Greetings from the Redcliffe and Districts Radio Club VK4RC Robert Thomson VK4TFN here.

The Redcliffe Club will hold our Annual CarBoot Sale Saturday 26th August at our clubhouse at Kippa Ring in Redcliffe.

Vendors in at seven, breakfast is at eight, gates open at nine, the raffle is at ten thirty. $10 per car boot or table, gold coin admission. Go to www dot redclifferadioclub dot org dot au for more information. Thank you and 7s from the Redcliffe and Districts Radio Club VK4RC

This is Allan VK4HIT with news from the July business meeting of Ipswich and District Radio Club.

In WICEN news - The Guzzler Ultra Marathon for 2023 was run over the weekend July 22 and 23. The weather was perfect for the event with the record for the 100Km run being smashed by nearly 50 minutes, well done to Tim Locke.

A big thank you to all operators who manned the checkpoints, especially those on CP2 and CP3 who got smashed with nearly 800 runners transiting through their checkpoints. There were very few errors and no dramas, so the event went very well. Stay tuned for next year’s event on July 27 and 28 2024.

There are two more WICEN events later this year – the Pinnacles Classic Sunday September 24 and Mt Glorious Trail Sunday November 12. In July the club welcomed another two new members – Kay Swinton VK4SF and John Boxall.

Hello, I’m Geoff Emery, VK4ZPP, and I’ve been thinking.

Have you got your contest hat on? Yes it is August 2023 and we have two important contests this month. Coming up first is the Remembrance Day Contest, or RD, next weekend, the 12th and 13th of August. The second is the ALARA Contest which runs for 24 hours over Saturday and Sunday 26th and 27th of the month.

Well known as the friendly contest, the RD has been an institution amongst radio amateurs for longer than most of us can remember. As a way for our sector of the community to remember those people who joined the armed forces and served in conflict for over a century it is also a reminder of the sacrifices that have been made in the name of our country. As a mark of respect to those who died, there is a period of 15 minutes radio silence prior to the transmission of the opening address before the contest starts.

Using the main bands from 160 through to 10 metres but excluding the WARC bands and modes of AM, SSB and FM along with CW and RTTY there is plenty of scope for making contacts with propagation hopefully seeing the benefit of a high point in the sunspot cycle.

If we think of the RD Contest as the Friendly Contest then the Australian Ladies Amateur Radio Association is the classic getting to know you contest. With the purpose of having as many amateurs contact YL operators, this contest gets people out and actually enjoying contacts with our often unheard operators, the women operators.

The major differences in requirements between these two contests are that ALARA does not include the 160m band but it does permit the use of Echolink. Phone and CW, the same as the RD, are the ways to get on air and the scoring provides incentives to make contacts with ALARA members and Yls especially. So as we bid farewell to the cooler period of the year, here is a way of getting active in friendly and enjoyable weekend operating.

So now is the time to check out the rules, get the logging materials prepared and the rig dusted off and look forward to a couple of weekends of radio enjoyment.

I’m Geoff Emery VK4ZPP and that’s what I think....how about you?