday 20 June is the planned day for the club’s participation in the VHF/UHF Winter Field day. The contest starts at 0100UTC which I make to be at 11am. The location will be the Pony Club/BMX track however we will need to be at the club to pick up aerials and the gazebo at about 09:00am to give us time to transport everything to the contest site and set up the masts/aerials/equipment. As usual we will aim to set up stations for 6m/2m/70cm and 23cm. In previous contests we had great propagation on field days working stations in New Zealand on 6m, 2m and 70cm.
Fri 19-Jun-2026: Pota at Turramurra Memorial Park
This Friday’s portable operation will be at Turramurra Memorial Park, a generously sized park with plenty of room for everyone to throw up antennas without accidentally turning the site into a giant spider web of coax and guy ropes. We’ll be setting up from about 8:00 am for a 9:00 am net.
Wed 17-Jun-2026: Lecture – MWRS 2026 Buildathon Projects by Richard VK2ARH
The MWRS June lecture to be held at the Clubhouse at 8:00pm on the 17th June, will be a presentation by Richard VK2ARH outlining the projects to be made available for the 2026 MWRS Build Program in July. This year’s main project is an implementation of Jon Dawson’s ‘Hamfist’, a Pi-Pico based Morse Decoder. The presentation will outline the background to the project, the basis of the design, and overview of the construction process. The lecture will also provide a real time demonstration of the project capabilities, including morse decode, touch screen operation, audio monitoring and transmit audio capability.
The presentation also includes a detailed update and demonstration of the upgrades made to one of last year’s projects – the Network Time Protocol Clock. These upgrades include atmospheric and solar weather, UTC, Local and rotating multi time zones, 13.8v and LiPo battery operation and now remote operation with a GPS time and location capability. All parameters associated with clock operation can now be managed via a WiFi Access Point with a web browser interface which has undergone an extensive upgrade, making this a very practical device to setup and manage either in the shack or out in the field.
Fri 12-June-2026: POTA operation at Thornleigh Brick Pit
A chance to get out in the park and operate some HF. Activity normally starts with calling into the “Morning Tea with HADARC” net at 9am, followed by coffee and conversation at a local cafe.
The Brick Pit on Google Maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/LBMXVxZczKeV4DHH6
…and a report on a recent “Walk in the Park” at the new Hornsby Park
Wed 20-May-2026: Lecture – Iain Waugh on Crystal Oscillator Stability
Overview:
- What type of crystal oscillator can you buy?
- How are crystal oscillators made?
- How do they go wrong?
- How to detect and recover from failures
- How to prevent failures
Wed 29-Apr-2026: 5th Wednesday – Games, Toys & Contests
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.
Wed 15-Apr-2026 – Lecture: helix traveling wave VHF antenna
Carmel VK2NO will be talking 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 bands to be practical. Disregarded by the theorists during development of helix antennas for UHF and above, Carmel devised a workable method for building a relatively compact VHF helix antenna that has near enough gain similar to the larger full wave counterpart, and comparable with Yagi results. Carmel will discuss the basic theory of the traveling wave helix antenna and show her own adaptation for VHF portable operation.Sat 28-Mar-2026: Working bee
Several antennas are in need of attention, as well as other regular maintenance jobs to be done. So, come one and all, and let’s get the jobs done quickly. We may fire up the barbie for a BYO BBQ too.
Sat/Sun 21/22-Mar-2026: John Moyle Memorial Field day
Contest details: https://www.wia.org.au/members/contests/johnmoyle/
This year we intend to operate again from Tommy Cassidy’s place in the Watagans which is about 90 minutes from Sydney. We will be camping and at this stage we will be operating all HF Bands available to the contest. Probably single transmitter. Multiple Operators.
As usual we will pick a 6 hour window from the 24 in which to operate. Although if there is enough interest we could attempt the 24 hour. We usually operate from around late afternoon Saturday to late Saturday night as that gives us good conditions on most bands especially 20, 40, 80 and 160m.
Wed 18-Mar-2026 – Workshop: HamClock 2.0, plus AI Adventures and “local POTA”
If you run HamClock in your shack, you may be aware that the back-end services that power HamClock will be ending in June. Some enterprising Amateurs have stepped up to provide replacement services to the Amateur community. Simon VK2YU’s lecture helped everyone to understand what’s going on under the hood, and ran a quick workshop to guide us through the simple configuration changes needed to keep your HamClock running well into the future.
