QNews for March 29th 2026

Hello, I'm John VK4JPM secretary of the Darling Downs Radio Club. Today's news comes to you courtesy of the letter "A" for Activity, something of which we've had a bit in the last week. Congratulations to everyone who came out for the John Moyle Memorial Field day. The Picnic Point location exceeded our expectations and provided a very convenient basecamp with parking, tables, barbeques, and lots of trees suitable for longwire antennas. While slightly marred by a few short rainshowers, and a fenced-off amenities block, we also had enough sunshine to keep everyone happy. The team ran multi/multi in the six-hour category, and logged lots of interesting stations. Despite almost continuous crashy QRN for the whole day, we logged lots of stations on 40 and 20metres including all VK, some ZL and even an FK. In total the club made 132 contacts which was a good showing. It wasn't all flat chat. As you know our club is very focused on education and training, and we were able to hand the mic to operators who had never come close to competition work so that they could get a feel for how to operate under load. You really only learn by doing, and our field day operation worked very well. Thanks so much to all the stations who participated in the John Moyle Memorial Field Day, and thanks for your contacts. We should also congratulate member Andy who sat his Foundation licence during the John Moyle Field Day and passed with flying colours... it was a very good day for the practical test, since many of the questions could be answered by pointing at a bit of gear in use. And since Wednesday Andy is now VK4ODN. Listen out for him, and say hi. Would you like to get or upgrade your licence? Clearly we can definitely help and we'd love to do that. No charge for the assessment, just a bit of your time. Ask away by sending email to [email protected] and our helpful team will get back to you. This is Week 14 of the 52 Week Ham Radio Challenge and it's UHF/VHF time - specifically, make 10 contacts on a UHF or VHF calling frequency. Or both. Nobody says you can't line things up in advance, so maybe this is a nice relaxing opportunity for the coming week? Our club's 2m Sunday Net follows the morning edition of QNEWS on VK4RDD, and there will be no shortage of people who would be willing to talk simplex afterwards if you come up and connect. 10 contacts in a week is roughly one every 20 hours, so plenty of time between soccer practice, shopping expeditions, and recreational trips to the local servo. Coming up: * we're going to RedFest on 11 April and if you have gear you'd like us to put on the table on your behalf: now would be a good time to tell us. If you wait until the day before, the chances are we will already have left. So... let the club help you: send an email to [email protected] right now to give us a headsup and we'll set some space aside. By the way, we're planning to take our club trailer down and depending on space we might even be allowed to show it off a bit. the next club meeting is Monday 13 April at the Scout Hall in Victory Street Newtown. and as always all the announcements are on our home page in the calendar section. You can click through to find out what's going on, or send an email to [email protected]. I'm John VK4JPM secretary of the Darling Downs Radio Club, and if you're within radio range I'd love to be one of the people saying hi on the club net that follows the morning edition. Details on the website!

73!!