Earlier in the year, Icom released the IC-7300, an SDR based Ham Radio, it was the first of the big three commercial ham radio manufactures to provide an all in one desktop SDR based device. This caused a bit of a stir in the worldwide ham community, A lot of people were keen enough in…
Contesting / Icom / Tinkering
Over the weekend in VK3, we had a local hamfest. On one of the tables, i found a cheap and cheerful Icom FL-223 narrow (1.9kHz) SSB filter for the early 2000’s generation icom radios. I have a IC-706Mk2G that was used in a car for a while but is now relegated to a contest/portable 100w…
i happened to come across a second hand Icom IC-2820H Deathstar radio recently at a very good price and purchased it for the shack/one of the cars. BUT… it was missing the GPS antenna to allow DPRS (aprs for Dstar) and other positioning functions this radio offers. The GPS unit is supplied with the UT-123 Dstar…
Easter saw us in Horsham in western Victoria visiting christens parents, and this gave us the chance to activate some summits and explore the Grampians at the same time, as well as Mt Arapilies, a summit i have activated a number of times previously. First up, easter Monday we headed west to Mt Arapilies. VK3/VW-022.…
Because too much radio is never enough, having finished at midday a decent effort for the Summer VHF/UHF Field day as a home station, and because I’m trying to loose some weight and an afternoon mountain climb seemed like a good idea at the time. Sunday afternoon was warm, and we didn’t have anything else…
We didn’t go away for the Xmas break this year to Thredbo as we normally do and that meant a much quieter SOTA period for us. I had suggested to Christine we do something for the new years day change over, but my kids weren’t as excited. We didn’t even see in the previous nights…
It has been an eternity since I have activated a sota summit. 2015 proved to be extremely busy for me with work and a lot of interstate travel, this made my weekends family time and limited my ability to head for the hills. However, this weekend just past saw us have some time, and a…
The other week, talk on the australian ham radio Facebook wall turned to kit radios and the Pixie QRP Kit. A number of options were shown and talked about, after a search and comparison, I chose to purchase this Versions of the kit from This eBay seller. with free postage it was around $8. The…
A couple of months ago, the SOTABeams Facebook page Posted a link to a new item they had just finished making. A simple pair of lightweight dipole traps for portable use to help with running multiple bands and the band changing efforts. I had built a link dipole last year and this works well, but if the…
One of my local Ham radio club members sent me a link to these nifty PowerPole PVC Boots. Why? Because I can, they do make the power pole a bit neater. 50 boots for $15.99 delivered on eBay, i got mine in around a week from HERE. But I’m sure if you search Anderson PowerPole…
We are visiting Chrsitines parents for easter, they live in horsham in western Victoria, i was able to sneak out for a couple of hours to play and make a Sota Activation. I asked the family if they wanted to come, but they all voted to stay home. Mt Arapiles is around 30km west of…
Icom has Released a new firmware update for the IC9100 radio. IC-9100 Firmware Rev. E3 is now downloadable form the Icom Japan website. It is a stand alone .exe file that will install the E3 firmware update. IC9100 E3 Firmware link The new firmware corrects one item on the radio The firmware update modifies the IC-9100’s…
The other week, a friend of mine Rob VK2GOM shared a photo of a 1:1 current balun he had built to try and reduce some local noise issues he had at his home. His device had improved his experience. He chose 17 turns and the FT240-43 core based on info from this website Have a read of…
Its not all radios here at VK3BQ.com the other week in Melbourne, the Avalon Airshow 2015 was held. I took my Big child Nathan and my father along for a day watching the planes. Some photos I took on the day (i prefer the modern/fast jets, thus what I mostly photographed) The rest at https://www.flickr.com/photos/asphotos/sets/72157650682556437
Last weekend, we took our annual family short holiday pilgrimage to Tidal River camp ground in Wilsons Promontory. Each year, we head to this lovely spot for a couple of days away to celebrate Nathan’s birthday. This year he was 7.. I always con the family into a quick Sota activation as part of…
