Sota Activation – VK3/VW-022 Mt Arapiles 2015

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…

Sota Activation – VK3/VE-204 The Paps

Work took me into country north eastern Victoria. A long day of tasks and driving, a 700km loop! I packed my sota backpack into the car just in case i had time to drop past a summit and undertake an activation. I actually ended up on two summits. I had to visit an air services…

Broken 3D Printer FT817 Stand :(

The nifty 3D printed FT817 Stand I had made up at Glen Eira library last year was fantastic! it worked really well, i was even using it on sota summits to lift the radio up a little! Until I had it on a summit in the sun for too long, it got hot and soft…

Shack Sloth Trophy

A couple of weeks ago, I was successful in achieving 1000 sota chaser points and became a Shack Sloth. The SOTA organisation in the UK makes available trophy for those who qualify, and I sent off and received this Shack Sloth Glass trophy in the mail yesterday! Now to get to more summits and get…

Sota Activation – Mt Alexander VK3/VN-016

The other day, I had to head to Bendigo for work, so packed the SOTA gear in the car for a quick late afternoon activation on the way home. Mt Alexander VK3/VN-016 sits just south of Bendigo and has the local TV and FM transmitters sites on the top of it, also a tower form…

Strange link dipole shenanigans?

Help!!!.. In the true spirit of this page, i installed a poorly built antenna on the weekend, and I don’t know why? I got the courage to cut my unicorn blood DX wire, and began the process of making a link dipole. Followed the guides form all the normal places, VK3ZPF and VK3PF and the Sotabeams Calculator among many. I built…

Sota Activation – VK3/VC-022 Mt Cowley 2014

Work took me back to western Victoria yesterday, with an early morning meeting in Warrnambool which meant a very early morning trip form Melbourne. Having finished all my tasks by mid-day, I took the opportunity to undertake some RF survey works taking the coast road back to Melbourne, looking at some site options for some…

FT817 – W4RT 500Hz CW Filter!

As part of my efforts to make the FT817 work as well as it can on sota summits (yes, i tinker too much). I was looking at options for filters for the radio. While i have been spending money on this exercise of “pimping my radio”, i have been acquiring items cheap, second hand or…