VKFF-2111 Illawarra N.C.R.

2nd November 2020

With Melbourne Cup public holiday on a Tuesday I often have the Monday off. I had a couple of bits to for VK3ARM and VK3QY who are up Stawell way. Nothing for it but to make a day of it. I’d been working on getting APRS going to track travel into and out of parks, and this seemed like a good opportunity to test it out. The setup was getting out okay, but somehow position ambiguity was on, resulting in a map that was pretty useless.

Picked up VK3ARM and popped round for coffee with VK3QY. Then off to Illawarra Nature Conservation Reserve with VK3ARM tagging along for the ride. On the way spotted a couple of blue tongue lizards sitting in the middle of the road.

The area is quite open, with large well spaced trees, perfect for holding the ends of the 80 OCF up nice and high. VK3ARM was super impressed at my ability to get the throwing weight into the right spot in the trees first time. Little did he know that I was more surprised than he was!

Being a Monday there were less people around than most weekends, meaning traffic was a bit slow. Managed 15 contacts on 40m and 2 on both 20 and 40m over the space of about an hour.

Overall it was a good day out. Glad I made the effort.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=18MpJjvWprBVtUkjiM0tTgrU4JO138TJT&usp=sharing

VKFF-2370 -Linton FFNR

25th October 2020

With some free time and a pleasant Sunday so looked for something fairly close to home to activate. I particularly wanted to try out match box for an EFHW that should easily handle 100w. Linton Flora and Fauna Reserve was the chosen target.

The tracks in were pretty wet, but even a very modest 2WD would have no real difficulty getting in. Found an opening and set my new EFHW up at the side of the track. Absolutely no joy, (Later I found the wire to be a number of meters longer than it should have been.) so swapped over to the 80 OCF.

Managed 9 contacts on 80m and 4 on 40 over the space of 2.5 hours, much of which was mucking about with the antennas.

One vechile drove by while I was setting up, otherwise the birds and I had the place to ourselves.