Craig's Virtual Chain 8-)

Use the following index, or browse down however you like:

General Sites - Publications, Surplus Dealers, Hobby + Professional Retailers, etc.

- The Australian Public Access Network Association Inc., provides community-based, not-for-profit, Internet and related services (website hosting, etc.) to networking and IT experimenters, like-minded individuals, and non-profit organisations.

APANA regions are operating in almost all state capital cities and some other regional areas to offer services which are locally-focused and low in cost. Each region is operated by a dedicated group of volunteers (this keeps costs down).

Being community-based, APANA is different to commercial Internet providers because the regions offers extra features to members alongside straight up (low cost) Internet connectivity, such as social events, low-cost training workshops, etc.

My local network is part of the APANA Sydney region, and I am a member of the APANA Sydney Regional Committee. If you have any questions specifically about APANA Sydney, please feel free to contact me.

You can visit the dial-up access server and the website hosting server for yourself to get more of an idea of what is on offer.

- The annual Central Coast Amateur Radio Field Day is held in February every year at Wyong Race Course, on the NSW Central Coast. The day is hosted by the Central Coast Amateur Radio Club, and it's the biggest field day in the southern hemisphere.

If you interested in amateur radio, electronics, or computers (in any combination), the annual Central Coast Field Day is one event you shouldn't miss for super deals on all manner of new and used radio, communications, computing and electronics items!

- RCS Design (formerly RCS Radio) est. 1933, based here in Sydney, NSW, is the oldest (and possibly the smallest) Printed Wiring Board factory in the world today, having made PWB's (aka PCB's) since late 1942 by it's founder Ron Bell, after the inventor Paul Eisler (the father of it all) produced the first P.W.B. in the beginning of 1941/42.

RCS Design has produced all the published PCB's for projects published in Australian electronics magazines since 1961, and they're also a commercial/industrial manufacturer of single-sided, doubled-sided and plated-thru hole PCB's.

- Oatley Electronics are a leading Sydney-based Australian supplier of new and used surplus electronic components and assemblies. Specialising in unusual items (much like the sadly departed Sheridan Electronics and Radio Despatch outlets of long past), Oatley Electronics stock a wide range of items which would otherwise be nigh on impossible to find in most other retail outlets.

- In a similar vein to Oatley Electronics, Recycled Networks specialises in new and used surplus equipment, but in this case the focus is on networking and related IT gear.

- If you are in the market for surplus and/or pre-loved Sun Microsystems equipment, you might like to check out the web pages for Sun Ripened Kernels, a small operation run by me! 8-)

Please note that because of APANA's prohibition of commercial use, these web pages are hosted outside APANA.

- Silicon Chip is Australia's premier electronics magazine, and it is primarily directed to electronics enthusiasts (including hobbyists), trades people and professionals in the electronics, electrical, computing, IT and related fields.

Eulogy for Electronics Australia - Electronics Australia was Australia's longest-running electronics magazine until it ceased to exist in late 2001. EA was also one of the longest-running technical publications in the world. The rights to the trademarks, projects, etc. were purchased by Silicon Chip magazine during 2002. EA had, at the start of 2001, changed it's name to Electronics Australia Today (aka 'EAT'), and totally changed format after the respected editoral team led by Jim Rowe were dumped, to become focused totally on consumer electronics, and there was no longer ANY hobbyist content. That's right - no construction projects, no circuits submitted by readers, nothing! That was the point at which Federal Publishing must have decided to scrap the magazine by pushing it into a dead-end... Prior to 2001, Electronics Australia had continued it's long-standing tradition of publishing a wide range of articles for the engineer, technician, enthusiast and interested consumer. In the early days it only covers radio, but in later years expanded scope markedly as technology drove the pace of change with the advent of television, etc. Prior to the 2001 dumping of the then-current editorial team, the magazine covered the entire range of electronics applications including video, hifi, auto electronics, vintage radio, computers and communications, as well as featuring a handful of home-grown construction projects and circuits submitted by readers. Sadly that's now all gone...

