NZART Headquarters Infoline Issue 220
05-DECEMBER-2010
NZART Website: http://www.nzart.org.nz/home/

In This Issue

*Official Broadcast Has Been 25 Years Under The Control of ZL2BHF
*From The Business Manager ZL2DL
*Call Book News
*Digital Amateur Television (DATV) Update
*A 23 cm Repeater For Upper Hutt - Climie 200
*PG&E (California) Considers Smartmeter Compromise
*DX Code of Conduct Power Point Slide Show
*Web Update
*==Change to a CMS Web Site
*==Sitemap Table For The CMS Web Site
*==Amateur Radio Activity Pictures
*Weird and Wonderful
*From The Radio Amateurs of Canada Web Site
*Information Sources
*Upcoming Events
*Contest News
*==VHF/UHF/SHF Contest 2011
*==Contest Calendar 2010
*==Contest Calendar 2011
*Housekeeping
*Attachment(s) for Branches: NZART Headquarters Infoline 220.doc

*******

Please think of the environment before printing this e-mail

Official Broadcast Has Been 25 Years Under The Control of ZL2BHF

On 19-December-2010, the date for the last Official Broadcast (OB) for 2010, celebrates the twenty-fifth year that the OB has been under the control of Jim Meachen ZL2BHF.

Jim has prepared all the OBs during this time and has presented most of them.

For the 19-December OB, Jim has compiled from his archive, some memorial broadcasts from presenters that are not with us now.

The NOV/DEC Break-In is to have a report on Jim's quarter-century of work with and devotion to the OB.

Congratulations Jim, from all of us:
Amateurs in New Zealand and around the World

From The Business Manager ZL2DL 

Debby says...

Break In: will be mailed out on Friday 10th December. This is due to ensuring the accuracy of the errata list of missed call signs in Call Book and production of the CD Rom call Book. Included on the CD Rom will be a complete list of Break In from 2005 to end of 2010.

Remits: please send your branch remits to me no later than the 31 December 2010. I need time to collate and prepare them in Council papers for the February meeting.

Elections: Please forward all nominations for Council and President by the 31st December. Please note, the last date for acceptance of any nominations will be 11am on the morning of the first working day back after new year. I.E January 5, 2011 at 11am.

Calendars: The Amateur Radio Calendar sold well at the 2010 Conference but has dropped off your radars. In order to avoid a loss we have reduced the price and hope to end up at break even having provided a service to the amateur community. It is Christmas time when calendars are traditional gifts and the price of $5 each plus postage (now $1.80 for up to 3 copies) reflects that it now only has 6 months to run up to the next Conference. You never know, this may become a collectors item.

Orders may be sent to Peter Loveridge, ZL1UKG at peterlov@ihug.co.nz or by phone to 09-3773398 or by mail at 5 Mostyn Street, Kingsland, Auckland 1021.

The contents of this calendar is shown below.

HQ Closed: Headquarters will be open through the short weeks of Christmas and the new year, however will be closed from Monday 10th January to Tuesday 25th January.

And finally, in memory of the Pike River Miners, I would like to share the following that was sent to me.

1) They came from near and far away The men of Pike to work that day The afternoon shift way down deep Beneath the mountains oh so steep 2) The afternoon shift sets about A job not flash but hard and trying A job that holds the risk of dying 3) From seventeen to sixty two They start their shift to see it through For one his first, for all their last How could they know there'd be a blast? For all at once no siren whining Suddenly the worst in mining 4) Dust and rubble fill the air A loader driver thrown clear Just one other finds the light The rest are hidden from our sight 5) And so we learn as news is spread The news that mining families dread It's up at Pike there's an explosion Faces drop and hearts are frozen Who, how many, where and why ---- Will they make it ---- will they die 6) Fathers, husbands, brothers, sons Coasters, Kiwis, Aussies, Poms Mates and friends who we are seeking Methane gas from coal seams leaking

7) Vents exploded, phones unheeded Level heads and strength are needed The world above unites as one To bring the missing to the sun 8) Rescue teams are standing by As holes are drilled and experts try To find a way that's safe and sound To rescue those beneath the ground 9) Could robots work where men are mortal To pierce the dangers of that portal But alas all effort fails The darkness of the mine prevails 10) A second blast of rock and thunder Hope and prayers are rent asunder A nation weeps and Coasters mourn Pike falls silent, dark, forlorn 11) A hole remains within the ground Devoid of joy, of life, of sound Another hole within the heart Of those forever set apart From those they loved who went to toil Digging coal beneath the soil 12) Those who gave their lives that day To work a shift for honest pay They wait at rest within their mine The men of Pike, the Twenty Nine Written by Sean Plunket

Talk soon...Debby ZL2DL (yep I have changed my call sign!)

