[time-nuts] New to the list...Hello from Melbourne

Sun Aug 31 01:52:24 EDT 2008

Hi everyone,
                 Not sure how many folks there are associated with the "time-nuts" list but hi and hello from Melbourne Australia, I've just signed up a couple of days ago and have already been seeing a degree of activity....all very good.

I don't know 'how qualified' I am to consider myself a "time nut" but I will say this, over the years with my involvement with Amateur Radio I often tune into the WWV and WWVH and can have the receiver running for hours with the volume just turned down enough to hear the time signals and the odd phase distortion while pottering around in the shack, to me it can be quite pleasing to have that running in the background almost therapeutic!

I started out listening around on our gramophone in the family room, I would've been perhaps 8 or 9 years old, this gramophone didn't tune much further than 1840KHz but it allowed me to tune into a group of Amateurs that have been holding a daily AM net at 11:00am for as long as I can remember, called the "Coffee Break Net", this was my first introduction to Ham Radio, 6 years later I would be licensed with my first Call Sign VK3NCO which I held for almost 10 years before upgrading.

However long before obtaining my radio license I had a small portable transistor radio that would in between AM stations detected a transmission of blips spaced a second apart, as a youngster curious, I'm think "what is this, why would I be hearing one second tone bursts?....well of course I had the receiver tuned to this for awhile and it didn't take long for thee official announcement to be made, something along the lines of..."This is VNG Lyndhurst, Victoria, Australia , on 4.5, 7.5 or 12MHz, VNG is a Time Signal Transmission of the Post Masters General Office" it went something like that, I'm now 48 years old I can still remember those transmissions, Lyndhurst was only 10 Kilometers away from where I lived, in fact I'm still only about 15 Kilometers from the old site now.

But as a young kid I was so fascinated in wanting to know where these transmissions were coming from and because the announcement said Lyndhurst my mother and I took off one afternoon on our push bikes for a ride south to find this place. Wow!...I couldn't believe my eyes, despite being able to see the looming Antenna systems from a far distance down the road, this Antenna Farm was something to be had!

Long wires running between wooden poles going a good 75 to 80 feet into the air, to a young lad they actually seemed hundreds of feet high!, of course these antennas were Rombic's type Antennas, Lyndhurst didn't only just transmit a Time Service but it was also a major Broadcast Station for Radio Australia too. Anyway...after seeing all this my mind just simply wanted to know more and tuning into VNG became a regular thing to do, to a point where I believe I have developed a good sense of timing, at least at one second intervals!!

Well...to say the least, every clock including my watch is usually adjusted "spot-on" time, Lyndhurst was always used to do this, although more often now I would use the telephone time service!...but, but, I would still use VNG Lyndhurst...if it was still around.

The area where VNG/Radio Australia was is now a housing estate, all those beautiful Antenna systems including a Log Periodic have all gone, I had a chance once to tour the site, and one time because I worked for NEC I had a chance to do some work in a repair shop on site!

Information on VNG can be found here http://tufi.alphalink.com.au/time/nsc_vng_leaflet.pdf just in case you already didn't know, its closure happened some time back, pardon the pun....And this is the thing now, Australia no longer supports a HF Radio Time Signal Service, long gone, WWV on 10MHz is about the only good signal heard here in Melbourne, I hear the 2.5MHz transmissions but never strong enough to be able to hear the voice announcements, same for the 20MHz transmissions rarely heard here, 5 and 10MHz are usually the best, it's a pity we don't have something running down around 10KHz, we use to have an Omega Transmitter in Yarram Gippsland, on 10.3KHz which is still there but not operating as a Omega Station, what's the problem in making it a Time Signal Service?....oh well

As for me now, there are a couple of interests, I'm wanting to put together a receiver operating at 8.4GHz where the PLO is referenced (10MHz) from a OCXO which in turn is getting it's reference from a GPS Rx with a 10KHz output, all for the sake of increased stability, plus I have an interest in Amateur Radio Astronomy together with a small group from the Astronomical Society of Victoria (ASV) we are establishing a site here in mid Victoria, one of three, there will be some projects that will require a GPS timing for accuracy.

My apologies for a long intro...

Cheers

Clint Jeffrey - VK3CSJ
Melbourne. Aust.
http://www.vk3csj.com
http://www.qsl.net/vk3csj