NZ Net News 14, 5 Oct 2019

This is a fortnightly newsletter about the New Zealand Net.
If you would like to subscribe, please contact ZL1NZ.

Highlights

We have set a new record of 10 check-ins to a session of the NZ Net! This occurred on 24 September with ZL2GD as Net Control. Can we do 11 in October?

Here’s the September QNI report for those who were not with us during the Net on 1 Oct:

NR58 R ZL1NZ 33/30 AUCKLAND 0800Z 1OCT19
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NZNET
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SEPTEMBER QNI ZL1AJY 7 ZL1NZ 20 ZL1RD 3 ZL1RED 10
ZL1VD 1 ZL2GD 19 ZL2LN 7 ZL3RX 7 ZL4CU 11
ZL4FZ 5 ZL4KX 7 VK3DRQ 17 TOTAL 114 QTC 7
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ZL1NZ

It’s great to have Rob ZL1RD back on the Net after having his antenna come down, due to a broken halyard. The wire is back up and sounding great, although Rob says he still has some tweaking to do.

The NZ Net got a nice bit of promotion in the Wireless Institute of Australia’s online newsletter recently, so perhaps we’ll hear more VKs checking in when conditions allow.

EastFest

Grant ZL2GD will be doing a presentation at EastFest in Methven two weeks from now, and the topic is…the NZ Net! EastFest runs Saturday and Sunday. I’m sure it’ll be a very interesting presentation, and hope it’s a good turnout.

More computer-generated CW?

There have been some interesting changes to the amateur radio rules in VK, including the removal of bandwidth limits on HF, and lots more privileges for their Foundation class licensees, including the ability to send computer-generated Morse. Here’s a video with more info.

QRQ?

The High-Speed Telegraphy (HST) World Championship were held in Bulgaria in mid-September, and the winning operators in the male and female divisions each managed 195 words per minute for a solid minute of sending and receiving. Putting that in perspective: if we could all operate at 195wpm, a typical session of NZ Net would take 90 seconds!

Net tip: the “WB” and “WA” fills

In the last two newsletters, I’ve covered three ways to ask for a “fill”. They are:

BN (repeat all between…)
AA (repeat all after…)
AB (repeat all before…)

Two other ways are WA (repeat the word after…) and WB (repeat the word before…).

Although one often hears WA and WB on traffic nets, they do have their limitations, as they only work if you are sure you missed just ONE word. In heavy static or QRM, it’s often hard to know how much you’ve missed, so BN is preferable, in my opinion.

Another problem is that you need to be sure the word you quote when asking for a WA or WB appears only once in the message. If not, the sending op won’t know which word you missed (imagine sending “WA 7” after the message above). BN is usually less ambiguous since it requires two words.

But since WA and WB are popular, here’s an example of how to use them, using the QNC message at the top of this newsletter.

After hearing the “end-of-message” signal the receiving station might ask for a fill, such as:

WA ZL4CU

and the response would be

ZL4CU 11

or, if conditions are quite bad, then perhaps

ZL4CU 11 11 ( is the “I repeat” signal and also the question mark)

As usual, the “fill” includes the original word (ZL4CU) from the request, but no extraneous characters such as R or K.

Suggestions?

If you have suggestions on how to make the NZ Net better, or things you’d like to see covered in these updates, please contact ZL1NZ. You might even like to write something for the newsletter.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you soon on the NZ Net!

—

Neil Sanderson ZL1NZ, Net Manager
New Zealand Net (NZ NET)
3535.0 kHz at 9pm NZT Mon-Fri