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ZL2AA Gisborne Amateur Radio Club

NZART Branch 11

Repeater Status Updates

Roger ZL2RC and Hamish ZL2HC travelled to Whakapunake on Saturday, 27 June to assess the problems with the 690 repeater and the ZL2AA-1 digipeater. They found that the battery charger had failed, and the batteries had gone flat. Roger has already analysed the repeater and found that the 690 transmitter (drivers and finals) had also failed, and the RF input transistor to the receiver. To get the repeater back on the air they removed the old repeater from the rack and have installed a lower power backup repeater and configured it to share power with the National System. The digipeater has been removed from service temporarily.

3.5.09 Reports of 685 playing up. May be weather or batteries. Investigations are ongoing.

Meeting

The next meeting will be Monday, July 13th staring at 1930 at the Bryce Street Scout Hall.

Read past meeting notes...

Membership

Meetings are held at 7:30 pm on the second Monday of each month (except January) in the Bryce Street Scout Hall, Mangapapa, Gisborne.

Dues for 2009 remain at $35, with a special $10 rate available to students. Dues may be paid to the treasurer at any meeting.

Repeaters

The club sponsors three 2 metre voice repeaters 680.685 and 690, a link to the National System 9875, and cooperates with another local UHF repeater 950. The club also has an ATV repeater and digipeater (mainly used for APRS).

680: Serving Gisborne city from Kaiti Hill, the 146.80 repeater, it also provides IRLP Node 6105. We look forward to hearing from you.
685: With coverage of the gorge to the north...
690: The area's high level 146.90 repeater on Whakapunake, providing good coverage from Poverty Bay to Hawkes Bay.
9875: The National System link located at Whakapunake.
ZL2AA-1 (GBD): A high level digipeater also on Whakapunake.

National System Comes to Gisborne

Gisborne is now connected to the National System! Roger ZL2RC, Ian ZL2IMM, and Hamish ZL2HC made a trip to Whakapunake on Sunday, 30 March 2008 and switched on the National System. Roger had installed the equipment at the club's Whakapunake site on Sunday, February 10th and left it running in test mode as a local 439.875- repeater.

Nets

There is a very informal net starting to meet Sunday evenings at 1900 on the Whakapunake 146.90- repeater. Join us and catch up with the rest of the club members.

There are also a number of members that gather on 1.855 MHz (160 meters) on Sunday evenings at 2100.

Mailing List

http://groups.google.com/group/branch11 is a mailing list for discussion of all facets of amateur radio in the Gisborne region. Warning if your call sign is your email address eg.ZL2**@***, then if you send a message to someone on xtra the xtra spam filter will stop it getting through and put it in the Trash folder. If you are on xtra might pay to check on their web site, maybe people are sending messages to you but they are being stopped.

ATV

The Gisborne Amateur Television Repeater is on the air most Sundays from 1500hrs to 1600 hours, picture only at present and while on, if not being used by amateurs, radiates a test pattern on UHF Channel 39. ZL2HC generally transmits a series of slides to other interested amateurs over the hour and usually starts one transmission at 1500 hours. To check your receive system at other times try to receive the Maori channel on UHF Channel 38, just below the amateur channel. If you can the amateur channel should be watchable when it is on.

APRS

There is currently a resurgence in APRS activity (map view) in the Gisborne area. The recommended settings for use in the Gisborne area now copy the WIDEn-N paradigm in use in most of the world.

See the APRS page for information on possible APRS from Arowhana. You can download the minutes of a meeting of interested amateurs from the bottom of the page

Jim ZL2IA has a weather station on APRS, so you can see what the weather is just up the coast at Makorori. Other members are checking out the possibility of more weather stations around Gisborne.

Activities

JOTA 2008: Thanks to Alister ZL2AIX, Robert ZL1UE, Basil ZL2UT and several other amateurs the branch put up what I think was a very good show. While low key on the Saturday due to the A&P show Sunday appeared to have a good turn out of amateurs and members of the scouting community.

The three computers with high speed connection to the Internet attracted great interest in the JOTA chat rooms(always in use), VOIP and other amateur activities such as APRS. While the hf seemed fairly quiet IRLP via the local repeater allowed many contacts world wide with almost constant use while NZ wide activity on the national system sure gave the newly installed extension in this area a real test.

With a possible change to a different location next year hopefully even more amateur activities can be displayed while providing such a good service for JOTA and JOTI.

SAREX: On February 29th Alan ZL2AOP, Alistair ZL2AIX, Steve ZL2RI, Dot ZL2BAI, and Rolly were among the hams that supported the search and rescue exercise staged in the Mount Arawhana area. The terrain has been described as "tiger country" with steep ravines, shale and difficult growth. The headquarters were at the Arawhana station and comms in the caravan with moble cookhouse right alongside.