Sota Activation – VK3/VC-002 Mt Donna Buang 2014

Im in the middle of painting my house, and its taking a very long time, my only aspiration in life, be rich enough to pay someone else to paint for me, as such most weekends recently have been spent sanding, prepping, painting, swearing, re sanding, re painting, as i work through the house, both inside…

Core Flute Wire Winders…

The other week, the EMDRC club had a presentation on portable and lite HF antennas as well as some other ideas on portable operation. Len Steel vk3fb showed a nifty and cheap way of making some wire winders. The video of the presentation can be seen on YouTube at the bottom of this post. I…

Elecraft T1 ATU

Over the last weekend, the Moorabbin Ham radio club held their annual hamfest. I had just enough time to pop in for a quick look see. Overall, the event was similar to the ballarat hamfest I wore about last year. A mix of junk with the odd interesting item, some new gear from the usual suspects…

The $10 Squid Pole.

Randomly searching around eBay as you do, i discovered a place in Melbourne selling Cheap 8m long squid poles. They advertise them as pickup only, and a search of the seller name found me the store, a fishing shop in Dandenong. On eBay, its 2 for $26.50 with pickup, curious about the quality of the…

Ham radio and an APPLE MAC!

So, you have a mac computer, but you are also into ham radio, they don’t mix, or do they? This post is a pointer to some mac solutions for your ham radio exploits (or the ones I’ve discovered). Not everything you would want to do is easy or simple on a mac, and some things…

The Long Hard Road back to CW begins…

 So it has begun… I suspect my auto keyed memory will change form “do you have a microphone” to “QRZ?”.. I collected an old (but new) and new to me MFJ-564B Iambic Morse key from an old stock clear out at Strictly Ham had over Xmas as they moved form their old to new stores. It cost…

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.…

Show me the Money!!

   Ads on my you tube channel and this website have reached the magic $80 amount for my wia membership, so, ads are now off at the website (have been for a couple of weeks actually), and my membership obtained to the WIA with the funds raised.. as I promised.. PS. I’ve been playing a…

Sota Activation – VK3/VC-032 (Handbrake Turn Hill)

Named in honour of Andrew VK3ARR and his handbrake turns and Scandinavian flicks**. This is now known as handbrake turn hill. ** Andrew didn’t actually undertake such monouvers, just longed for a BDA Ford escort sideways. The EMDRC club field day site is around 5km from this previously unnamed summit, and with me being so…