January to June 2010

GEOparks activity

The club participated in the GEO Parks activity early June and although contacts were very rare it was a fun social activity at least.

Ian VK3FNBL (on mike), Steve VK5GL (logging), Brian VK5FMID (observer), Andrew VK5KET (cameraman)
operating from the SERG Clubrooms

SERG Convention

The convention is a big event for our club and this year was no exception. Visitors are referred to this page which has a more detailed report on the doings of the June long weekend.

Autumn Field Day

As is the custom, the club participated in the Autumn Field Day 2010. An HF station was manned by VK5EE and VK5DJ and easily outgunned the embattled VHF/UHF group with Col VK5DK, Gary VK5JR, Steve VK5GL and James VK5HJP. Still they put up a good fight and claimed more points, even for a 2 metre contact to Brian VK5FMID in Mt Gambier. Tom and John claimed that they could almost throw a rock that far from our site on The Bluff only 20km from the Mount. The cry of "Foul" was ignored by the VHF station. Earlier Charles VK5HD, our glorious President had done much of the hard work in setting up with Tom and Col but had to attend to urgent family business later. The club made a tidy score thanks to the multipliers on UHF/SHF. Well done everyone.

James proved his skill as cook and also proved that a feed for 5GHz made a great hamburger "flatten outerer".

James VK5HJP and the 5GHz feed attending to the cooking

"Good tucker James", mutters John VK5DJ getting stuck into the hamburger

Col VK5DK and Gary VK5JR get serious on 70cm

Above photos courtesy of Tom VK5EE behind the camera.

The scores for the 6 hour participation in the field day were:

HF: 168 contacts for 336 points
2M: 17 contacts 374 points
432MHz: 9 contacts and 182 points
1296MHz: 9 contacts and 180 points
2400MHz: 3 contacts and 70 points
5600MHz: 4 contacts and 90 points
10000MHz: 5 contacts and 110 points

A grand total of 214 contacts and 1342 points.

Andrew VK5LAC ties the knot on 9 January. Congratulations Penny and Andrew.

DXpedition to Northern NSW 4-12 January 2010

In early January four intrepid hams from SERG visited Laurieton in Northern NSW (350km North of Sydney) to attempt to communicate with the boys on Norfolk Island.
Col VK5DK provided the equipment from 50MHz to 24GHz while Tom VK5EE, David VK5HDW and John VK5DJ provided labour and support for Col.

We stayed in a cabin in a caravan park just out of Laurieton. No airconditioning made it interesting going, especially for David in the top bunk of the small room.
Weather was hot and humid, a real test for we southern boys. Fortunately, Tom acted as the mosquito magnet and protected the rest of us to some degree, although a couple of times we had to hang onto his legs to stop him being carried away.

View from North Brother looking over Laurieton NSW toward Norfolk Island 1400km East.

David VK5HDW managed the echolink and text comms with Norfolk, watched by John VK5DJ while Col VK5DK waits patiently for the band to open. Tom, as cameraman doesn't feature.

Our cameraman Tom VK5EE minus body, arms and legs which were unfortunately devoured by mozzies.

Col operates 10GHz from one of the observation platforms. The antennas and dishes
created a lot of interest from tourists who asked questions about what we were doing.
On one day a wedding was conducted next to our installation and we had a number of wedding guests call in for a chat.

The friendly park rangers visited and were supportive of our visit.

Overview of site Generator out of view to left Antenna pole supporting 6m, 2m, 70cm beams

1296 dish in left foreground Col at operating position Support for beams visible at back of dish

We took a day off from operating to visit Neil VK2EI at Port Macquarie.

We also visited Mark VK2AMS in Taree and here he returns the visit to our portable location

A nice feed of prawns on fresh bread rolls was provided by Grant VK2MAX
Grant at left, John VK5DJ and David VK5HDW tuck in.

John VK2EM shows John his portable beam made from electricians' conduit and clips. A really nice system.

Mark, John and Col talk feeds for dishes.

While at the site we had a number of visitors. Great to see Neil, Grant, Mark, John and Russell VK2NBG (thanks for the drinks and snacks fellas).

Results were good. Col got to check out all the gear from 50MHz to 24GHz and made local contacts from the excellent site. We contacted Norfolk Island on 6metres and finally on the last night we worked them on 144.100MHz at 5*1 signals on SSB. The signals did improve as the evening progressed with a peak of 5*9. We did try 432MHz and heard CW from them but didn't complete. Unfortunately there was a lot of power leak coming out of the town of Laurieton although it stopped long enough for us to get through to Norfolk Island.

Thanks to Mark we did get a photo of the whole group:
Tom VK5EE, John VK5DJ, David VK5HDW and Col VK5DK

A view of the yagis pointing to Sydney