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Saturday 13 March 2021 – working DX SOTA chaser stations in New Zealand and Indonesia, SSB voice mode. Equipment – Yaesu 2m HT, Yaesu FT817ND, 7m telescopic pole, homebrew 40/20m inverted V linked dipole and an experiment with the use of a 10m length of RG-174 coax. I normally carry a 10m length of RG58AU.…
Homebrew HF EFHW antenna for low power SOTA, Parks and field day events. Using a 19.8 metre length of wire mounted as an inverted V, a non-resonant 6.8 metre counterpoise, this antenna is resonant in the 40/20/15/10m bands. At 19.8 metres long, the VSWR is less than 1.5:1 in the voice segments. If your primary…
Tuesday 13 October 2020 – I noticed the Australian Space Weather report MUF and T index were reporting ‘enhanced’ conditions while the K index was close to zero, excellent! I checked the local weather forecast, which with the exception of Thursday, indicated rain for the week. Thursday it is!! Plan: Thursday 15 October 2020, activate…
At First use of a ZS6BKW antenna 1 February 2018, I mounted the ZS6BKW antenna on a 10 metre (32.8 feet) telescopic pole. For SOTA purposes the ZS6BKW antenna (enhanced G5RV) is quite versatile allowing operation on 80m through to 6m with the exception of 30 and 15m. With all the benefits invested this antenna,…
Saturday 23 November 2019 – I had planned to participate in the WIA VHF-UHF field day, however the forecast temperature is 33 degrees C (hot) and we have a thick red dust haze (hot northerly winds blow red dust from central Australia) which isn’t good for the respiratory system. So the plan for today is…
Saturday 16 May 2019. I am joined by Andrew VK1DA for a joint activation of Booroomba Rocks VK1/AC-026 at 1382m ASL in Namadgi National Park. Starting from Booroomba Rocks car park, the ascent to the summit is 267 vertical metres over 2.4 km taking one hour. Andrew plans to qualify the summit using CW in…
Homebrew 2m/70cm duplexer for 23 and 13cm SOTA activations. Why buy one when you can make your own? All components are mounted on a single sided copper clad board. I will use my FT-817 at 1 watt to drive the 23 and 13cm transverters via the duplexer. The duplexer will permit instant band chages. SG-Lab…
Peter VK3YE recently published a 2m rectangular loop antenna article in Amateur Radio Magazine edition 5 (Sep-Oct 19). The feedpoint impedance of the 2m rectangular loop is 50 ohms thus avoiding the need for a 1/4 wave impedance transformer. I have constructed the lightweight 150 gram (5.2 ounces) antenna and plan to use it for…
15 watt QRP HF L-match for portable operations. Peter VK3YE published a QRP 7 MHz to 52 MHz (40m to 6m) L-network ATU project and circuit diagram in VK’s Amateur Radio magazine , Edition 5, May 2017. I have constructed the L-match ATU and added a 5th inductor L5 4uH for matching on 3.6 MHz…
Saturday 4 May 2019. Earlier today I activated Mount Tumorrama VK2/SW-027 followed by Billapaloola State Forest VK2/SW-034. I’ve been trying to activate Tumorrama Hill since 2014 where on previous attempts my efforts were thwarted by forestry logging operations in an adjacent pine forest. With two summits under my belt, I am making my way to…
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