After finishing with meetings tomorrow (Friday) morning in Marsfield I should be heading off. Planning to hire a car from Sydney airport and strike south-west towards VK1. I’ll be travelling with a work colleague, so might have to restrict activations in length. Planning on VK2/IL-005 then 001, but very sketchy on the timing. Might end up traversing on foot if he gets bored!
Will have to search out hotel rooms at some point! Any recommendations as regards a good town or keep going until Canberra?
Planning to meet family on Saturday. Coffee on Stromlo sounds like a good idea. Will have to see. Maybe around UTC roll-over but could be any time.
I have pushed a ‘notice’ email to our local VK1 SOTA group. I recommended staying well clear of the trig station and telescope infrastructure, QRM on 40 and 20m is S8.
See my blog for recommended operating position a little furher north of the trig station.
You may like to add Mt Ainslie VK1/AC-040 as your 2nd summit. You can drive the top and take a short 100m walk to the highest point where you find a steel pole to support your antenna.
Business kept me in Sydney later than expected and then the traffic was rather bad.
It was raining and close to sunset when I reached the hill. I found a convenient tree to extend my short pole for the dipole.
Conditions were dreadful in that there were frequent crashes from lightning, so bad that it was hard to hear any replies.
Anyway, thanks for getting me to four QSOs. It was very dark by pack-away, but for the frequent lightning which was now much too close for comfort!
My gear is now drying out in what seems to have been the last vacant room in Mittagong whilst I await my chicken Jalfrezi in about the last restaurant still open!
Thanks for the 2-m QSO Gerard. Having checked the log I see I did respond also on 40m with good reports but lost you both times. I only used the stock whip on 2m but running up to the very top (I was at the little ruin) made it much better.
Thanks to the other stations and got-away S2S F/HB9CBR/P (I think) who was a little too weak again the QRN.
Hi Simon, indeed i was trying to s2s you this morning F/HB9CBR/P - yr signal was weak but just readable, problem were the strong european stations also calling you… so my 5 watts just not strong enough. Maybe another time…
Tky es 73 es enjoy your trip in VK land.
Bruno HB9CBR
With the amount of lightning around last night and rain this morning I’m amazed you were able to complete those activations. No real surprise some of the weaker stations were missed. Thanks for the contacts!
It’s a shame it didn’t work Bruno. I heard only half your call, then the QSB killed even the stronger signal I think.
Yes, it was good to meet you on air again Andrew.
Nearly dry again! Rather a wooded than a bare summit in that lightning though.
Thanks for all the support everyone’s giving with spotting &c.
Today’s summits were great. Wet through on Mt.Gibraltar - ran back to car and drove with the heater on (not anticipated that for VK2 spring!). Stromlo v. noisy on 2m. FT817 with146MHz would be preferred over VX7. Another bit of rain prompted QRT. Too late for the café sadly! Mt.Ainslie was also troublesome for 2m but HF went well. Questions / remarks from several passers by.
Booked at Wollongong next. But I’ll leave off alerting until I have a better idea of what I’m doing.
I’ve just alerted for one final summit, Bulgo Hill, literally on my way to the airport. It’s cutting it quite fine, so I can’t make it a long one. If I have to abort (e.g. traffic) I’ll update the alert.
Thanks guys for your QSOs to Mt Kembla. That was more of a hike. Quite a sweat to the top. Very nice.
Gerard @VK2IO sorry we missed each other. I was half way down when you called, but you couldn’t hear my reply.
