Monday 18th September from 7:30pm for a Brisbane Area WICEN Group meeting. As it will be the first time Brisbane Area WICEN has held a meeting at HSBNE, I was interested to know if any HSBNE people might be interested and/or available to show the WICEN people around please?
Kind regards
vk4mdl
I am interested in seeing what you guys get up to. I’ve been using LoraWAN for telemetry applications on outback stations and more basic 433mhz as a virtual wire for short range control. Not exactly ham but there’s a crossover and I would like to know some people more knowledgeable than me about radio transmission. I can be there Monday 18 but ss a brand new HSBNE member my insight may be limited.
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@Novensiles, You’re more than welcome… the peculiarities of radio propagation really don’t care about whether people hold a radio license or not, and there’s lots of funny corner cases you get to learn about, even messing with 433MHz stuff… possibly 433mHz stuff too, although I don’t fancy the size of antenna you’d need. 
Playing with tropospheric ducting for example, which allows VHF and UHF signals (including 433MHz) to travel distances of hundreds of kilometres.
Yes, New Zealand hams have been heard on 2m Brisbane repeaters thanks to ducting across the Tasman. I recall it was a repeater in New Zealand that transmitted on 147.300MHz and received on 147.900MHz became partially linked with one at Ocean View that transmitted on 147.900MHz and received on 147.300MHz. No the audio wasn’t great, you’d hear “ZL4” then the signal would start to break up… but for an FM signal on 2m, that’s a bloody long way!
There are lessons to be learned though in systems like LoraWAN though: fundamentally, it’s a mesh-based packet network, not much different in concept to NetROM/AX.25, which WICEN has been experimenting with in the form of their repeater network.
Experimenting with 6LoWPAN (specifically, OpenThread) at my workplace is giving me ideas for this network, since IEEE 802.15.4 networking has similar constraints to that of AX.25 (128-byte frames, radio propagation issues) but still allows for standard TCP/IP networking (albeit at much slower speeds, packet radio normally runs at 1200 baud).
So yeah, you’re welcome to come and join us. Being new to the field does not mean you have nothing to contribute.
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Yes, capitalisation matters and writing on a phone on the ferry is no excuse for being sloppy 
Although right now I am looking at Centrepoint tower and thinking of antennas. Not to mention all the cranes filling the Brisbane skyline, they would make good towers.
I have plenty to contribute. Whether sanity is included is debatable.
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The trouble with cranes is they’re temporary.
@vk4mdl has been eyeing off the largely empty towers on Mt. Gravatt. Once part of Telecom Australia’s microwave network… now just host a couple of mobile phone cells. Somewhere with a bit of height is what’s called for normally, and ideally, away from the RF noise (which is what makes Mt. Coot-tha so bad).
Individual cranes may be temporary but I struggle to picture a skyline devoid of them. Repurposing old Telstra kit has to count as a community service. Mt Gravatt is near enough to an NBN POI a citywide lorawan gateway may be feasible…
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