Call Book News

As members will be aware, there are a number of errors in the callsign listings in the 2010 Call Book.

These listings are based on information extracted from SMART for us by the MED. Unfortunately, the final list supplied by the MED omitted a number of callsigns that had appeared on previous lists. It is not clear at this stage what caused this to occur but the MED has written to us apologising for the errors.

Such an error should not happen again as the MED is planning to introduce a new facility to SMART during 2011 called "web services". This will enable us to extract our own callsign listings from SMART.

A full copy of the email received from the MED is available on this link
http://www.nzart.org.nz/council/policies/2010-2011-nzart-call-book/
for those that would like further information.

There will be an errata sheet containing corrections to all the callsigns that we have been able to resolve in the November/December Break In along with the Call Book on CD which will also incorporate the corrections. These corrections have been arrived at from membership records, and also those errors reported to the Call Book team.

The item above has come from two sources. Principally from a summary of correspondence with RSM by the ALO (Don Wallace), and from the Call Book Editor (Lorne Douglas).

Phil King
NZART Council

Digital Amateur Television (DATV) Update 

The data compression, inherent in all forms of digital television, permits the simultaneous transmission of many video and audio streams in the bandwidth previously occupied by one analogue television transmission. This technique is a feature of Broadcast digital television.

On Saturday, the 4th of December, 2010, a group of Wellington and Hutt Valley Amateurs simultaneously multiplexed four video and audio streams into one digital television transmission, using low cost equipment.

The transmission was centred on 1282 MHz, in accordance with the NZART bandplan (page 4-11 of the latest Call Book), and occupied 1274 to 1290 MHz, the same bandwidth as one analogue FM television transmission. The DVB-S modulation format was used, receivable on an unmodified satellite TV set-top box.

Further development and testing is planned, with the aim of transmitting the four video and audio streams within an 8 MHz bandwidth, half that used by the above tests, using the DVB-T modulation format, receivable on an ordinary Digital Terrestrial television receiver.

The team was led by Doug, ZL2TAR, assisted by Gavin, ZL2TVM, Dick, ZL2TGQ and Phil, ZL2TIQ.

A 23 cm Repeater For Upper Hutt - Climie 200

Just to advise for your records and maps on the NZART web site, the licence for the 23CM Repeater has been approved and paid for, so is now live. The new repeater,is called Climie 200 - using the standard naming conventions from FMTAG.

The actual repeater will be on site soon we hope!
ZL2UFI

PG&E (California) Considers Smartmeter*** Compromise

Wireless SmartMeters Jeopardize Health would be another heading for this article. (ED)

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) is considering options for customers who fear that the utility's new, wireless SmartMeters jeopardize their health, although company representatives won't say what those might be.

"We want those customers to understand that we take their concerns seriously," said PG E spokesman Jeff Smith. "We're still in a preliminary stage of review, including weighing the costs of any options. We will make this information public in the coming months as we develop it."...
See link below for the full article:
http://www.nzart.org.nz/news/2010-news/nov-2010-news/#nov10

***A smartmeter is an advanced meter (usually an electrical meter) that records consumption in intervals of an hour or less and communicates that information at least daily via some communications network back to the utility for monitoring and billing purposes (telemetering). Smartmeters enable two-way communication between the meter and the central system.

DX Code of Conduct Power Point Slide Show

This letter is being sent to all who signed up as Code Supporters. I want to give you an update on our activities and tell you about a new resource.

1. Since April we have had the Code translated into some 30 languages so as to reach EVERYONE.
2. We have also been working with the various national societies and clubs to spread the word to their constituencies...

For more information please goto:
http://www.nzart.org.nz/news/2010-news/nov-2010-news/#nov11

Web Update

Change to a CMS Web Site

The change of the NZART Web to a SilverStripe Contents Management System (CMS), was done on Saturday of 27-November-2010. Other than having to refresh your browser window after the change was made, the change over ran very smoothly. Thank you Jim ZL2IA, for the work on the SQL databases.

Sitemap Table For The CMS Web Site

Please find below a table of the sitemap for the new Web Site.

Sitemap Table

Home	INFO	ARISS | FISTS | General | History | Map-BP | SS | Technical | VHF Records | Visitors | SM Table
	NZART	Ant-Plan | Constitution | FMTAG | IARU | Milestones | MS | RSM-MED | Trust | Radio Waves
	Council	Jobs | Minutes | Obj-Org | Policies | Positions | Privacy | Promotion
	H'Quarter	Break-In | Broadcasts | Call Book List | HQ | Infoline
	Join	E-mail Lists | E-mail Rules | Fees | Join NZART | OTC | SPAM | World Clock
	Activities	Awards | Awards Conf | Contests | Archive | Calendar | Rules | DX Fame | Events | QSL Cards | AR PIXS
	AREC	Who What | Links
	Branches	Affiliated | Central | Midland | Northern | NZART Hosted | Southern | Branch Data
	Exam	DL-Exam Files | Procedures | Morse | Online INFO | Paper Producer | Radio 4a Form | Supervisors
	News	Statistics | Flagcounter | Southgate ARC | ARRL-Weekly | WIA-Weekly | 2010 News

Amateur Radio Activity Pictures

Would you like to share your amateur radio pictures that are still in digital camera after your latest AR activity, or are on your computer HDD?

