The Pink Star Walk was held in Wellington for the first time this year, the event is a 10km walk route taking walkers from Frank Kitts Park around the waterfront to Greta Point and back again, with a “family-friendly” 5km option available. Funds raised from the entry fee and sponsorship of the Estee Lauder Companies Pink Star Walk goes into research, including the Wellington Breast Cancer Register which gathers treatment and outcome data on patients throughout the region, rehabilitation for women recovering from mastectomy, and awareness of mammograms for early detection.

Following on from last months DAB update article in Q-Bit come along to hear (and question) one of New Zealand's leading Digital Broadcast Engineers.

Date: Thursday 25 September Time: 7:30 pm
Location: Tawa Community Centre

This months meeting will be A Look at AIS (Automatic Identification System)

The Group has installed an AIS receiver at Colonial Knob and this is providing a large coverage over the busy Cook Straight region.

This month we will look at where AIS came from, its purpose in marine safety, what the latest directions and trends are, and what the future may hold.

An interesting aside in the use of AIS for VHF propagation studies by amateurs, and what is being done in this area in New Zealand

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

This months meeting will be John Yaldwyn, ZL4JY Chief Technical Office of 4RF Communications: Talking on state of the art microwave radio.

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

Tenders Now Closed

A lifetime's collection of Amateur Receivers, Transceivers, Test equipment, Receiving and Transmitting Valves, ARRL CDROMs, etc., to be sold by Tender.

Below are links to the listings of the items up for tender from the Estate of ZL2APC in botf PDF ans XLS format.

This months meeting is Simon ZL2UIV talking on his trips to the Philippines. Simon has many years experience in the installation, commissioning and trouble shooting of microwave radio links, and has really "been there, done that" in the best and worst countries in the world.

Simon will be covering his work and other activities in the Philippines and it should be an entertaining and informative evening!

In addition to Simon's talk we will also be voting on the two remits at this months meeting.

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

Radio Spectrum Management have granted Wellington VHF Group, Branch 74, the Temporary Callsign ZL2IMD to commemorate International Marconi Day on 28 April.

Listen out for ZL2IMD on the National System. E-QSL cards will be sent to all stations that request one.

John has recently joined his MotoTurbo repeater as a node on the worldwide MotoTrbo network. This enables easy communications to nodes around the world using pre-set talk groups. MotoTrbo and P.25 continue the amateur tradition of converting commercial gear to amateur use in a way that takes it beyond the original use. There is also gear from amateur suppliers and plenty of used gear on Ebay and TradeMe. This is quite an exceptional direction for digital comms and an exciting direction for the amateur world.