After that, Colin VK2JCC told about his recent experiments with Artificial Intelligence, which he has used to create a short video about Amateur Radio; and updated us on his recent activities with the “Lawn Rangers” who operate HF in local parks.
Wed 18-Feb-2026 – Lecture: Field Programmable Gate Arrays
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 languages.
Inexpensive developer boards using the venerable Altera Cyclone IV and the required JTAG dongles are available at AliExpress, and Clifford VK2CLF will demonstrate how to get started using these, with the Quartus software available under a free license.
Wed 4-Feb-2026 – Tribute to Irene May Wood 2nd Signals Battalion WW2
A tribute to a member’s friend’s late mother who served in the 2nd Signals Battalion in WW2. Irene May Wood was 18 years old from Collie WA when she volunteered for the Australian Women’s Army Service (AWAS). Within weeks, May traveled from Perth to Melbourne for training and joined Army Land Headquarters (LHQ) for three years rising to the rank of Corporal. The tribute will include a photobook with photos of her time at LHQ, medals and army records. A Morse Code practice tone oscillator has been made for May’s great grandchildren as part of the tribute. Time: 7:30pm for 8pm start. Duration: Approx 30mins
Xmas & New Year period meeting evenings
NOTE: The weekly gatherings at the club house will be moved from Wednesdays to TUESDAY 23-Dec-2025 and TUESDAY 30-Dec-2025 as they would otherwise clash with Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve.
Thu 25-Dec-2025 9am (Sydney Time) – Xmax Net 7085 KHz and 2m VK2RMB
The Xmas Net is usually over in 15mins as people typically want to spend time with their family, be there on the dot!
Sun 14-Dec-2025 – Christmas BBQ at the club
Fri 28-Nov-2025 – Christmas Party – Belrose Hotel 7pm
Sun 23-Nov-2025 – Picton Hamfest
See the Illawarra ARS’ Picton Hamfest page for details.
Sat 22-Nov-2025 – VHF/UHF Field Day – CANCELLED DUE WEATHER
Wed 19-Nov-2025 – Lecture: My family participation in WW2 by Zara VK2ZYP
Wed 29-Oct-2025 – 5th Wednesday Show ‘n’ Tell: Portable Anything
At one point in time, what used to be an anchor eventually became portable, and then pocket size. Think calculator, phone, TV, timepiece, most test equipments. The definition of “portable” initially only meant it could be moved as some of these devices needed wheels, or 2 people to carry. Lets see the least portable of the portable version of a well known item that you can probably download as an application on your smartphone today!
Fri-Sun 17-19-Oct-2025 Jamboree on the Air
Wed 15-Oct-2025 – Lecture: Power Supply Repair with Walter Bolliger VK2XWB
Wed 17-Sep-2025 – Lecture: Resurrecting Vintage Computers with Mal VK2TMF
Mal will show how to bring an old computer back from the dead, and get that command line cursor blinking again! Mal will have a couple of Microbee computers line up to power on after 35+ years. The Microbee announcement triggered nostalgic conversations on the reflector, so this is a lecture not to missed.
Sat 6-Sep-2025 – Pre-JOTA working bee – FREE RADIOS*
Some of the club’s antennas are in need of maintenance, namely the 40m and 80m dipoles. We also need to prepare the site for JOTA in October.
* when you’re done cleaning, you’ll be free to play with the club’s radios!
Wed 27-Aug-2025 – JOTA kit packaging
As we approach JOTA again, we need to package up the kits that are being provided to the youth. This will add to the freebee evening entertainment, any help tonight would be really appreciated. We will set up some tables in the middle of the hall to make a production line.
Wed 20-Aug-2025 – Lecture: two-way radio from the 1960s in Australia
Norm Champion, formerly VK2ZND personally had a lot to do with the development of two-way radio from the 1960s in Australia, particularly CB radio. There is a lot of fascinating “behind the scenes” in the story.Mon 18-Aug-2025 – Sydney Uni Cleanroom Tour
Sat 16-Aug-2025 – Pi-PicoRx Buildathon
The buildathon event for the Pi-PicoRx will take place on Saturday morning 16th August in order to remain clear of other events, followed by a BBQ lunch.
Tue 12-Aug-2025 – Cubs’ visit
Available members to host the following stations: hf, build a station, morse, encryption. Members will also support from home to call back on our 2m repeater and HF.
Wed 30-Jul-2025 – 5th Wed Show & Tell – Calculators
Be there or be square root! Abacus or fingers, mechanical or electronic, nixies, paper, LCDs or LEDs, how do you add up? Best display by token votes, best story as selected by the nominated judge.
