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Portable battery box for QRP operations or drive up SOTA peaks. 🙂 Inspired by a recent article published by Chris VK1CT, I used a $16 plastic ammo box as the container for a 13 volt 8Ah LifePO4 or a 12 volt 9Ah SLA. Both battery types are ideal power supplies for popular QRP amateur radio…
Good Friday 19 April 2019. Tom M1EYP in the UK has organised at Good Friday DX 30m CW S2S QSO Party, in addition Tom has invited 40m SSB participants. I have considered my options and decided to activate Mt Stromlo VK1/AC-043 for the first time this year, in doing so I will gain a single…
2m 146 MHz antenna construction project At SOTA – Lightweight Portable 2m – 70cm Dipole Antenna I described the construction of a compact lightweight dipole antenna using commonly available parts, a perfect addition to the emergency 2m Go-box. In that article I used a small section of kitchen cutting board as the mounting block and…
Friday 1 February 2019 – Today is the 6th anniversary of SOTA in VK1 and to celebrate the occasion four VK1 SOTA activators are heading for the hills; Bill VK1MCW, Tony VK1VIC, Dermy VK1FDHA and myself. My plan is to activate Mount McDonald 17 km west of Canberra GPO. Elsewhere in VK3 a contingent of…
Antenna Construction Project Lightweight portable QRP 2m & 70cm half wave dipole for SOTA or an emergency antenna for the 2m and 70cm Go-box. Parts: Section of nylon kitchen cutting board 50 x 30 mm x 7 mm (2 inch x 1 1/8 inch x 1/4 inch)2 x 495 mm (19.5 inch) 6 section telescopic…
Do you have a passion for homebrew portable HF antennas and antenna impedance matching devices, commonly known in the radio amateur community as Antenna Tuning Units (ATU) or in parts of the northern hemisphere as Aerial Matching Unit (AMU)? …then read on else leave this page now. The term ‘Tuning Unit’ is far from the…
VK1AD Portable T-Match Antenna Tuner (ATU) mounted in a plastic case L1 is tapped at turns: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 13, 16, 20, 26 and 37. The vernier dials enable logging of each capacitor setting, which can be repeated at the next activation. This has so far proven sucesful for the 27.2…
Saturday 16 June 2018. The weather around Canberra is cold wet and windy as a deep low, 994 hPa passes over south-east Australia. Today’s top ambient temperature is 9 degrees C while the feels-like is a chilly 2 degrees C. Tomorrow’s forecast is for a chance of snow down to 800 m ASL. My QTH…
Saturday 4 August 2018. Radio amateurs in Australia’s capital city Canberra (VK1) are planning a simultaneous activations of VK1 and nearby VK2 SOTA summits, kicking off at 09:00 local (2300 UTC, 3 August 2018) for operations over 2.5 to 3 hours. This radio amateur event is known locally as the VK1 ‘Winter’ SOTA QSO Party,…
Sharing with my SOTA followers. Repost from my SOTA UHF – SHF blog covering 23 and 13cm activations. For your entertainment the post includes a 12 minute video. via SOTA – 2.4 GHz 150 km Summit to Summit 73, Andrew VK1AD
