QNews for September 13th 2026

Hi and welcome to Sunday 13th of September, or whatever date it is where and when you're listening. We try to keep things uncomplicated. You're listening to QNEWS across Queensland, and I'm John VK4JPM Secretary of the Darling Downs Radio Club with a bit of a splash for members, guests and travellers. OK, and anyone else who happens to be listening. If it is indeed Sunday, then tomorrow night from 1900 you'll find us all at Community Radio Station 4DDB. Our club is being handed the red carpet treatment, with the question: does treating red carpet make it a better sound absorber? We're all set to learn about acoustics, balanced audio lines, microphone patterns, analogue consoles, digital links, high power FM transmission, and the most important thing of all: how critical air conditioning is to a radio station. These are just some of the skill areas that are involved in tech for broadcasting, and so many of those technologies are useful to know when you dabble with amateur radio. And how valuable is this knowledge? The best thing you can do is come along and find out for yourself. It's all relevant: hams invented broadcasting, and most broadcast engineers have a ham ticket even today. The World Famous Toowoomba Carnival Of Flowers starts next Thursday and one of the first feature events is the Grand parade next Saturday, the prediction is for good weather. Why not have a go at qualifying for the club's Garden City Award during the Carnival of Flowers? Details on the website at ddrci.org.au/awards, or look for the link on the homepage. JOTA and JOTI are coming up, and we're planning to help aspiring scouts and guides get on the air and discover that ham radio is fun, and even though everyone has a mobile phone and can call overseas for free, there's nothing quite as exciting as starting an over-the-air conversation with someone you've never met. And that's how so many friendships start. If you're involved with Scouts or Guides, and you'd like to join our party or get us involved, why not send an email to [email protected] and we'll help. A 10 year old cub just out of Brisbane recently qualified for a licence, and we'd love to help get more people of that age into the hobby. [email protected] is the email address to make contact. And if you've got some time over the 16th-18th of October and can help with the club's JOTA/JOTI activity, could you put the dates in your diary, and then let us know that you're available? An email to [email protected] would do that. Last week we invited you to work as many bands as you could in one sitting as part of the 52-week ham challenge. This week is similar but different: how many modes can you work in one operation? AM? FM? SSB? Digital? Double-cross-carrier-orthogonal-frequency-division-multiplex-suppressed-intelligence? There are so many modes from which you can choose. The important thing is: have a go, and see what happens. Details at hamchallenge.org, or check out our website where there are pointers to so many things of interest. That's it for this week. The words and music from this segment are available for replay and download on our website at ddrci.org.au, and contributions are welcome. Questions, musings, articles, and grand final tickets can all be sent to [email protected] Our 2m net follows at 1000 on Sundays on VK4RDD or Echolink - feel free to join us. Thanks for listening. I'm John VK4JPM, secretary of the Darling Downs Radio Club. 73s until next week.