If you do please send them to:

ZL2NN@nzart.org.nz?subject=AR_PIXS

and they will be added to the Web page Amateur Radio Activity Pictures.

Thank you in anticipation

Jamie Pye ZL2NN

Weird and Wonderful

Shortwave Radio Frequency Causes Amnesia

Hello I’m Jim Linton VK3PC with another from the Weird ‘NWonderful File. Taking on the shape of an urban myth are stories of people suffering loss of memory after tuning their radios to 6955 kHz.

Apparently this is where numbers stations exist, originally thought to be coded messages for spies but now there’s a new theory that they are automatically generated, a key to the universe, existed since the earth began, and even Marconi heard them in his early experiments.

The fascination with the frequency and beliefs now developing around it can be traced to a science fiction show called Fringe in the United States which has dramatically promoted the fanciful 6955 phenomenon.

The story goes that 15 people suffered amnesia after listening to the same frequency. They suffered some kind of convulsion and their memories were wiped.

So is there a moral or warning in all this for radio amateurs. Yes, stay without our band limits, and don’t be tempted to sandbag beyond the lower edge of the 40m band, just in case.

(Jim Linton VK3PC)

From The Radio Amateurs of Canada Web Site

"Amateur Radio exists as a frequency spectrum user because it qualifies as a service. Its continued existence depends to a great degree not on the service it has performed in the past, or on its simple potential for service, but on what service it is performing now and will continue to perform in the future."

Information Sources

Wireless Institute of Australia (WIA),
The Radio Amateurs of Canada (RAC), and
American Radio Relay League (ARRL)

Upcoming Events

1. New Zealand Amateur Radio Day
   http://www.nzart.org.nz/activities/events/nz-amateur-radio-day/
2. Te Puke Amateur Radio Club Inc. Sale 5-March-2011
   http://www.nzart.org.nz/activities/events/te-puke-arc-sale/
3. Wellington EXPO-11 & VHF Convention 23-April-2011
   http://www.nzart.org.nz/activities/events/expo-2011/
4. UPPER HUTT NZART Conference 2011 -
   Pre-registration Prize Draw and Update
   http://www.nzart.org.nz/activities/events/2010-upper-hutt-conf/

Contest News

VHF/UHF/SHF Contest 2011

VHF++ DX Weekend Contest (1st SAT FEB) 05/06-FEB-2011
The rules are at:  http://www.vhf.org.nz/VHF-UHF-SHF-ContestRules

Contest Calendar 2010

Kiwi Digital Modes Group Twin Sprint Contest 04/05-Dec-2010

Contest Calendar 2011

VHF++ DX Weekend Contest (1st SAT FEB)	05/06-FEB-2011
***Boat Anchor Sprint (2nd SAT FEB)	12-FEB-2011
2011 PACC (Dutch) DX Contest	12/13-FEB-2011
ARRL CW	19/20-FEB-2011
Jock White Field Day (last full WE FEB)	26/27-FEB-2011

 

***Future Contests

In the results, received from ZL2KH, for the Nostalgia Night Contest, held on Saturday, 11 September 2010 there was a footnote that said:

"Because of a lack of participation, Mike ZL1MDS and Barrie ZL2LA have decided that Boat Anchor Sprints and Nostalgia Night contests will be cancelled in the meantime."

Housekeeping

Next NZART Official Broadcast is on SUNDAY 19-DECEMBER-2010

Next HQ-Infoline e-mailed on SUNDAY 19-DECEMBER-2010

Headquarters-Infoline is a twice-monthly bulletin of news from NZART Headquarters. News and items of a general or technical interest are also included that are obtained from various amateur sources. The bulletins are e-mailed directly to Branches, the amateur radio packet Bulletin Board Service and to others that subscribe through the NZART Website at:  http://www.nzart.org.nz/join/e-mail-lists/join-infoline-list/

Past and present Infolines can be found at: 
http://www.nzart.org.nz/h-quarter/infoline/
Where HTML, PDF and DOC formats can be found for the 2010 e-mailed Issues of Infoline.

A yearly timetable of when to expect the Official Broadcast and Infoline can be found at:
http://www.nzart.org.nz/h-quarter/infoline/2011-timetable/

Regards, Jamie Pye ZL2NN, Editor zl2nn@nzart.org.nz