Here’s a short (6 minute) Vlog style video of a short day out with David VK3KR, in which we activate Mt St Leonard (VK3/VC-006, 1,012m, 6 points) out of Healesville, an hour’s drive north-east from Melbourne, and nearby Mt Toolebewong (VK3/VC-033, 735m, 4 points). All QSOs on 40m CW and SSB. There is no narrative so it is simply a record of the sights and sounds of the outing.
Of interest is the sound of David’s QMX doing SSB. It was the first time I had heard it do SSB. To state the obvious, this is a very impressive transceiver, and the SSB firmware update uplifts it into the category of general purpose multimode rigs. The bang-for-buck of this kit is unbelievable.
Melbourne is in winter and it is cold (around 8-10 degrees C) on the summits, and days are short (sunset around 5:20PM). I know that many others on this list will chuckle at this but for us Aussies these are not welcoming conditions. Nonetheless there’s still plenty of winter activation daylight hours to be had. And we get back home by 7pm in time to throw another shrimp on the barbie.
Also noteworthy are a number of new CW chasers around south-east VK. Some of these have deliberately picked up their CW to be able to chase the many VK/ZL SOTA activators who use or prefer CW.
We set up under the power line a bit down the rocky decent. The power lines have given me noise problems on previous activations, but this time it was fine, we were lucky.
I’ve never set up on the summit near the comms tower, though Paul has and he says the RF hash is bad!
Hi David,
Good on the noise. In the past, I’ve found the better spots for noise to be on the south side of the comms hut (the other side to the access road) on the slope. During the 10m challenge, I operated from the lookout platform using a 10m flowerpot. It was possible to move the squiddy around to optimise a noise null on 10m.
Cheers, Glenn.
Hi,
Nice video.
I worked David from VK5/SE-013 and was surprised to see his Rx decoded me on screen. I was running 6 W to an EFHW. My rig was a ZBitx. I didn’t use the inbuilt decoder but maybe should look at the screen more.
Amazed you were able to hear anything in your receiver when perched on the Mt St Leonards observation tower. There must be kilowatts of ERP coursing through you standing there in front of that comms tower.
When I was younger and greener, I set up with a 40m radio on the platform and all I heard was wall to wall white noise. I did manage to work Paul VK5PAS but he was probably 20 over 9. Pleased that my mixer survived. I then moved to the north side of the hill and worked my way off the summit a bit, and had a normal activation experience from then on.
Every other visit, I have set up about 100m down the fire break, strapping the pole to a sapling, where the single overhead (power?) line is the only potential noise generator.
Looking at the map on SOTLAS (contrast enhanced), the best place to set up appears to be on the road at the southernmost point. It’s above 1000m so in the AZ, though when I’ve looked there aren’t any good spots to support a squidpole.
David,
Perhaps a good reason to carry an arborist’s throw bag and line? Lob the throw bag and line over a tree branch. In the SOTA pack, I carry an 8 oz throw bag with builders line wound onto a hand fishing reel.
I use this method often for activations with suitable trees. Quicker than setting up a squid pole, Of course, the downside is additional mass in the pack.
Cheers,
Peter VK3PF
