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IT'S ON AGAIN 2026
Antennapalooza 2026 – Our Tenth Year! WHEN: Weekend of April 18 & 19th 2026. WHERE: In 2026 the theme will be about POWER. We hope to get some guest speakers lined up to talk about our power infrastructure, power in the shack and in the field. The 2026 program is still being prepared, but you can check out what we did in 2025: Program for April 18 & 19, 2026 Saturday 12:30 pm Welcome and brief introduction to the event for 2025 (5 min) ——————————————
1 day ago3 min read


ARISS SSTV Event
Stanley vk3bot kindly brought to our attention this amazing event. SSTV SERIES 31 70CM Event April 10-14. 2026. Called World Space Commemoration WHEN: The plan for SSTV is as follows: Start: April 10 12:00 UTC End: April 14 13:55 UTC DETAILS: Frequency: 437.55 MHz +/- Doppler Shift ISS transmit power: 10 watts SSTV Mode: Robot 36 with 2 minutes between transmissions . ABOUT: The transmissions will consist of 12 images featuring activities from the Anniversary Celebrat
Apr 72 min read


2026 MDRC Hamfest
2026 MDRC Hamfest Information The MDRC Annual Hamfest is held in May on a Saturday. The 2026 MDRC Hamfest will be held on Saturday 9 May. The MDRC Hamfest is widely renowned as the Biggest Hamfest in Victoria, with a huge turnout each year. Many attendees travel great distances to attend the MDRC Annual Hamfest from Interstate and overseas. The 2026 MDRC Hamfest will be held at The Patterson Lakes Community Centre 54-70 Thomson Road, Patterson Lakes Ticket sales from 9.00am
Mar 301 min read


FAMPARC CONTEST TEAM
Our good friend and member Ian VK3KO, will be presenting at the April Monthly meeting, Famparc Contest Team. Ian will have a short Powerpoint style presentation looking at the formation of a Club Contesting Team.. For more details, come along to the meeting and join in. When: Saturday 4th April 2026. around 11:30am. Where: Famparc Club Rooms. Basic Details: Re-discover contesting and competitions at FAMPARC Expose new members and operators to the enjoyment of amateur radio co
Mar 301 min read


2026 GGREC HAMFEST
On Saturday, July 4 the Gippsland Gate Radio & Electronics Club will be hosting a Hamfest sale. The venue is at the Longwarry Community Hall at 14 Kennedy St. Longwarry, approx 60km East of Dandenong, Vic. The venue is easy to find. It is just 3 km South of the freeway interchange, 150 metres South of the Longwarry train station and level crossing. When: Saturday July 4th 2026 Where: Longwarry Community Hall at 14 Kennedy St. Longwarry Click Here for Google Map Location.
Mar 201 min read


TRAIN & HOBBY SHOW UPDATE
From Ian, VK3BUF Thank you to Ian for his report. I returned this evening from 2 days at the Sandown Park Train & Hobby show. Robert VK3LOL was present, as was Dianne VK3JDI and Wendy VK3WEN There was plenty of interest in Amateur radio with lots of brochures linked to FAMPARC taken by visitors. We had a working RTTY station on both a laptop and the Siemens 100. There was plenty of interest from visitors and we were busy the entire weekend Peter Parker VK3YE was also pres
Mar 161 min read


REAST MESHCORE PRESENTATION LIVE
Click Here !! When - Wednesday March 4th from 7:30pm - QD Clubrooms and Streamed Heath VK3TWO/VK6TWO will be taking us on a tour of Meshcore. Remember Packet Radio in the 80’s well Meshcore is a modern equivalent on the 900MHz ISM band so, you don’t have to be a licenced amateur. MeshCore is developed by HAM’s, but available to all and is a decentralised text-based communications platform. It is designed to run on commodity, affordable development boards and uses LoRa radios
Mar 41 min read


Power stage backoff
I'm sure you have heard that modern radios will automatically backoff their power output stage if the SWR gets "too high", due to a poor antenna match. I have occasionally wondered what a "too high" SWR actually is and by how much would the radio drop its output power? In this video I share my accidental discovery that at 2:1 SWR the Icom 7300 drops to less than half its maximum power! This is a much greater backoff than I imagined, so it caught me by surprise. High SWR backo
Mar 21 min read


AGM 2026 BRIEF
Hello Famparc Family, As many of you are aware, we had our yearly AGM for 2026. The meeting all went well as expected and a new Administration and Committee has been installed for 2026. This is a overview of the latest and 2026 AGM: See details here. From the Chairpersons notes and comments: Craig vk3ncr Mick vk3vh also assisted me in the running of the AGM 2026 The AGM began at 10:30am at the Famparc Club rooms. Chairperson welcomes all members to the meeting. Apologies on b
Mar 23 min read


EMDRC 2026 CAR BOOT SALE
Where: EMDRC – 13a McCubbin St, Burwood Admission: FREE for buyers and ‘tyre-kickers’ When: Sunday 29th March 10am formal opening for selling Sellers: From your Car Boot (no trailers) $10 ea Inside upstairs – per table $20 ea Please contact Peter VK3QI at vk3er@emdrc.com.au – click HERE for further information. Parking for sellers: from the McCubbin St access and spaces allocated on the gravel car park. This area must remain open to the public how
Feb 272 min read
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