QNews for September 8th 2024

Q-News AR News from Queensland

Hi. I'm John VK4JPM with a reminder from the Darling Downs Radio Club about tomorrow night's tech meeting. Monday 9 September is the second Monday of the month and means we gather at the Toowoomba Library. The theme of this month's session is "How to get control of EVERYTHING in your shack", which you can do using easily available home automation technology. We'll get you across some of the very powerful apps and extremely cheap technology that can help you run your shack, control your antenna farm, and manage your ham cave and workshop.

OK, the details again: we meet tomorrow night, Monday 9 September at the Toowoomba Library from 1900 - that's 7 PM. Tons of free well-lit, secure under-cover parking. The meeting is open to members and guests; there's no charge, and we'd love you to join us for a natter and a cuppa. Check out all the detail, and upcoming club events, at the website: www.ddrci.org.au. www.ddrci.org.au. You can also find us via the WIA website, or just search for Darling Downs Radio Club from your favourite search engine. 73 from John VK4JPM

Hello, I’m Geoff Emery, VK4ZPP, and I’ve been thinking. It was distracting hearing the squelch breaking on the 2m repeater on 146.800Mhz and then faintly came a female voice. It was obvious that ducting was having its fun with us, along the S.E. coast of Queensland but it wasn’t until I read a post that the full impact became obvious. From the Gold Coast to various parts of the coast signals from New Caledonia were being received. It is over 25 years since I heard this and made a successful contact so I live in hopes that this summer season we can experience international VHF contacts with better results. Sadly, I had a poor experience on social media during the past week. A group popped up in the “you may be interested category” and as I have been seeking to finish putting together a small set-up for camping and portable radio operation, I thought it worth joining. This group is obviously an eclectic one of lay and tradie types devoted to low voltage use and it suited me to join to observe what others had found worked for them. After approval by the administrators, I had the opportunity to post an introduction as to why I had joined. Sadly this is when the first response was a very generous putdown and questioned my knowledge and why I would want to join this group. OK, we have all had experience of keyboard warrior types on the internet but it was plainly obvious from the tenor of this post that the writer was also a radio amateur. I tried a couple of times to correct some of the falsehoods that were directed at me and the insulting tenor of the replies continued. As I had just joined this group, the rules were fresh in my mind and I pointed out to this person that they had breached the group rules and left to go about my other business. The next day, I went back to this site to check if there had been more responses only to find that the administrators had monitored or been alerted to this incident. The attacking comments had been deleted from my post and there remained some courteous and considered replies from other group members. My concern is not for the insults directed at me but the very serious effects that this behaviour could have on members of that group when considering amateur radio and its participants. I don’t want to sound precious or prissy but how we present as hams in public naturally reflects on our whole community. This group is enjoying learning about 12V use and installations so they already have an affinity with electricity. Perhaps some of them may want to take that interest into wider fields of interest and I would hate for them to be influenced away from amateur radio by one person acting badly. I’m Geoff Emery VK4ZPP and that’s what I think….how about you?