- Circuit Cellar Ink, the Computer Applications Journal, was founded by Steve Ciarcia who formerly authored Byte Magazine's Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar monthly feature until it was unceremoneously terminated after the December 1988 issue.

- Elektor Electronics is the leading electronics magazine in Europe, and it provides an excellent insight into the electronics industry and hobby there. The construction projects are excellent are of a much higher standard than nearly all of the projects published in Australian electronics magazines.

- Jaycar Electronics, Dick Smith Electronics and Altronics are the major retailers of electronics to the hobbyist and professional electronics communities here in Australia.

Jaycar and DSE are both based in Sydney, NSW, while Altronics is based in Perth, WA.

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Manufacturers and Distributors of Electronics Equipment

Links to Australian manufacturers and distributors of electronic equipment are listed below:

- If you are after a quality Australian designed and manufactured ISDN card or terminal adaptor, then look no further than Traverse Technologies in Melbourne, VIC.

Traverse has two key products for the Australian ISDN market - their NetJet PCI-bus ISDN card, and their NetSpider ISDN terminal adaptors. Both products support the data-over-voicebearer call feature of Telstra's OnRamp Home Highway residential ISDN service.

- JED Microprocessors designs and manufactures a range of small industrial and scientific computers, as well as analog and digital PC interfaces in Melbourne, Victoria.

- Questronix produces a range of items for video signal distribution, as well as marketting audio-visual equipment such as cameras, video multiplexers, etc. from it's base here in Sydney, NSW.

- PowerClean Electronics, located in Sydney, NSW, manufactures a range of power and data protection products centering around a variety of mains power filtering and lightning protection devices for domestic and industrial use.

- Dontronics is an Australian company based in Melbourne, Victoria, and is run by Don McKenzie and his wife Cheryl.

Dontronics specialises in many hardware and software items for PIC (from MicroChip and Atmel microbontrollers. They also manufacture and distribute a range of tiny microcontroller products on PCB's the same size and layout as small SIMM's called SIMMsticks.

- VAF Research (based in Kent Town, SA) is Austalia's leading provider of loudspeaker technology for kit constructors and the industry through OEM R&D and manufacture.

VAF designs and manufactures high end kit loudspeakers for audiophile and home theatre applications using components developed to VAF's high standard. The range covers standard stereo loudspeaker assemblies, as well as active sub-woofer and center-channel speaker units.

- Allthings Sales and Services commenced business in 1988, and is based in Perth, Western Australia.

Allthings specialises in video equipment for surveillance and other purposes, for professional, experimenter and D.I.Y. use. Their range of video cameras is very extensive, covering budget models all the way up to high quality professional units with specialised applications.

- Statronics Power Supplies are a 100 percent Australian-owned family company that manufacture a range of various types of electronic Power Supplies and Converters from their factory at Hornsby here in Sydney, NSW.

Their range includes Linear, Ferroresonant and Switch Mode Power Supplies, including AC - DC Converters, DC - DC Converters and Step Down Converters that include Rail, Automotive and general industrial Converters.

They also manufacture Portable DC Voltage Standard Model VS4 which is being employed by various measurement laboratories around the world. All their power systems are Y2K complient and come with a standard 5 year warranty.

- Sola Australia, established in Melbourne in 1959, manufacture a range of power conditioners and uninteruptible power supplies to meet the needs of industry where clean, reliable power supply is critical.

Units are available for small designs right through to very large multiple 120 kVA designs for large commercial building or industrial applications.

- The leading supplier of test and measurement equipment in Australia is Emona Instruments, based here in Sydney, NSW.

- Circle-C Transformers (or Cadwallader Engineering (NSW) Pty Ltd) have been producing quality wire-wound electrical products for industry since 1950.

Based at Concord West here in Sydney, Circle-C specialises in producing a wide range of transformers, reactors, rectifiers and electrical equipment which the others cannot or will not produce...

