I was sent this photo the other week from someone who had removed these Max Howden crystals from an old radio. An Interesting crystal holder, Max ran this company in the 1970’s and his son continued the business into the 1980’s I’m informed. Another piece of the A3BQ / VK3BQ callsign history.
As normal, the EMDRC club station VK3ER/P headed to our normal contest location at Mclaughlins Lookout in the wombat state forest for the SpringVHF/UHF field day 2014. The team for Spring consisted of our normal operators. Peter, Mike Jonas and Jack, we had help from Greg and Michael, and I was able to assist for for the…
Earlier in the week, I had a job near Echuca. We had to deploy a portable mobile phone tower for an event my company was hosting. With that job done, I had some other work in and around the district to undertake, on the way home, i was driving through the central victorian town of…
This whole 3D printer thing is very impressive, one of my local ham club members recently purchased his own device and he has been showing off creations. I continue to want one, but it seems the bank manager (wifey) does not agree they are a important ham radio shack tool! Ive been looking at whats…
I headed down the Mornington peninsular the other day with a job and managed to fit in a short activation on Arthurs Seat VK3/VC-031in the afternoon before heading home. The summit is very accessible, and I drove to the top, then grabbed my gear and walked down the Arthurs seat circuit walking track path, past…
The national library of Australia has a 45min interview with Max , you can listen to the interview on the NLA website using this link http://nla.gov.au/nla.oh-vn2239852 This week marks a very important milestone in global communications for Australia. No prizes for guessing that it was a major achievement of radio amateurs. The first direct two-way radio…
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…
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…
Sunday 19th was the Ballarat Ham radio clubs annual Hamfest!. I had walked past an item at the event last year and regretted it, so packed up the car and grabbed my big child Nathan, and we went for a daddy/son day out – road trip – Hamfest – Sota Activation!. Nathan had a busy…
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…