It's A Boy!

Today we found out that James and Elle are having a boy. We're all excited about it, his name shall be Oliver James Nelson. Elle had the scan taken at Victoria Point medical centre, Lorraine and Shay had gone with them. Everyone was excited to find out, especially Elle, she had to know what gender it was, she doesn't do well with surprises. The whole family is happy for them, there both very happy! James is glad to have a boy first up.

And James and Elle can't wait until Oli's arrival.

Brooke Turns 11

Brooke had a lovely birthday and she hopes it won't be long before she gets a couple of horses. She is being very patient as the grass is yet to be laid and fencing still to be erected.

Marty and Blair help out at National YSA Convention

The first national YSA convention in the last 25 years was held from the 31 Dec 2009 to 4 Jan 2010 in Brisbane at the UQ centre, University of Queensland. Marty and Blair were asked to help with audio/visual support throughout the event as well as DJ for the new years eve dance and back up the band for the night of the Ball.

The program was as follows ....

Thursday 31 December 2009 1300 : Registration 1300 : Mission Possible 1800 : Dinner 2000 : NYE Gone Mega Friday 1st January 2010 0730 : Breakfast 0900 : Assembly - Special Guest speaker 0930 : Wake Up and Do Something More 1230 : Lunch 1400 : Do it - Don't dream it - swimming-dancing-fitness etc 1600 : Great Court Race (Chariots of Fire) 1800 : Dinner 2000 : Ball Saturday 2nd January 2010 0730 : Breakfast 0900 : Assembly - Special Guest speaker 1000 : Summer Festival Big Day Out 1200 : Lunch 1300 : Big Day Out continued 1800 : Dinner 2000 : Hey Hey It's Saturday - Talent Show

Sunday 3rd January 2010 1000 : Church Meetings 1400 : Zions Workshops 1700 : Dinner 1900 : Fireside with Visiting Authority Monday 4th January 2010 0730 : Breakfast 0900 : Assembly - Special Guest speaker 1000 : Closing Ceremony 1200 : Lunch 1330 : It Was Worth It - Testimony Meeting

It was a great experience to be involved and to see 2000 YSA come together from around Australia was fantastic. Highlights for me were the Ball and Talent show.

Below are liks to video of the NYE dance

Introduction video


Below are liks to video of the Ball


Below are acts from the talent night

Introducing the MC Michael Buble dance routine Convention Song
Glee Club Hip Hop dancers Stand Up Comedian Original Song
Hannah Montana Dancers

Jordan Breaks Both Arms On Boxing Day

Jordan had a very eventful Boxing day! At 5pm just after putting a new tyre on his bike he started out to go for a ride to test it and at a slow speed he turned awkwardly and went over the handle bars and landed hands first (back of hands) on the road. Marty happened to go out the front door only seconds after it happened to see Jordan lying on the road with his bike on top of him calling out for help. Upon inspection only slight grazes on each wrist and what we thought ware dislocated wrists.

Marty drove Jordan to Redlands hospital and they took him right away for x-rays. The result is broken Radius and Ulna bones in each forearm and both at the same location in each arm.

The doctors gave Jordan powerful anaesthetics Propofol (this is the drug that Michael Jackson OD'ed on) and Ketamine which put him to sleep and relaxed the muscles. The doctors manipulated the bones back into place and placed a half cast on each forearm and wrapped them up in a bandage. One of the side effects of Ketamine is vivid dreams as the patient awakens so it was interesting listing to Jordan as he came around and started saying strang things. It was as though he was spaced out on drugs (which he was!)

It is a shame that this had to happen on school holidays, especially as Jordan received a pass to attend the theme parks for Christmas. He will probably be in plaster to the end of January. The next visit to the hospital they will take the half casts off and put on the fibreglass casts.

Jordan was very brave through the whole event and is adapting to doing things a differently with his casts on. He is very happy that he can still play on his computer, Wii, Xbox and PSP,

Nelson Family Christmas Letter 2009

Dear Family and Friends,

Well another year gone by, they truly are going faster each year. I LOVE CHRISTMAS, but you all know that, it is such a special time of the year. To remember the true meaning of Christmas, the Saviour and his gift to all of us.

We have been in Qld for three years now and the summer heat still knocks me hard. We are at home for Christmas this year as Marty and Blair will be busy preparing for the National Y.S.A Convention. They are DJ’ing the New Years Eve dance, Backing up the Band at the Ball and providing Audio/visual gear and expertise for other events.

Christmas day will be at our home with my Mum, Dad and my little brother Doug, my eldest sister Heather and her three daughters for lunch and then the Missionaries joining us for dinner. My two other sisters Glenys and Ally and their families will be together up in Mackay. Every year I normally do our traditional big roast lunch with the works, but this year I am stepping out of the roasting kitchen where I swelter ever year and out to the BBQ were the men love to cook their steak. Yeh!!! So that will be nice.

February next year Marty and I will celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary. So I can't pass for a thirty year old anymore. Especially when James turns 20 in May. I recently received a new calling as the Relief Society activities person as we are not using homemaking or enrichment anymore. Anyway I enjoy that, we just had our R.S Christmas dinner where my assignment was to decorate the hall to Christmas heaven. I think I succeeded, everyone loved it, so it was a nice night enjoyed by all. We had 65 ladies come which was amazing. Our ward is huge.

Mid year we had a family photo at Wellington Point with a professional photographer. I'm really happy with the photos, normally we go to a studio and have a indoor photo in our best clothes but this time we went outdoor in our jeans and white shirts. We will send a copy of the photo with this letter.