Wed 23-Jul-2025 – NTP Clock Buildathon
Come to the club house to build and configure your NTP Clock.
Sat 19-Jul-2025 – Trans Tasman Low-Band Contest
Held on the 3rd weekend in July, the contest encourages Low Band activity between VK and ZL. Only contest bands 160m, 80m, and 40m are allowed, using SSB, CW and Digital (RTTY OR PSK).
Details: wia.org.au/members/contests/transtasman/
Wed 16-Jul-2025 – Lecture: Weather Balloon Tracking and Recovery, presented by Tim VK2TIJ
Will include a live demonstration of SondeHub Tracker presented by Tim VK2TIJ
Wed 9-Jul-2025: AGM
Make sure you pay your membership prior to the meeting to vote and be elected.
Sat-Sun 21-22-Jun-2025 – VHF/UHF Field Day
On Saturday 21 June is the planned day for the club’s participation in the VHF/UHF Winter Field day. The contest starts at 0100UTC which I make to be an 11am local. The location will be the Pony Club/BMX track however we will need to be at the club to pick up aerials and the gazebo at about 09:00am to give us time to transport everything to the contest site and set up the masts/aerials/equipment. As usual we will aim to set up stations for 6m/2m/70cm and 23cm.
At the last VHF/UHF field day we had great weather and “Barista Tommy” kept us all in plentiful supplies of hot drinks – don’t miss out.
Realistically we need a minimum of about 5 people to get everything set up in a reasonable time so please let everyone know if you are interested in coming.
Details at https://www.wia.org.au/members/contests/vhfuhf/
Wed 18-Jun-2025 – Lecture: Build Projects for the Shack
Broad topics featuring NTP Clock (UTC and Local Time) and the HF SDR PicoRx, presented by
Richard VK2ARH and Simon VK2YU. Check the preview.
Wed 21-May-2025 – Lecture: Spy Radio, the Special Operations Executive, and Deception
Presented by Colin Christie VK2JCC. Covert communications played a crucial role during World War II. Colin’s lecture will focus on the use of spy radios by the French Resistance. These radios were essential for transmitting critical information to Allied forces, often under life-threatening conditions. The Special Operations Executive, a secret British organisation, played a crucial role in coordinating these efforts, training agents in espionage, sabotage, and the use of encrypted communication. The presentation will also explore the deceptive tactics employed to mislead the enemy, including misinformation campaigns and fake radio transmissions, which helped confuse and disorient German forces.
Wed 23-Apr-2025 – Lecture: Dom Bragge VK2JNA 4WD Trip to Cape York 2023
Wed 16-Apr-2025 – Lecture: moved to 23-Apr-2025
Sat/Sun 15/16-Mar-2025 – John Moyle Memorial Field day
Wed 26-Feb-2025 – HamClock Configurathon
Following the interests raised from last week’s lecture on the HamClock, many members purchased the required hardware to configure the HamClock and Simon VK2YU & Richard VK2ARH will be helping them to configure the ready product. As always, everyone’s welcome!
Wed 19-Feb-2025 – Lecture – HamClock by Elwood Downey WB0OEW – by Richard ARH and Simon VK2YU
An introduction to setting up and using HamClock. HamClock is an application that provides real time space weather, radio propagation, and many other points of information for use in the shack. The lecture will include a live demo of the application and brief explanations for setting display options as well as preferred hardware and build options. Based on interest we may follow up later with a night to assist anyone interested in building their own.
Sat 1-Feb-2025 – 2025 New Year kick off Working Bees
Impromtu working bee. There has also been multiple mini-working bees following the January storms to restore some of the services.
Wed 29-Jan-2025 – 5th Wed Show&Tell – Data Storage
Who remembers punched cards and magnetic core memory? Tape in all formats, USB sticks, chips, floppy disks, laser etc. ROM … à la read only memory … how does it get there in the first place??? Best display by vote, best story selected by the judge in charge!
Wed 15-Jan-2025 – Lecture – HMAS Diamantina and HMS Teviot , WW2 River-class Frigates
To kick off the new year Mike VK2MDP will be doing a non-technical lecture tonight entitled: “HMAS Diamantina and HMS Teviot , WW2 River-class Frigates”. Discovering historical connections from family history research.
Xmas & New Year
NOTE: The weekly gatherings at the club house will be moved to Thursday 26-Dec-2024 and Thursday 2-Jan-2025 as they would otherwise clash with Xmas day and New Year.
