Activities
Activities, Projects and Exercises
The Upper Murray Challenge event was cancelled for 2020
Our group usually run the safety comms for the Upper Murray Challenge. But after talks with the organisers of the run and National Parks it was decided to cancel this year’s event due to dangerous conditions. Thanks to everyone who offered to help this year.
Click here for last year’s photos>
Foundation licences
If you are interested in becoming an amateur radio operator and want to do a course, please contact us. The cost is $30 for the course. Please contact us or more information.
Jamboree Of The Air
Every 3rd Weekend of October the Scouting and Guide movement hold JOTA/JOTI The biggest group assembles at Camp Nelson near Howlong, NSW.
AURA
6th January 2019 AWARC members and interested volunteers head for the High Plains to do comms for the Roof Top Run.
sites.google.com/site/bogong2hotham
Emergency Communications
In times of natural disasters, radio amateurs throughout the world provide support communications, and sometimes the only communications immediately after a disaster. When Cyclone Tracey hit Darwin in 1974 virtually the only communication out of the area was by a radio amateur who hooked his transceiver up to a car battery, and let the world know that Darwin needed help.
Also in Australia, emergency communications have been provided after numerous bush fires including Black Friday 1939, and Ash Wednesday 1983. Another occasion was after the Newcastle Earthquake in 1989.
More recently radio amateurs provided vital communications immediately after the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster that affected India, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia. Often after a disaster normal telephone systems are damaged or jammed as anxious relatives try and call an area.
The radio systems of emergency services are also extremely busy, and additional or supplementary communication can be readily provided by radio amateurs using their own equipment, and skills. The role of the Wireless Institute Civil Emergency Network (WICEN) to supply communications in times of emergency is recognised in the State Disaster Plan.
WICEN is an organised group of radio amateurs who regularly engage in training exercises, and provide communication for public events such as car rallies, the great Victorian Bike Ride, and the Red Cross Murray River Canoe Marathon.
Amateur Radio Victoria