THE
PRESIDENTS REPORT - November 1997 A while ago I found myself on downtown Frankston
and as I wondered past a fast food outlet my stomach gurgled and sent a
FEED ME POTATO CHIPS interrupt to my brain. So I ambled into the
shop and was immediately confronted by a sign with the message ‘MINIMUM
SERVE OF CHIPS $2’. Hmmm I said to myself, I’m hungry, but I’m not
that hungry. So I turned to the shop assistant and said "I’d like
half a minimum serve of chips please". She stared vacantly for about
three seconds while her brain was getting a handle on the math before replying:
"That’ll be a dollar."
It goes to show that when you get people
in a position where they are in a routine situation, they become reactive
and predictable. Next year we will be looking for a new Club committee,
so when we start looking around in earnest don’t be reactive and groan
on principle, think about getting involved. Its only six committee
meetings per year.
Our trip to Rubicon earlier this month was
a great success. I wont go through he names here but it was good
fun and sked’s were well attended each night on 80 metres
You may have noticed from our event queue that
the proposed guest speaker was unable to attend because of interstate work
commitments. (He works in Langwarrin, but his boss is in Rockhampton)
I am keen to give our members a bit of an intro in simple programming and
we may be able to re schedule this for early in the new year.
Don’t forget to bring some goodies along
THIS FRIDAY NIGHT for our Christmas hamper. The winner will be drawn
during the breakup party at Cranbourne Botanical Gardens. No out
of date tins of anchovies please.
Both of our ATV transmitters are now operational
and available for loan. The Club has purchased a pair of 13
element UHF beams to compliment these transmitters. If you are interested
in doing some experiments, all you will need is a mast of some kind and
a 240V power point. Give me a call if you are interested.
If you are interested in attempting any
of the Amateur Exam subjects this year, the December 6 exam in Tooradin
will be your last chance! You MUST bring money and fill out an application
form at or before this Friday night’s meeting or you will miss out.
Peter VK3VB will accept applications. Theory exams $25, Regs
$20, Morse TX $20, Morse RX $25. Give it a go!
This is our last edition of Gateway for
the year, I wish all a merry Christmas and look forward to more Amateur
Radio fun in the new year.
Twelve people from the GGREC
enjoyed a fantastic weekend of camping and fun at Rubicon during the Melbourne
Cup four day Weekend.
Ivan VK3ARV was the first
to arrive, he set up camp and raised a multi band HF wire antenna
between two tall trees.
Bobbie and Colin VK3HR came
up the next day. They arrived a few minutes before Pauline and Eric, (Ian’s
parents) who had just driven down from Corowa.
Ian and I arrived at the camp
at about seven O’clock and quickly set up our tents before it got too dark
to see.
The next day, Paul, Melinda,
Gavin and Rufous (the dog) arrived. We all pitched in to help raise
a four element beam antenna on 20 metres. It was hoisted up over
Ian’s van and tied securely by four guy ropes.
There had been some rain overnight
and the water level in the river had risen. We all agreed that this
would be a great chance to see the Rubicon Falls at its best. The
road was a bit rough and Bobbie and Colin decided to turn back, but just
a little further along we saw the falls from the road and it was very spectacular.
On the way back from the falls we found some fire wood and loaded it onto
the roof of Ian’s van.
That night most of us went
to the Pub at Thornton for dinner. The meal was delicious, even though
we had to wait until everyone else had finished their meals, before ours
was served.
When we returned to camp we
lit the camp fire and sat around it talking until midnight.
On Sunday we went for a drive
to Eildon where Eric tried his hand at fishing. He dangled his line
in for a while but without much success. We went on to Jerusalem
creek and looked at the Caravan Park, where Bobbie and Colin used to camp
many years ago.
There were a lot of very fancy
looking house boats moored on the banks of Lake Eildon, We even saw
double and triple deck house boats.
Back at camp we held our Melbourne
Cup Sweep draw. The prize was to be a box of Cadbury chocolates.
Later that night we sat around
the camp fire and ate cream cake, barbecue shapes and baked potatoes,
YUM!
Ron VK3EXJ and Judy came for
a day trip on Monday. We all sat in the shade and talked while Ross
and Hal went down to the river to play.
Pauline went to check on the
boys and shortly afterward Judy and I walked down to the river to see what
they were up to. We arrived just in time to see Pauline’s foot slip
on a rock and watch her fall into the icy water. Fortunately, only
Pauline’s pride was hurt as she squelched back up to the camp in wet cloths
and shoes.
Most of us went home the next
day, only Ivan, Bobbie and Colin stayed for another day. We listened
to the Melbourne Cup on the radio as we drove home. I was still looking
for my tally sheet to find out who had drawn number ‘3’, ‘Might and Glory’,
when Ian presented me with his winning ticket. It was a terrific
way to end a great weekend away.
I
need some assistance with my software..... can
anyone help me??