Marty keeps very busy with work as a Facility Manager for the Church. Also this past year he has expanded the DJ business with help from Blair. He is serving on the High Council and has the responsibility for Stake activities. So far he has organised our stake ball and last week he ran the Stake Carols by Candlelight.

James is 19 yrs and is working a couple of casual jobs at the moment whilst trying to find an apprenticeship. He still enjoys keeping fit by playing basketball and going to the gym. He also loves spending time with his girlfriend Elle.

Blair is 17 and finished his senior schooling this year which he is happy about. He plans to go to uni next year to study business/finance. He had his formal last month and that was really nice and at a lovely place. He is still doing his D.J work on the weekends and he continues to help Marty with all the church dances. I'm sure he will get more D.J. work with all the after convention parties that continue like last year. Blair also enjoys playing basketball, playing his guitar and learning new D.J skills.

Jordan is 13yrs old and is still mad about Star Wars. He will be in year nine next year and also starting early morning seminary. He is Deacons president and has proven to be a great leader. Jordan enjoys playing basketball, xbox 360 and the wii. He loves to watch movies and I'm sure we will go see the latest flicks over the school holidays.

My baby girl Brooke will be 10yrs old in January. She is happy to be on school holidays. She loves horses and every birthday she asks for a real horse but we do not have enough land for a horse. For her last birthday we held the party at Mini Mates which is a horse farm. She loved it! I do not know what I am going to do for her birthday next year. She has lots of pony toys to keep her happy for now.

Have a great Christmas and a happy new year.
Love from Lorraine and all of the Nelson family

Marty gets IRLP Amatuer Radio node up and running

Marty, VK4DOG has an IRLP node up and running to service the Bayside area. This provides an alternative to the VK4RBS node which may be helpful if the repeater is busy. The node (number 6647) is on 145.400 MHz simplex.

Here are some comments from Marty regarding the setup and testing of the IRLP node.

"When I visited my friend Reg, VK4XH about a year ago he showed me his IRLP node and I was fascinated at how far ham radio technology had come. I had not been an active operator for many years and I had missed the introduction of Echolink and IRLP. I knew that when I was ready to get back into the hobby that setting up a IRLP node was one goal I wanted to achieve."

"February 2008 I decided to get back into the hobby and formulated my plan of getting the IRLP node up and running. I had a spare computer, a Dell GX150 pentium III and a Icom IC-228A two metre 25w transceiver. All I needed then was the IRLP interface board. These boards are manufactured by Dave Cameron in Canada. I filled out the electronic order form available at IRLP.net and paid the US$188 by PayPal. About a week later the IRLP interface board and Linux CD-rom arrived. It was a Monday that it arrived and when I got home from work I could wait to get started. I downloaded all of the instructions from IRLP.net and loaded the supplied CentOS distribution of Linux on the Dell. I commenced making all of the interface cables that needed to go between the computer, IRLP board and the transceiver. One thing that IRLP requires is for the transceiver to have a Carrier on Squelch (COS) line output. This output gives 5 volts when the squelch is triggered. I downloaded the circuit diagram for the Icom and found the point in which I could pull off this signal. I opened up the transceiver, identified the track and soldered an insulated wire from that track which runs out the rear of the Icom. I got to bed at 1am very pleased with my efforts.

"The next day again I was excited to be home from work to commence more work on the node. It was mainly software configuration that was needed as all the hardware was now connected ready to go. After a few hours of configuration and adjustment of audio levels I was ready to give it a test. It worked straight up which I was very happy with as going back to trouble shoot is a pain!"

" I did a test with Victor VK4WST the next day and reports from his end were positive. That night I received a call from Bill VK4XZ who is the QTAC person for the WIA and he told me that he knew that I had a IRLP node up and running and asked if I would change the simplex frequency from 146.425 to one of the recommended frequencies for IRLP simplex use as outlined in the Nov 2007 band plan. This was news to me as the copy of the band plan that I had was dated 2004. I was happy to comply and changed frequency to 145.400. At this stage I only had a dual band mobile whip on top of a 6 metre pole as the antenna connected to the Icom. The following Saturday I replaced this whip with a Diamond x-510 2M/70cm base station antenna which is 5.2 metres in length and has about 8db gain on 2 metres. I used the Avair AV-601 metre to test for SWR with a result of 1:1. The tip of the antenna is 22.5 metres above sea level which gives a line of sight coverage of 20 km (this range increases the higher the other station is above sea level)"

"The next day I did some field tests with Roy, VK4IRW. From Underwood (17.6 km back to node) I connected to VK4RBS repeater via my node and Roy who was monitoring RBS reported a good clear signal with some minor noise. Likewise his signal back to me was strong and clear. About an hour later we did another test from Manly (15 km back to node) with similar results."

Marty welcomes BDARS club members to make good use to the node. It will also come in very handy as a second node for JOTA use.

Interested in checking out where IRLP nodes are located around the world? At www.irlp.net you can download the IRLP node overly for Google earth. Just make sure you have the latest version of Google Earth installed. The Echolink overlay can be found at www.echolink.org/googleInfo.htm

Jordan hits the news

Jordan joined his family at Kangaroo Point to participate in Earth Hour. Marty Nelson was invited by the Brisbane Earth Hour Committee along with President David Williams, 2nd cslr in the Temple Presidency to switch off the lights at the Brisbane Temple and KP chapel. Whilst Marty was mingling with the dignitaries a freelance photographer asked if he could take a picture of my children. Jordan and Brooke posed for pictures but Brooke was bitten by a green ant and became upset so it ended up being this picture of Jordan that was selected to go into the Brisbane Times news which is a internet based news service.

The news story can be found here