Exam Night Wednesday 7th August 2013

We are holding an exam night on Wednesday 7th August for anyone who is keen to become a radio amateur.

We will have examiners and plenty of exam papers, so please contact an examiner, ARX or anyone in the Branch to get the details. We are hoping to have a location in Porirua that we have been using courtesy of Pete from the Cross Country Vehicle Club. We will start at 7 or 7:30 (you come at either time).

Follow the call sign services links on this site to find the study guide, online practice exam and other material.

If you think you are interested, then give it a go!

July 2013 Meeting - Electricity Markets in New Zealand

New Zealand's electricity market has lead the world in the developing into a successful free-market model, where regulation is used to ensure market power is not abused. The system has changed the long term planing of generation, but prices have risen. How are prices set, and what barriers are there to new retailers who could offer competitive pricing? This talk will cover some of the dark secrets of the market and provide some background to the current debate around the “single-buyer” model being proposed.

June 2013 Meeting - Wellington Repeater Sites

Our trustees will talk about the repeater sites the Group operates from and a few more that are used by other branches and radio users. Some sites are shared, some are our own, some are ready to go but not on the air.
We would like some more photos so if you have any photos of our sites please email them to zl2wa@clear.net.nz. All trustees and supporters are welcome to speak and show.

Date: Thursday 27 June
Time: 7:30 pm
Location: Tawa Community Centre

National AREC Meeting Masterton

The AREC Management Team arrived on site at the Branch 46 Clubrooms shared with SAR in sunny Masterton this morning to find a real SAR operation underway! National Director Jeff Sayer ZL4JS welcomed visitors while managing search comms on a VHF handheld.

John ZL4JY Area Manager Central was on hand to represent our interests with area managers from Northern, Southern, and Midlands (ZK1, ZK8, ZK9, and ZK4 call areas).

Amateurs in the South Island celebrate the return of 6 Metres

Stuff.co.nz carries an article featuring George Boorer ZL3PN, and discusses the return of access to 6 Metres (~54Mhz) with the shutdown of the conflicting Analogue TV network.

6 Metres - referred to as the 'Magic Band' by some - has had very limited use in New Zealand for many years, due to the close proximity of the Analogue VHF TV transmission.

Pending Update to WVHFG Website core software

Hi Folks

Some of you may have noticed the odd PHP error on the website (and for some time!)

Basically the website core software is due for an update, and though i've had the best intentions around doing so, I havn't managed it yet.

I wish to acknowledge this and let you know I do intend to do it (and hopefully sometime soon), so at some point in the near future will be a brief period of website downtime.

Apologies for the inconvenience - and for the transient errors in the interim.

Regards
Mark Foster ZL1VMF
Webmaster, Wellington VHF Group