I'm currently running the latest version of GirlFriend
and I'vebeen having some problems lately. I've been running the same
version of DrinkingBuddies 1.0 forever as my primary application, and all
the GirlFriend releases I've tried have always conflicted with it.
I hear that DrinkingBuddies won't crash if GirlFriend is run in background
mode and the sound is turned off. But I'm embarrassed to say I can't
find the switch to turn the sound off. I just run them separately, and
it works okay. GirlFriend also seems to have a problem coexisting with
my Golf program, often trying to abort Golf with some sort of timing
incompatibility...
I probably should have stayed with GirlFriend
1.0, but I thought I might see better performance from GirlFriend 2.0.
After months of conflicts and other problems, I consulted a friend who
has had experience with GirlFriend 2.0. He said I probably didn't
have enough cache to run GirlFriend 2.0, and eventually it would require
a Token Ring to run properly. He was right - as soon as I purged
my cache, it uninstalled itself...
Shortly after that, I installed GirlFriend
3.0 beta. All the bugs were supposed to be gone, but the first time
I used it, it gave me a virus anyway. I had to clean out my whole
system and shut down for a while...
I very cautiously upgraded to GirlFriend
4.0. This time I used a SCSI probe first and also installed a virus
protection program. It worked okay for a while until I discovered that
GirlFriend 1.0 was still in my system. I tried running GirlFriend 1.0 again
with GirlFriend 4.0 still installed, but GirlFriend 4.0 has a feature I
didn't know about that automatically senses the presence of any other version
of GirlFriend and communicates with it in some way, which results in the
immediate removal of both versions...
The version I have now works pretty well,
but there are still some problems. Like all versions of GirlFriend,
it is written in some obscure language I can't understand, much less reprogram.
Frankly I think there is too much attention paid to the look and feel rather
than the desired functionality. Also, to get the best connections with
your hardware, you usually have to use gold-plated contacts. And
I've never liked how GirlFriend is totally "object-oriented."
A year ago, a friend of mine upgraded his
version of GirlFriend to GirlFriendPlus 1.0, which is a Terminate and Stay
Resident version of GirlFriend. He discovered that GirlFriendPlus
1.0 expires within a year if you don't upgrade to Fiancee 1.0. So
he did, but soon after that, he had to upgrade to Wife 1.0, which he describes
as a huge resource hog. It has taken up all his space, so he
can't load anything else. One of the primary reasons he decided to
go with Wife 1.0 was because it came bundled with FreeSexPlus...
Well, it turns out the resource allocation
module of Wife 1.0 sometimes prohibits access to FreeSexPlus, particularly
the new Plug-Ins he wanted to try. On top of that, Wife 1.0 must
be running on a well warmed-up system before he can do anything.
Although he did not ask for it, Wife 1.0 came with MotherInLaw which has
an automatic pop-up feature he can't turn off...
I told him to try installing Mistress 1.0,
but he said he heard if you try to run it without first uninstalling Wife
1.0, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before doing the uninstall itself.
Then Mistress 1.0 won't install anyway because of insufficient resources.
Welcome to the October edition
of Gateway. I had better type this report really, really fast because it’s
2:45 am on Monday morning and my fingers might fall asleep at the keyboard
and hit a tree. I had a big day today, (which I guess is technically
yesterday now) Grame VK3XTA, Dave VK3XMF and myself spent some time doing
Amateur Television tests between Baxter and Frankston using one of the
Clubs ATV transmitters. It is working reasonably well and should
be ready for JOTA next weekend, along with the second transmitter which
is yet to be aligned. When JOTA is out the way, these transmitters,
operating on 426 mHz, with matching 13 element beam antenna will be available
for loan to Club members. You will have to dig up a B&W
or colour camera from somewhere to make all this work, but it is pretty
good fun.
As mentioned, Jamboree On The Air is being
staged this Saturday (Oct the 18th) and we will be looking for operators
to assist for a few hours sometime between 12:00 midday and midnight.
On this Friday night we will have a brief general meeting where we will
pin down operators to a fixed timetable and then proceed to set up the
hall for the event of the following day. We are hoping that
HF will be friendly to us this year so that we can present some good DX
signals to the kids. Among the highlights will be the Balloon
launch at 1:00pm, which will be broadcasting slow scan TV (JVfax images)
on two metres every few minutes while it rises up to 25 km above the earth.
The second highlight will be the video link between the Guide Hall and
the Police Paddocks JOTA site. We are keen to improve upon
last years effort.
Patricia Pavey VK3OZ
is now an accredited facilitator of amateur exams, which along with Peter
VK3VB and myself makes three examiners within the Club. We
shall be aiming to conduct exams on the first Saturday of every second
month. Our next exam will take place in December.
If you or anyone else wants to sit an amateur exam, you will have to send
the application form, along with the exam fee to Peter or Pat no later
than the twentieth of the month preceding the scheduled exam date.
