Welcome to Our Website
There are lots of things to see on Julie and Joe's website: There is information about us and our careers. There are pages of things we like, including radio, food and knitting. There is some complete madness for our gradchildren, on our owls and wombats pages. A travel page illustrates places we have been and things we have seen. We have included a blog, where you can leave us comments and see a reply. Please enjoy!
About us
Julie and Joe are both Australian born: Julie was born in Ballarat, Joe was born in Melbourne. We went to university: Julie has a diploma of Library Information Services, Joe has a degree in Electrical Engineering. We were married in 1983.
We have three children (all happily married) and four grandchildren (all beautiful):
Gina and Stephen
Archie (3) and Enzo (0)
Lisa and Chris
Ava (7) and Chloe (5)
Dave and Gem
We love home life: We used to live in Elsternwick, Victoria, Australia. We also lived for 18 Months in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and Trumble, Connecticut in the USA. We now live in Oakleigh, Victoria, Australia.
We both happily retired in 2020 after 37 years in the workforce: Julie is a retired Library Technician; Joe is a retired Systems Engineering Manager. We are absolutely loving our retirement - although we could have done without a global pandemic in our first year!
We are both active Amateur Radio enthusiasts: Julie's callsign is VK3FOWL, first licenced in 2013, Joe's callsign is VK3YSP, first licenced in 1975.
We have a passion for introducing primary school kids into radio and electronics: We run school Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) activities. We do presentations, workshops and special events. We now run a small Internet business: The School Amateur Radio Club Network (SARCNET) at www.sarcnet.org.
We also enjoy 4WDriving, camping, fishing and cooking. We do everything together. But before we get going, we feel the need to answer some important questions:
Why have a website?
Well, there are lots of reasons: It helps us keep in contact with people we know and helps them keep up to date with what we are doing too. In a way, we use this site to chronicle and measure our progress in life. If we do something important, it goes here. Also, we often find ourselves searching online for information that we need and probably you do too. We really appreciate the folk out there who take the time to publish useful information. So, in some respect, we built this website to "give something back" to those who also search online for things. Everything on this site is free to download and use. Finally, building websites is a pleasure and a creative pastime for us.
Why not use social media?
Well, that's because we hate social media with a passion! To us, social media is just a circus of people and organisations trying to sell you something or push their opinions onto you. It is often profane, obscene, sexist or racist. There is no control of what you will see next. It is now, now, now, without any historical context. Quite often things on social media get misinterpreted and out-of-hand.
We don't actually need social media: If you are our friends, you will already know that. If we like you, we will tell you, we won't "click" on you - as the quality, not quantity, of our friends is more important. If we want to speak with you, we will give you a call. If we want to write to you, we will send you a text or an e-mail. If we want to meet you, face-to-face, we will visit you or video call. If, on the other hand, we want to publish something for everyone in the world to see: We do that ourselves, on this site, with no third parties involved or anyone using us for advertising. If you want to speak, call, write to or meet us, you are free to do so. If you don't like what we publish, tell us why and we will consider your point of view.
Contact Us
Please use the form below to send us your message or request; or
Call us, VK3SRC, on 7105kHz LSB in the afternooons; or
Webmasters
This website has been totally rebuilt using WebSite X5, after many years using ExpressionWeb. It is now hosted in Australia on VentraIP.
Privacy Statement
The operator of this website fully supports and complies with the US Government Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act 1998. Identifiable information of children under the age of 13 on this website is limited to the first name, school or group name, images and sounds of the child engaged in the relevant and appropriate activities. This information is only published after parental review and written consent is obtained and it will be immediately removed from this site upon receipt of written parental advice. No other identifiable information is solicited, collected, stored or disclosed. All user posts are 100% vetted before publication. The operator of this website can be contacted via the information above.
Disclaimer
The authors take no responsibility for the accuracy of the information contained herein. All items are presented in the hope that they will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. The authors accept no liability for its application or use. Credit for many images used on this site is extended to the original owners. The School Amateur Radio Club Network ® is a registered business name. Our original content is copyright © 2014-2020. All open-source software is free for non-commercial use and is released under the GNU General Public Licence.