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All posts for the month March, 2016

After nine years of operation, the VK3RWN repeater has now been restored IN TEST MODE at Mt Dandenong.

The gateway and 70cm are operational. This was done on Good Friday

Major work has been done to the 70cm Repeater, and is now working on site

VK3RWN B 70cm Repeater is no longer permalinked to REF001C and REF030C

RWN B will however be linked to REF001C for the American D-Star Net, that normally is on,

our time Monday morning. This goes for around four hours with many users world wide joining in.

If you use VK3RWN B 70cm, don’t forget to disconnect when finished

VK3RWN C the VHF repeater, is permalinked to REF 003C The Australian Reflector

It is encouraging to see many users try to re register early

The gateway server has been rebuilt from the ground up, replacing mechanical hard drives to SSD drives

This has necessitated the total reset of the database held at VK3RWN and the US Trust server

This was needed to eliminate many database errors that had evolved over the nine years and

the committee chose to commence with a fresh database, and deleting all previous backups.

If you were were previously registered on VK3RWN, the link to re-register is now working

IF YOU HAVE RE-REGISTERED AT ANOTHER GATEWAY, THERE IS NO NEED TO RE-REGISTER AT VK3RWN

IF YOU ATTEMPT THIS YOU WILL CAUSE PROBLEMS WITH YOUR REGISTRATION

If you need assistance, please send an email to me Peter Willmott VK3TQ

email address vk3tq@bigpond.com and with myself or Terry Churcher VK3BMX will assist you.

Can I also explain to you that internet assisted repeaters are different to normal analog repeaters in there running costs.

VK3RWN is a major part of the Australian D-Star system with relationships to the VK3RMM repeater, relationships to the New Zealand D-Star System and Tasmanian system as it holds many registrations. There are many interstate users registered with VK3RWN

I would thank to thank wholeheartedly the recent donations from D-Star users, Ian, Grant and Gerard. I would also like to thank Richard Hoskin VK3JFK for the amount of time it has taken to rebuild VK3RWN, go to site (over 200km trip) and sort problems on site and generally repair it in a professional way. Many times !!! As with Richard, to Steve Reining VK3UJ, the site manager, who keeps our cavities, antennas, cables etc etc in super condition and to Bob Rogers, owner of JRD Communications for our berth at site. Sometimes we tend to forget these wonderful people , who really know what there doing.

I would also like to thank the Vic D-Star users committee going to keep VK3RWN going for you
We fund raise to pay the internet charges which are the most costly part of the system by about 90% Thanks to EMDRC they pay the power and the licence fee

Any donation we receive goes directly into keeping the gateway open and connected. Your assistance would be gratefully received and revered by the group of hard workers that keep this system alive

To do this you can go to site and join the group there

All the best

Peter Willmott
VK3TQ

President
Victorian D-Star Users Group

vk3tq@bigpond.com

The VK5RWN AD 23cm data port has been placed into hibernation, (turned off), as a power saving mode.

Checks of the logs have revealed that the VK5RWN AD port has only been accessed about 3 known times since commissioning of the node in 2009. The Amateur Radio Experimenters Group (AREG) who manage the VK5RWN D-STAR system are trying to manage the ongoing costs of keeping VK5RWN on air. One of the biggest costs is the electricity bill for the site. Due almost no use of the 23cm data port, the decision has been made to put the AD port into hibernation thus saving some power costs.

If D-STAR users would like to use and experiment with the VK5RWN AD port, then they should contact the VK5RWN D-STAR Administrator, Ben VK5BB, (vk5bb@wia.org.au) or AREG (vk5arg@wia.org.au) and request for the AD port to be turned on again for the duration of experiments.

Further information may be found at www.areg.org.au

The VK5REX gateway computer died on Tuesday but it’s given good service, basically being up 24/7 since mid 2008. A new rack mount server has generously been donated by a fellow amateur. Whilst this is underway, Michael Carey plans on getting the Icom ID-RP2C D-Star controller back on the internet with the help of ircDDB Gateway.

The VK3RWN gateway should be back on air soon, a replacement gateway server is under testing.