Wed 25-Dec-2024 9am (Sydney Time) – Xmas Net 7085 KHz and 2m VK2RMB
The Xmas Net is usually over in 15mins as people typically want to spend time with their family, be there on the dot!
Sun 15-Dec-2024 – BYOE xmas BBQ
At the hall, from mid-day, Bring Your Own Everything! Gas BBQ to be used in case of total fire ban. A week earlier this year as the following Sunday is too close to xmas and many people couldn’t attend.
Sat 7-Dec-2024 – Summer working bee
Required to get the site ready for the fire season and for the xmas BBQ. Rainy day but attendance was sufficient to get the site ready and tidy up inside the hall. Thanks to Geoff VK2TGO, Sean VK2THT, Phil VK2XPL, Andy VK2EAH, Russell VK2BYN, Mike VK2MDP. Way too busy to take pictures, come to see for yourselves!
Fri 29-Nov-2024 – Xmas Dinner
Belrose Hotel – 7pm
Wed 27-Nov-2024 – Lecture – ADS-B Support
Through Geoff Osborne’s contacts, we will have a November 27 lecture from Mogens Bradley Andersen of ADS-B Support from the ADS-B receiver we’ve installed at the Club House. This is the 4th Wednesday (not 3rd as usual) to suit the timing of his visit to Australia.
Sat 23-Nov-2024 – VHF/UHF Field Day
On Saturday 23 November 2024 is the planned day for the club’s participation in the VHF/UHF Field day. The contest starts at 0100UTC which I make to be midday. The location will be the Pony Club/BMX track however we will need to be at the club house to pick up aerials and the gazebo at about 09:30am to give us time to transport everything to the contest site and set up the masts/aerials/equipment. As usual we will aim to set up stations for 6m/2m/70cm and 23cm and at this time of year, propagation conditions can be good.
The last two VHF/UHF contests that we have tried to run have been met with bad rain so let’s hope that we have better weather for this contest.
Realistically we need a minimum of about 5 people to get everything set up in a reasonable time.
Wed 20-Nov-2024 – Lecture will be held on the 27-Nov-2024
Wed 30-Oct-2024 – 5th Wednesday – 100% recycled
Suggested by Colin VK2JCC. These days we all like to buy new stuff, but can you create something new out of completely recycled materials, including electronic components scavenged from other gear? Best display by vote, best story by nominated judge.
Sat/Sun 19/20 Oct-2024 – JOTA/JOTI
Note that Richard VK2SKY will be operating a portable station at the JOTA camp site at Terrey Hills Public School in Cooyong Ave 17:00-22:00 ish! Welcome to visit … or monitor the bands for calls.
Wed 16-Oct-2024 – No lecture this month
Sat 12-Oct-2024 – Pre-JOTA working bee
From 13:00, to ensure the place is ready to received our JOTA/JOTI guests the following week.
Wed 17-Sep-2024 – Lecture – Warren Lang on Fiskville
You can read about the “Fiskville” Country Fire Authority Training College on Wikipedia.
Sat 31-Aug-2024 – University of Sydney Open Day
Our stand will be outside the “School of Electrical Engineering Building USyd” (you can find it with Google maps) and will be running from 9am to about 3:30pm and it is right in front of the building.
Wed 31-Jul-2024 – 5th Wednesday – Mechanical Controls
Prior to the microchip and controller era, most controls were by means of mechanical interfaces. Even today mechanical potentiometers have been replaced by digital encoders, and on/off switches by logic switches. This evening is dedicated to the displays of simple and very complex controls that have been used in the past to adjust and/or vary electrical or electronic parameters. See list below, check the links to get some ideas:
– Car-radio mechanical push buttons;
– TV rotary crystal selector;
– cord and gear driven controls and displays;
– clutches;
– potentiometers & verniers;
– 1960’s mechanical answer machine when you were not allowed to connect equipments to the telephone line;
– inductor mechanical tuning like the Collins R-390A/URR tuning units;
– feedback controls;
– governor limited speed control;
– cassette player door controls;
– Nakamichi auto-reverse cassette deck;
– mechanical safety devices;
– spring reverb box;
– tape echo box;
– motor driven tremolo organ speakers;
– flight computers;
– slide rules.
Best display by vote, best story selected by the nominated judge.
Fri/Sat/Sun 19-21 Jul-2024 – Trans Tasman 160m Contest – Berrima
Wed 17-Jul-2024 – Lecture – Introducing the KiwiSDR
If you haven’t yet tried the Society’s KiwiSDR receiver, you’re in for a treat. We’ve “customised ours for local conditions” so you’ll find features there that you won’t find on other web SDR receivers. This lecture by Richard VK2SKY will explore everything from basic use to some of the lesser-known functions, and discover many handy shortcuts to make the most of the Kiwi experience.