- AV-COMM Pty Ltd, operated by Gary Cratt from a base in Brookvale in northern Sydney, is one of the pioneers of satellite television in Australia.

The company sells a very wide range of products related to satellite television, and is one of the few fully Australian-owned businesses operating in the satellite television market.

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Manufacturers and Distributors of Electronics Componentry

Links to manufacturers and distributors of electronic components are listed below:

- Dallas Semiconductor are a wonderfully innovative company that design and sell a range of unique integrated circuit products. They are also the only semiconductor company I know of that will deal directly with anyone who wants to buy their products - which is a real boon for experimenters like myself.

- Maxim Integrated Products is a worldwide leader in design, development, and manufacture of linear and mixed-signal integrated circuits.

- Braemac are one of Australia's leading suppliers of components to the electronics industry. They are 100 % Australian owned, and have full AS3902/ISO9002 accreditation.

- Veltek Australia, a member of the Arrow group of companies, is an Australian-based distributor of electronic components.

- Utilux is a leading manufacturer of electrical and electronic interconnection products. Through its wholly owned subsidiary, GPC Electronics, the group also operates a contract electronics manufacturing facility.

- Voltron is a distributor of quality electronics components and products that's based in Fairy Meadow, near Wollongong, NSW.

Voltron offers an extensive line of electronic components including brand names such as Micronel (Cooling Fans), Schaffner (Emi Filters, Chokes Etc.), Carli (Poly Capacitors), Seeq, UTC, and Mitsubishi (Semiconductors), Capxon (Electrolytic Capacitors), Panjit (Rectifiers, Diodes) and Pactec (Electronic Enclosures).

- Tri Components are electronic component suppliers to Australian and New Zealand OEM's from a world wide network of manufacturers.

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Web Site Design and Authoring

- Carlos' FORMS tutorial is an excellent way to interactively learn about HTML forms and how to build your own.

- The Ender's Realm Graphics Archive is a superb source of every type of image accessory for your web pages, and for any graphic design task in general.

- Hidaho Design's Color Center allows you to experiment with various colours for use in HTML and related documents. You'll need a Java-enabled browser to get the most out of this site.

- Another site which deals with colour representation in web clients is dotParagon's Browser-Safe Colour resource. dotParagon is Kathy Gill's creation, and she has an excellent collection of practical solutions to web problems which are useful for all web developers.

- Want to visit a place where inspiration is around every corner? Well then, you will just have to visit Meg's Place and see for yourself! 8-)

Seriously, Meg's Place is actually the home page of Megan Miller, who runs her own web design company called Webformation. Her site is so incredibly refreshing that I could not resist adding a link for it to this page!

- The authority for anything related to the web is the World Wide Web Consortium (aka W3C).

W3C develops interoperable technologies (specifications, guidelines, software, and tools) to lead the Web to its full potential as a forum for information, commerce, communication, and collective understanding.

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Some Strange and Unusual Places

- John Walker's web and ftp site contains a vast array of scientific resources, reference projects and other interesting things that will appeal to anyone with an open-minded approach to science and it's practical applications, particularly in the fields of computing and electrotechnology.

John's approach to research and development is welcomingly unconventional, and as a result much of his work is quite unusual, but this just makes it all the more interesting and worthy of more than just a casual visit.

- An interesting combination of science and computing, Terranova is a local adaption of one of John's older project that generates an image of a different terra-formed planet each day using a variety of public domain image manipulation tools.

- Dr Gavin Miller's Snake Robot site presents information, etc. about his private research project into snake locomotion which he started in 1987. His ongoing work has resulted in the design and contstruction of a number of robotic snakes, MPEG's of which are available from the site.

The snake robots were inspired by his work on physically-based computer animation at Alias Research, Inc. and Apple Computer, Inc..

- Welcome to the Do NOT Try This at Home Department!

- If you thought regular $5 peltier-effect devices were bad karma for keeping things cool when the going gets rough, then you have to check out what happened when massively overclocking the CPU in Melvin Tong's computer went horridly out of control after the high-intensity water-cooling system failed!

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