Easter SOTA Activations VK3/VW-020 & VW-022

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.…

Sota Activation – VK3/VT-060 Mt Oberon 2015

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…

Sota Activation – VK5/SE-005 Mt Lofty

We headed into Adelaide today from the farm to explore the sights and I had a chance to activate a summit on my way into town. Mt Lofty VK5/SE-005 sits above Adelaide and has the towns Radio and TV transmitters. at the summit proper is a lookout/cafe/shop tourist place. We drove up into the carpark…

Tuning the dipole using the 1:1 Balun

I had some time yesterday afternoon to tune up the wire i am using with the 1:1 Balun dipole project. I set myself up outside and ran out the dipole as I would deploy it for a SOTA activation. The antenna was too long as expected given how I had cut the wire!   I started…

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.…

Sota Activation – VK3/VW-022 Mt Arapiles

The Australia Day long weekend found me in Western Victoria. My wife grew up in Horsham and we were in town celebrating her fathers 80th birthday. (happy 80th Karl).. Not far from Horsham is a pretty famous rock climbing spot called Mt Arapiles, and a quick search showed me this was a sota summit. So.…

3 weeks in the Snowy Mountains

Before Xmas we packed up the camper trailer and car and headed bush for a holiday/break. Our location of choice is the Thredbo Diggings campground in the kosciuszko national park. We left Melbourne and headed east, looking for a different path into the mountains, our new(isn) car, the Prado has really made it easy to explore different…