Contacts were made on all these bands.

Performance of the station on 1296 MHz was not as good as in previous years.  This may be due to conditions, or to a problem with my antenna or my location on Mt Ginini.  It is becoming increasingly more difficult to find suitable places where even two required directions are not partly blocked by the trees on that mountain.

Some pictures are already on http://www.flickr.com/photos/exposite/sets and I’ll be putting some also onto the vk1da.net photo pages.

IMG_7032 A feral pig disturbed on the Mt Franklin road between Bulls Head and Mt Ginini. He ran quite fast to get away from the intruding car, leaving the road after a hundred metres or so and disappearing into the bush downhill. There is a 500m drop on the right side of the road. IMG_7034 Varying foliage along Mt Franklin road. The 8ft road markers are necessary, or were, in winter when this road is covered in snow. IMG_7037 Varying foliage along Mt Franklin road IMG_7039 Varying foliage along Mt Franklin road IMG_7041 Varying foliage along Mt Franklin road IMG_7042 Varying foliage along Mt Franklin road IMG_7054 Starting the final 1.x km climb up to the top of Mt Ginini. IMG_7055 Travelling very slowly, about 5km/h and finding a safe route around the rocks on the road for my soft walled radial tyres. IMG_7057 Still travelling very slowly. A flat tyre at this point would be quite unfortunate and inconvenient. The final slope up to Mt Ginini This is an uphill view, not the flat surface it may appear to be. One of the towers on the top of the hill is just visible above the trees on the right. That tower is about 120ft high. Photo taken from the driver's seat through the windscreen, hence a few reflections on the glass.  « prev      1   2   3   4      next »   (32 Photos) Powered by AFG

The station should be on the air by 9th January and will be active in the following weekend’s VK VHF/UHF Summer Field Day event.

More details on the VK9NA website vk9na.com

This time Dale VK1DSH and I operated as a multiop station on 50, 144, 432, 1296, 2403 and 10368 MHz.

Successes:

• Dale made several contacts on 10 GHz with Andy VK2AES operating south east of Bungendore.
• Despite leaving the feed for the 2.4 GHz dish at home, we still made a contact with Andy on that band, using a “field day special” feed constructed onsite from a piece of wire and a N type socket connected to a piece of cable through the dish centre and attached to the normal feed hardware.  Signals S9 over the 70 or 80 km path.
• Several successful contacts with Dave VK2JDS near Bathurst on 1296 MHz. Some persistence was needed for the first contact, when conditions were not so good and we had to get our beam headings right.  More power at both ends would have been a help.
• Other than that, we had a fair contact rate on 144 with many throws to other bands.
• For this event I used one of Owen VK1OD’s Roger Beep boards.  I assembled the board on the previous weekend, mounting the board into a small box with the Icom mike plugging into a socket on the RB box, and mike output to the IC910 through a short section of shielded cable. I set the CW speed to 30 wpm and selected the K option.
• Despite some thunderstorm activity in the area, we didn’t have to shut down.

Activity was a little lower than in the past.  Chris VK2DO was away on a business trip and Matt VK2DAG was roving up and down the NSW coast and unfortunately we didn’t work him once. Our score was just over 2000 points, though, with the help of the additional microwave bands. We were grateful for Andy VK2AES’s efforts in going portable on both days and giving us contacts on all bands, in particular 2.4 and 10 GHz.

VHF field day antennas

The 8 element yagi for 144 MHz and 16 element for 432 MHz are on the main mast. The smaller mast carries a half wave vertical for 50 MHz, an 18 element yagi for 1296 and a gridpack dish for 2403 MHz.

Operating desk in the tent on Mt Ginini

From left: TS670S and amplifier for 6m, rotator control for small mast, clock for logging, second rotator control, Kbeep box, IC910H for 2m/70cm/23cm, power supply. Paper logs. Power supplies on floor. For 2.4 GHz an FT290R was used.

Field constructed dish feed for 2.4 GHz

The feed you use when the real one was left at home. Made from a piece of stiff coaxial cable, a type N socket a solder lug and some wire from the spare parts box. I knew there was a reason for taking that stuff.

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I found a website offering data on stacking distances for yagis.  For a boom length of 1.5m on this frequency the stacking distance recommended is 2.4 wavelengths, which works out at 55cm (23cm wavelength).  The feedlines on the yagis are about 25 cm long but that’s not long enough to reach the power divider, so additional connectors and cable will be needed, eating into the stacking gain.

Next step for 23cm is to configure the power amplifier so it can be operated remotely from the tent.  I read some comments on the UK microwave reflector about power levels from IC910H not being up to the 10w level expected.  Time to get out the power meter and check mine out.

I plan to operate from a mountain southwest of Canberra, with equipment for 50, 144, 432, 1296, 2403 and 10368 MHz.  The first four bands are bands I have used before but the last two are new for my station.  The 2403 equipment will be a simple transverter driven by a FT290R radio on 144.  The antenna for that band will be a grid type dish.

The 10368 MHz equipment has been borrowed from another local amateur.  It is a transverter driven by an Icom IC202 on 144, the antenna is a dish.  It all mounts on a tripod which readily allows azimuth and elevation adjustements.

On all bands the main mode used will be voice, using upper sideband.  For some contacts with more distant stations, morse (CW) will be used as it is much easier to hear weak morse signals than weak voices.