I must also make mention
of the excellent lecture by Mr. Collin Campbell at our last meeting on
high bandwidth data transmission techniques. It is pretty amazing how so
many video and audio channels can be stuffed down a single fibre optic
cable. It was also an interesting insight into the trade-offs that take
place between marketplace demands on bandwidth and the incredible costs
involved with upgrading the supporting infrastructure. Many thanks go to
Paul VK3HSA and Melinda VK3HRJ for organising the talk. (And
Good Luck to them on this Sunday when they both sit the AOCP theory exam
with the W.I.A.)
Oh great!, it’s started raining outside
and a wet cat has curled up on my lap, making it effectively impossible
to reach the number keys on the keyboard any more. Does anyone
out there want a damp, vibrating animal?
Magazine
article included in October's 1997 issue.
SUPPOSEDLY Actual dialogue of a former Wordperfect
Customer Support employee:
(supplied by Paul VK3TGX)
"Ridge Hall computer assistant; may I help
you?" "Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect."
"What sort of trouble?" "Well, I was just typing along, and all of a
sudden the words went away."
"Went away?" "They disappeared."
"Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?" "Nothing."
"Nothing?" "It's blank; it won't accept anything when I
type."
"Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you
get out?" "How do I tell?"
"Can you see the C:\ prompt on the screen?" "What's a sea-prompt?"
"Never mind. Can you move the cursor around
on the screen?" "There isn't any cursor: I told you, it won't
accept anything I type."
"Does your monitor have a power indicator?" "What's a monitor?"
"It's the thing with the screen on it that
looks like a TV. Does it have a little light that tells you when it's on?" "I don't know."
"Well, then look on the back of the monitor
and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that?" "Yes, I think so."
"Great! Follow the cord to the plug, and tell
me if it's plugged into the wall." "Yes, it is."
"When you were behind the monitor, did you
notice that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just
one?" "No."
"Well, there are. I need you to look back
there again and find the other cable." "Okay, here it is."
"Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged
securely into the back of your computer." "I can't reach."
"Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?" "No."
"Even if you maybe put your knee on something
and lean way over?" "Oh, it's not because I don't have the right
angle-it's because it's dark."
"Dark?" "Yes-the office light is off, and the only light
I have is coming in from the window."
"Well, turn on the office light then." "I can't."
"No? Why not?" "Because there's a power outage."
"A power... A power outage? Aha! Okay, we've
got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing
stuff your computer came in?" "Well, yes, I keep them in the closet."
"Good! Go get them, and unplug your system
and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the
store you bought it from." "Really? Is it that bad?"
"Yes, I'm afraid it is." "Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell
them?"
"Tell them you're too stupid to own a computer."
This month’s newsletter
is not a thick one, our magazine editors ‘In’ tray has not exactly been
overflowing. While I have little doubt that this is not a unique state
of affairs for radio club newsletters, we still ought to be doing something
about it.
I want everyone’s attention here, HEY! YOU ON
THE CHAIR! I mean YOU TOO. Every one has some kind of a project, either
planning one, in the middle of one or just finishing one, even if it is
something simple like a newly discovered way for scratching the chrome
off a PL259 or how you use a fast drying ink to stop your QSL cards from
smearing. We want to know about it. Write a limerick about antenna rotators
or a photograph of the insides of a 6JS6C. Such articles could really put
us on the map!
Put some petrol on your
creative spark, drop this magazine and get writing now!
There once was a man named Emotator…
For those of you
who read on anyway, I wanted to point out a couple of things. Next month
we shall be assisting the Cranbourne Guides with Jamboree on the Air. As
in the past we shall be in need of operators on Saturday the 18th of October.
Albert VK3BQO will be our major point of contact in coordinating this affair.
I want as many members as possible to relentlessly pursue him next meeting
night and plead for some of that prime operating time. As in the past,
the Guides will be providing scrumptious meals. This year promises to yield
a few interesting technical challenges, so don’t miss out. I won’t be there
this year as I am involved with the W.I.A’s turbo training course for Novices
upgrading to ‘full’ theory which is running at the same time as JOTA.
Later this year I am
hoping to secure a talk by a guest speaker for an introduction to programming
in Visual Basic. It is a fascinating way to do practical things on your
computer. We will keep you informed on this one.
As discussed at our previous
general meetings, the 1998 Australia Day weekend will be at Warnambool.
There are heaps of things to keep us entertained for the weekend which
we shall detail in the November edition of Gateway. If you are intending
to take a tent or caravan, there will be plenty of powered sites available
at the Surfside Holiday Park of which, you may be surprised to learn, is
near the beach. The park may be contacted on 0355 612 611.
We are still examining
the possibility of creating some short form JV FAX interface modules to
send and receive slow scan images on your PC. If we go ahead, it should
be a cheap and fun project to build. More details forthcoming.
We are still conducting
Novice/Full Call & CW exams from time to time. If you want to get an
upgrade and chase the real DX this is your big chance. Call myself or Peter
VK3VB if you are interested.
Please
make any suggestions or comments on any of this by email:-