November - December 2022
November - December 2022
 WIA Member Digital Edition Download
Editorial
Art, science, technology and tomfoolery
The ACMA’s proposed Class licensing for amateur radio will be a quantum step in the evolution of amateur licensing in Australia, such as we have not seen previously.
Accordingly, this called for a radical design concept for our cover, this issue. This has been addressed in two ways. Firstly, the central illustration of the issue at hand, with an exceptional cartoon by Carmel Morris VK2CAR. And secondly, an outstanding graphical design to frame the cartoon and stop readers turning the page – just for a moment, to contemplate what’s happening in the world of amateur radio in Australia.
The concept and style of Carmel’s cartoon is based on another visual meme that satirises the technical education system, originally published in a local electronics magazine. That was by Brendan Akhurst, once a policeman, who gained notoriety for the cartoons he produced for local technical publications that I edited in bygone decades, CB Australia and Electronics Today International (ETI). A detail from that cartoon is reproduced here.
Carmel has reprised Akhurst’s concept of manufacturing machinery re-shaping students – in this case, rotund hams with apparatus licences are satirically refashioned into “cubic buddies” with Class licences. In addition, she has extended the illustrative metaphors with visual references to Picasso’s Guernica. Observant readers will find the references to Van Gogh and Terrence Nation.
The graphical design concept framing Carmel’s cartoon is adapted from the work of Dutch artist, Pietr Mondriaan, by our own highly skilled graphics artist, Sergio Fontana VK3SO. Mondriaan was co-founder of the De Stijl (‘The Style’) movement. From a century ago, he created a series of works that reduced scenes to the essentials of form and colour, simplifying compositions to vertical and horizontal, using only black, white and primary colours, and avoiding symmetry. Sergio’s cover design is based on Mondriaan paintings such as the one shown here: Composition with Large Red Plane, Yellow, Black, Grey and Blue (public domain; Wikipedia).
Table Of Contents
General
Solar cycle 25 rising fast, peaking sooner
Roger Harrison VK2ZRH
Election of Directors - Call for Nominations
WIA Board
1 July 2023 – Class licensing arrives, ready of not
Roger Harrison VK2ZRH
The 2023 Contest Calendar
Alan Shannon VK4SN
Technical
A review of some single-layer solenoid inductance calculations
Dale Hughes VK1DSH
On conductor skin depth and the lyricality of Litz wire
Dale Hughes VK1DSH
A Multi-Mode transmitter for the 2200 metre band with a Class-E final
Dale Hughes VK1DSH
Antenna Modelling using 4nec2 – Part 4
Gregory Mew VK4GRM and Michael Barbera
A short-boom Yagi for FT8 on the 6m band
Gregory Mew VK4GRM
Digital compass for an antenna rotator – follow-up
Lou Destefano VK3AQZ
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