I am at the stage of life where I get to have Wednesdays off on a reliable basis – It is a wonderful privilege and an opportunity to do much pottering around the house.
Last night (Tuesday) there was much discussion on the local email reflector about people deciding to do a SOAT activation at 10.30 local time, so I had a quick look at summits, and decided to drive up Mt Stromlo for a bit of HF and VHF fun with radios.
The drive up was completely uneventful – no cyclists (which is rare for Stromlo) – I vividly remember riding up this hill in my youth a couple of time with my workmates – Hard up, but *fun* down!!
I setup near the geodetic observatory – Essentially a bright laser that measures how much our tectonic plate has moved by bouncing light off a nearby satellite – My sister Suzy used to run the one on Orroral Valley back in the day.
Anyhow – setup was on a convenient rock, where I used a squid pole to hoist a 2m j-pole. I also deployed a HF longwire made by bushcomm.
Contacts were thick and fast – many other VK1’s had visited nearby hills, so there were summit-to-summit contacts a plenty.
In all a fun morning – left by about 12ish, and came home.
| Time | Call | Band | Mode | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 00:21z | VK1MA | 2M | FM | Matt 5/9 – 2.5 watts |
| 00:24z | VK1DI | 2M | FM | Ian 5/9 S2S VK1/AC-039 2.5 watts |
| 00:27z | VK1MCW | 2M | FM | Bill 5/9 S2S VK1/AC-040 2.5 watts |
| 00:29z | VK1MIC | 2M | FM | Wade 5/9 – 2.5 watts |
| 00:41z | VK1MF | 2M | FM | Matt S2S VK1/AC-034 2.5 watts |
| 00:46z | VK1AD | 2M | FM | Andrew VKFF 0377 5/3 2.5 watt |
| 00:52z | VK1CK | 2M | FM | Chris S2S VK1/AC-042 5/9 2.5 watts |
| 00:52z | VK1MBE | 2M | FM | Andrew 5/9 |
| 01:02z | VK1DA | 2M | FM | Andrew S2S VK1/AC-041 2.5 watts |
| 01:05z | VK1MF | 40M | SSB | Andrew – S2S VK1/AC-034 5/9 2.5 Watts 7.090Mhz |
| 01:11z | VK1MF | 20M | SSB | Andrew – S2S VK1/AC-034 5/9 2.5 Watts 14.310Mhz |
| 01:14z | VK1MF | 15M | SSB | Andrew – S2S VK1/AC-034 5/7 2.5 Watts 21.3Mhz |
| 01:28z | VK1DI | 40M | SSB | Ian S2S VK1/AC-039 5/9 2.5 Watts 7.110 Mhz |
My HF antenna is a bit interesting.
It is a Bushcomm SWE-100/P Longwire antenna. Built like a brick dunny, and simply works. Being a longwire, it does not have a neap of gain, but it does the job.
I shall write about it in another post. I have to set it up properly so I can do an A/B comparison.
Anyhow – a fun day – now home for some sax practice 🙂
