One of SCARC's former members and Presidents has sadly passed away - Noel Des Jardins VK4NL passed away last Thursday October 16th.

Noel made his first appearance at SCARC in 2003 when he was VK4ADJ, I met him at JOTA and he was in his element showing the Scouts and Guides just what radio was about with so much enthusiasm it was contagious.

He also donated some copper tube to be used in making cavities for a 6m repeater which unbeknownst to us he was a real fan of the 6m repeater and he used to run the 6m net AKA the backblocks net every Friday night until he left for greener pastures in Hervey Bay.

Noel was also an operator for the 20m travellers net for quite some time, it was always comforting to hear his voice on the radio when you were far from home. One of his favourite sayings was "You can never have enough aluminium and wire in the sky" Mate, you be sadly missed but never forgotten. Vale Noelly, Poppy Noel, Noel Des Jardins VK4NL

I'm John VK4JPM with the Darling Downs Radio Club update for Sunday 27th of October. Last Sunday saw the end of the POTA Coast-to-Coast week with the band opening up nicely on Sunday Afternoon. On 20m contacts were made into the Canary Islands, Germany and Austria. Even if you're not registered with the POTA Website, if you had a contact with a POTA operator this weekend it's possible that there's an Award waiting for you when you do set up an account. Why not come along to the next club meeting, and find out from Dave VK4JPS how to set up an account?

The important stuff again: the club net on VK4RDD every Sunday at 1000, ddrci.org.au for the website, and 11 November at 1900 for the next meeting.

Hello, I’m Geoff Emery, VK4ZPP, and I’ve been thinking. I trust all we Queensland amateurs are recovering from the contest. I don’t mean the one running from the USA but the political blood sport we know as an election. Thankfully the remaining execution is in the USA and the amount of publicity and spruiking we are receiving will diminish next month and we hams can turn our thoughts to the serious matters of amateur radio. I was pleased to see the amount of posts appearing on social media during the JOTA/JOTI weekend with some clubs obviously enjoying the time spent with the members of the Scouting and Guiding communities. It seems that the coordination of announcements and publicity fell away, this year with NO opening address supplied for broadcast as has happened for many, many years. Like so many things that happen in life, this is an example that provides lessons for the future. It would seem that the gods of weather are reminding us of the seasonal changes with more storm activity reminding us that summer is almost upon us. You have probably noticed the adverts, put out by the Government, reminding us to have a bad weather plan. The meteorologists are positing that we will probably have the warmest nights on record, in the run up to Christmas. They are also projecting that we could have about 11 cyclones around the coast of Australia with maybe 4 of those crossing the coast somewhere. This may seem like a low number of tropical storms, this season, but the scientists are saying that the trends they are measuring are for more intense behaviours from these events. The word is that we need to prepare, as I have been reminding us all, for the worst and pray for the best outcomes. One thing that I seem to have been missing in the broadcast news is the amount of trouble that various parts of the world are experiencing with particularly storms and flooding. Even in NSW there has been damage in the mining city of Broken Hill which has caused extensive blackouts and which is the result of storm damage. As the fun of summer approaches, I hope we can all remain safe and prepared and enjoy the thrill of radio. I’m Geoff Emery VK4ZPP and that’s what I think….how about you?