Wed 26-Jun, Sat 29-Jun-2024 – ADX Build-a-thon
Sat 21-Jun-2024 – Winter VHF/UHF Field Day – CANCELLED DUE WEATHER
Wed 19-Jun-2024 – Journey to the Red Centre and WA
Brian and Sue Bailey spoke about their road trip from Sydney to Western Australia via the Red Centre. This lecture was of particular interest to Amateurs who are keen on Four Wheel Driving. The trip was marred by their Prado’s engine blowing up on the border of WA and SA. They recounted how that had to get the engine replaced. All drivers of Toyota Landcruisers in the club should find it particularly interesting and a bit scary.
Tue 18-Jun-2024 – Frenchs Forest Cubs’ Visit
Wed 29-May-2024 – 5th Wednesday Show ‘n’ Tell: Enclosures, Cabinets, and Carry Cases
Having the best radio and test equipment enclosure requires a combination of ingenuity and art. Appearance and practicality are as important as the actual function performed by the equipment. We are looking for big & small, artwork, robustness, embedded functions, old, modern, classic, generic, jiffy, portability and more. There are prizes for the Best Display by popular vote, and best story, as determined by the nominated judge.
Wed 15-May-2024 – Lecture: Rich Rademacher, “Quantum Key Distribution”
In secure encrypted communications, one of the most important ideas is that the encryption key contains all the protection of the whole system. But what happens if the system isn’t already secure…if it is brand new (unkeyed), or the key is already compromised? Even public-key cryptosystems like RSA encryption suffer from this problem: how do the initial keys (or certificates) get into the system?
Our speaker, Rich Rademacher, is an embedded systems engineer with a background in quantum computing, aerospace, and Digital Signal Processing. In this talk, he will discuss Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), a new way of getting the encryption key to remote devices where human Out of Band Key Distribution (OOB-KD) is not possible: Ku band satellites in low-earth orbit.
You may have heard of the related field of Quantum Computing (QC), which has algorithms that specifically try to break the encryption itself—particularly public-key systems like RSA. Unlike QC, QKD uses unique properties of light to create a communications channel that cannot be intercepted or faked. Also, unlike QC, QKD is practical right now. Experiments using Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites have demonstrated this actually works as a way of re-securing satellites both during initial unkeyed state, and even when compromised.
Sat 13-Apr-2024 – Working bee
Primary objectives were to install ADS-B and KiwiSDR.
Wed 31-Jan-2024 – 5th Wed – Solar powered
Mon 25-Dec-2023 – xmas net 9am – 7085 kHz
Sun 17-Dec-2023 – MWRS Christmas BBQ
At the Club Hall, from noon. BYO everything.
Wed 29-Nov-2023 – 5th Wednesday Show ‘n’ Tell – Computer based gear or projects
Bring out your Raspberry Pi’s, computer or microcontroller based projects that are related to our fine hobby. There is a special prize for the people’s choice award this month, kindly donated by our member The book “Raspberry Pi for radio amateurs” published by Elektor Electronics. https://www.elektor.com/raspberry-pi-for-radio-amateurs
As usual you will present your project to compete for the prize. There will also be a bottle of wine for the best story about your creation, to be decided by the previous winner.
Fri 24-Nov-2023 – Xmas Dinner 19:00, Belrose Hotel
Sat 25-Nov-2023 – VHF/UHF Field Day – Pony Club – CANCELLED due weather
Planned day for the club’s participation in the VHF/UHF Field day. The contest starts at 0100UTC which makes to be midday. The location will be the Pony Club/BMX track however we will need to be at the club to pick up aerials and the gazebo at about 10am to give us time to transport everything to the contest site and set up the masts/aerials/equipment. As usual we will aim to set up stations for 6m/2m/70cm and 23cm and at this time of year, propagation conditions can be good.
Sat 18-Nov-2023 – Pre-summer Working Bee, followed up by BBQ.
Wed 15-Nov-2023 – Lecture – Underwater Explosions or How to Sink a Submarine
The talk will be given by Dr Michael du Plessis – VK2MDP, MWRS member. He has over 30 years’ experience in R&D and technology development in the commercial (mining) industry. Michael will be talking about how underwater testing is used to measure the energy output of explosives. The science upon which this is based, comes from military research on how to sink a submarine.