After our morning Activations to Box Ridge (SM-065) we headed back into Jindabyne for some supplies and lunch. The local Bakery at Jindabyne has really yummy Tandoori lamb pies, and i was keen to have one for lunch. The road back to the camp site passed another Sota Summit, VK2/SM-053, this is unnamed, at the…
It’s a nice easy walk beside the river. Then a short bit up the other side. I’d told the family. A couple of hours Easy. So we packed food and water (less for this trip) and drove up the road from the campsite to dead horse gap. I’d looked at my topo maps and determined…
As part of our family xmas holiday’s, we are camping in the Kosciuszko National Park, a family favourite xmas camping location, we stay in a bush camping spot on the Thredbo river just down from the ski resort town. We enjoy this part of the world visiting most xmas times. This year, having recently become…
In an effort to better understand the performance of my ft817 and the ZM-2 ATU, I’ve been exploring different random length wire antennas while camping. I read an article posted on a sota forum about random wire lengths and how to choose an efficient length, this article talks about the importance of choosing a length…
A couple of years ago one of the Manly Warringah Radio Club members acquired some mystical unicorn DXwire from Germany. This created a heated debate that lasted for months on the merits of this expensive unicorn blood rainbow wire vs cheap and nasty copper from discount electrical suppliers R us. Well, i have just acquired some…
Everyone kept saying “knob, knob, knob” about my ft817, i didn’t know what they meant, so I googled “817 knob” and discovered the Kranker Knob from the W4RT shop. This store has all kinds of ways for me to spend my money on the FT817! I ordered a knob, just on $30 with postage and exchange…
At the November coffee shop meeting for the EMDRC radio club, Marshall, VK3MRG and myself presented on sota, and how to activate sota easily in metro Melbourne The night was aimed at people interested in being an activator but unsure where to start, where the summits were and how simple an activation can be. Marshall…
I discovered a critical flaw in the FT817 almost the first time I used it (a flaw for me anyway) the box is great, but has no built in ability to raise the display/control at a nice angle easily, it works a treat vertically, resting on the heat sink extension on the bottom of the…
Today was a public holiday in Melbourne for a horse race that stops a nation, the Melbourne Cup. I couldn’t care less about glue pots, so the family headed out for a picnic lunch and a drive into the local hills. It was a lovely day in Melbourne, mid 20’s and sunny blue skies. We headed…
We spent the day out in the city as a family today. This morning I dropped off the rest of the family at the museum while I headed over to the maker faire called eurisko Melbourne. I was away and didn’t attend last years event (ran at Swinburne uni) but heard great things about it.…