Sota Activation – VK1/AC-040 Mt Ainslie

As part of a short family holiday to Sydney and home via Canberra, I was able to fit in one activation. I had dropped the family off at Questacon early on good friday morning, the kids love this place, we spent a whole day at the science centre on wednesday, and they wanted to go back. I was able to grab a couple of hours to get in my activation.

Mt Ainslie is a peak to the north of suburban Canberra, it has a lookout at the top, with parking, a good tourist all the way to the top. The summit is listed as 843m, the sign at the top says 846m.

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I parked the car at the top carpark and walked down the road to ensure I was well outside the activation zone. Heading to 800m on the GPS.

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Then back to the top to setup and operate. I choose to set up at the lower of the two lookout areas, using the rail to support my squid pole and the ledge as a seat. (better than sitting on the ground at the top of the extra hill)

I connected up the gear on 40m and spotted/called and worked two summit to summit’s before a constant stream of stations over the next 20 mins, before a change to 20m and 3 more contacts, but still no VK6, i need to build my linked dipole, the random wire and Zmatch (essentially vertical isn’t cutting the mustard for vk6), in all, 26 stations worked, the best “worked” count for me on a hill. And as per usual Four Andrews!.. It really is summits of the Andrews! Conditions were good, with everyone an easy contact, my new Mylar ft817 speaker upgrade appeared to make a difference, really helping to lift the voice (and reduce the background noise) it made working stations easy. I had my headphones in the bag, but didn’t need to use them. Worth the $25 i feel. Thanks for all who I worked.

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Time Call Band Mode Notes
00:23z VK1DI 7MHz SSB s2s Ian
00:25z VK3EK/P 7MHz SSB s2s Rob
00:29z VK1MBE 7MHz SSB Andrew!!
00:30z VK2IO 7MHz SSB gerard
00:32z VK3FPSR 7MHz SSB Peter
00:34z VK1EM 7MHz SSB Mark
00:35z VK1MA 7MHz SSB Andrew!!
00:36z VK1NAM 7MHz SSB Andrew!!
00:37z VK3DET 7MHz SSB earnie
00:38z VK3CAT 7MHz SSB Tony
00:39z VK3FQSO 7MHz SSB Amanda
00:40z VK3UBY 7MHz SSB Colin
00:41z VK2YW 7MHz SSB John
00:41z VK2UH 7MHz SSB Andrew!!
00:42z VK2LAX 7MHz SSB Rod
00:43z VK3AFW 7MHz SSB Ron
00:44z VK5PS 7MHz SSB Peter
00:45z VK3MEG 7MHz SSB Steve
00:47z VK7BO 7MHz SSB allan
00:48z VK2CCJ 7MHz SSB Clint
00:48z VK5LY 7MHz SSB larry
00:49z VK3FOWL 7MHz SSB julie
00:49z VK3HRA 7MHz SSB allan
00:57z VK8GM 14MHz SSB Greg
00:58z VK5NIG 14MHz SSB Nigel
00:59z VK2MCB 14MHz SSB Phil

The rest of the short holiday, was all about the food, we lived in Sydney for a number of years, and had a number of favourite restaurant and food places we miss since moving back to Melbourne. So we made sure we took advantage of the trip and visited all our favourite places of old.

Hong Ha Banh Mi Rolls, Mascot

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East Ocean Yum Cha

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BBQ King Peking Duck

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