VK9N - Norfolk Island Christmas activation

I was on a VK2 summit close to Canberra. I heard a few EU stations calling and they were 55 to me. Shame the path wasnt open to NI though.

Compton
VK2HRX

Hi Compton,
Conditions were odd. I worked Matt at about 5x5 each way just after 6pm local, about 0710 UTC. A few minutes later I heard you calling and working Rick 4RF. Calling you myself soon after that was unsuccessful. You were down in the noise to me and I was running 10w. You may have had more power at your end. And I thought it wasnā€™t much past line of sight out to that part of the world from Black Mt.

in about 1967 I drove up to Black Mt with my 2m FM gear (AWA MR20B) to work Keith VK2ZAA who was operating from Mt Tumorroma. That was 2m fm dx (about 40km?). Times change and expectations change too. I worked Adan 1FJAW at The Peak from there on the 817 barefoot last year. 102km.

Did you catch up with Dave 2JDS? he was on 40m looking for you, hoping to work on 1294 fm.

Cheers
Andrew VK1DA/VK2UH

Andrew,
I was running 100W on HF. Should have used the 5W HH on 2m to get you!
Missed Dave on 23cm.
Compton

Hi Compton, I would have expected that Norfolk Island would have had the EU longpath a little more than an hour ahead of East Coast VK, but that certainly was not the case last night - absolute silence from EU on 20m. Great to get a S2S with you and Andrew 1DA though -

The shortpath did seem to open up around midnight local, but signals were well down for me. 40m as mentioned earlier was awesome around 1300-1400Z, but unfortunately the family like to be asleep around then so with the noise I was making, I may not be able to repeat that againā€¦

Will focus on 6m and 10m tomorrow and depending on weather may be able to get back up onto Mt Bates on Saturday morning (local time). Any ZL ops up for a S2S attempt?

Matt
VK1MA / VK9NM

OK, a second activation of Mt Bates has been alerted for - it will take place around about change of day zulu 24 December (i.e. 0001Z 24 Dec 16), but this will be subject to family comittments and the resulting access to the car.

So all going well, I hope to be up around 0001Z plus or minus a bit. Spotting will be problematic due lack of data access on the phone, so will be reliant on chasers. Initially I might give 6m a go to give some VK/ZL chasers the opportunity and possibly a bit on 10m before settling in to a session on 40m then 20m.

Probably will mainly be Oceania biased noting time and band selection, but if anyone outside the area hears me, please feel free to jump in and make a call.

Matt
VK1MA / VK9NM

Second and likely last activation of Mt Bates completed for this trip. Couple of interesting outcomes from this - first was I noticed that spot on the DX clusters from a Brazilian ham - in itself not amazing, but it was for 40m (where I was transmitting at the time of the spot) which is an awful long way for 40m at about midday local time! Unsure if he heard me (unfortunately I didnā€™t), but that would have been a contact to remember.

Second was a reasonably good opening into VK mainland on 6m. Worked a number of stations in VK1/VK2/VK3 to a max distance of about 2300km but despie having had ZL contacts for the previous 4 days, there were no ZLā€™s on 6m.

There were low numbers of contacts on 40m (heavy QRN again on 40m on east coast VK and noticeable on VK9N), a slight improvement on 20m and really good propagation on 10m. Nothing outside of VK / ZL worked, but reasonably happy with the conditions. Total of 34 contacts for each activation (no this was not intentional).

Thanks to all the chasers who worked me and sorry I could not make contact with all who wanted it - maybe someone else will come here and activate when the conditions are better into NA and EU. I have anoteh 30 or so hours before I pack things up to return to VK1, so will ry and get as many contacts as I can in that remaining time (noting Christmas will get in the way of that!).

Matt
VK1MA

Hi Matt,

Thanks for your efforts. Good to catch you on 20 m today. Missed the 10 m activation as my internet went down and I was looking on the wrong frequencies. I heard a mumble on 6 m and gave you a call but no response so I guess it was a VK2 Chaser on back scatter.

Have a safe trip home and a Merry Christmas.
73
Ron
VK3AFW

Nice to work you on 10m Matt but could not hear you on 6m .
Enjoy the visit cu soon
Ian vk5cz ā€¦