On Friday, the 18th of April, 2014, Radio Amateurs will celebrate World Amateur Radio Day, on the 89th Anniversary of the founding of the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU).

This year's theme for World Amateur Radio Day is: "Amateur Radio: Your gateway to wireless communications"

For this event, Branch 74, The Wellington VHF Group Inc., has been granted use of the special callsign ZL2WARD.

ZL2WARD will be active on the National System.

An email QSL Card will be sent to all stations requesting one.

Randall ZL2RJP will present and demonstrate the new currency of choice for the internet generation. Bitcoins have varied in value and one consumer purchased a pizza for 10,000 bitcoins. Today That would buy you a nice house! At the time, it was about the right price

Bitcoins can be mined, earned, traded and converted to/from cash. See below for the audience requirements be be ready to trade with Randall on the night.

Date: Thursday 31 November
Time: 7:30 pm
Location: Tawa Community Centre

The Trading Table Manager has updated the main listing, effective November 2013. Look for new bargains from our comprehensive stocks of useful bits and pieces at:
Trading Table Listings

The October meeting will be the Annual General Meeting of the VHF Group and the AREC Section. This will be followed by a show and tell session so bring along any projects you have been working on and share them with the group.

Date: Thursday 31 October
Time: 7:30 pm
Location: Tawa Community Centre

The special interest group meeting this month will be a follow up from the August Single Board Computer presentation.

Date: Thursday 10 October
Time: 7:30 pm
Location: Tawa Community Centre

From the simple - checking the location of a site, to the complex - mapping all of the Amateur repeaters in the country Rob ZL2WAL will give an over view of some of the ways of using online maps for amateur radio, including an overview of the development of his automated system for producing online maps of the licensed NZ Amateur Radio Repeaters, Beacons & Digipeaters.

Date: Thursday 26 September
Time: 7:30 pm
Location: Tawa Community Centre

New offerings in the single board computer have opened up a world of opportunities for experimentation, projects and even new products. From the PIC processor, the PICAXE, the AVR, then the Arduino, Beagle Board and the Raspberry Pi, we have a range of power, complexity and cost. Wayne ZL2BKC will talk about the offerings and how they can be used to do amateur radio and show off some of his projects. This is a not-to-miss talk on the state of the art in amateur radio construction.

Date: Thursday 29 August
Time: 7:30 pm
Location: Tawa Community Centre