In news from Ipswich and District Radio Club, WICEN volunteers will head out in the field for the Brisbane Trails Marathon on April 27. It’s never too late to offer your services on the day. A minimum of 14 operators are required most with a 4WD and radio equipment to operate in a remote location. Ipswich WICEN also welcomes support from other amateurs in southeast Queensland. Please get in touch with Paul McDonald at [email protected]

I'm John VK4JPM, Secretary of the Darling Downs Radio Club. The Management Committee is busy at work sorting out a few items that need to be addressed - we'll tell you about that at the next meeting, which will be on Monday 14 April. More about that in a second. The John Moyle Field Day was a heap of fun and thanks to all those who came along to help the club get into the history books. It will be a while before we know how we did, but in raw terms, we ran for six hours with four teams across 10, 15, 20 and 40 metres. Given the commercial nature of the site we were on, we also attracted a bit of attention from the public and had more than a few people come over to find out what we were doing. Explaining Amateur Radio to onlookers is one way to increase our numbers. We also had some underbubblers drop by for a squizz: there are members of our club who are on the road to a Foundation Licence, and what better way to get a feel for what structured operating is about than to watch a team of people calling "CQ Contest"? Thanks to Dougal, VK4EKA for being team captain and arranging the main setup - a centre-fed long-wire flown between trees; to Wayne VK4ARW with his quick-erect rotator dipole; and SAM VK4SAM with a most interesting multiband-vertical and an impressive ground plane. The Field Day also gave us a chance to shake out the club's self-contained trailer, designed quite effectively to operate in a mains-free environment. Fortunately, we had good sun and the batteries stayed nice and charged.

Redcliffe & Districts Radio Club VK4RC -. Robert Thomson VK4TFN here. REDFEST 25 "Adventures on HF" at 9:00 am on the 12th of April. I'm looking forward to it. Our new venue is: The Deception Bay North State School, Old Bay Road, Deception Bay.

Hello, I’m Geoff Emery, VK4ZPP, and I’ve been thinking. One area of amateur radio that we don’t see mentioned often is one that brought many people into the broader compass of “radio”. A lot of people, these days, associate the introduction of the Citizen’s Band Radio Service as being the fillip that gave rise to the many new amateurs who entered via the then Novice licence. The value of Radio Australia to introducing our life and perspectives was well recognised as it had a non-partisan policy of providing news and information and it sought to help people in neighbouring countries. Weather reports, farming tips and English language lessons were all grist for the mill until a few years ago when the plug was pulled. As evidence of its effectiveness, shortly after closing its services several of the frequencies that RA used were adopted by one of the Asian Tigers as their own. In this past week, we have seen the current administration pull the plug on one of the most well-recognised international broadcasters when the USA locked staff out of the Voice of America studios and offices and placed the programming on automatic. My introduction to radio was strengthened by tuning around the dial and listening to these various broadcasters and finding other things like marine traffic, police networks and becoming intrigued by amateur radio, particularly 40m. From that I went on to join the WIA as an Associate Member, Short Wave Listener and eventually I became a full member. Shortwave is still with us and along with scanning of VHF and UHF, it makes a great introduction to the hobby of radio. I’m Geoff Emery VK4ZPP and that’s what I think…. how about you?