Mt Dandenong VK3/VC-025
Activated 5 January 2014
Last Sunday took the family up to the Dandenong Ranges to catch up with friends we hadn't seen for awhile. I threw the radio bag in the car just in case we had the chance to activate Mt Dandenong. The weather was changing for the worse in the afternoon with increasing strong winds and a change on the way but this worked to my advantage for a quick activation.
After leaving our friends we drove to the Kalorama end of Ridge Road and strolled up towards Sky High via Kyeema Track. Last time I was here on 26 April last year it was quiet mid week activation and I was able to set up on a picnic table in the gardens but this time the place was teeming with people. I found a sloping area of grass at the eastern end of the carpark away from the crowd where my antenna wasn't going to be in the way of others. I set up for 40 metres as the stiff winds picked up even more and the cold front blew in dropping the temperature sharply in a few minutes.
With good mobile phone coverage I was able to self spot which resulted in Matt VK2DAG being the first logged at 0505z. I was on air for only 12 minutes as rain started to fall and made 12 contacts in this time including two S2S contacts including Greg VK2FGJW on VK1/AC-035 and Bernard VK2IB on VK3/VE189 before leaving the frequency to Bernard.
Activated 5 January 2014
Last Sunday took the family up to the Dandenong Ranges to catch up with friends we hadn't seen for awhile. I threw the radio bag in the car just in case we had the chance to activate Mt Dandenong. The weather was changing for the worse in the afternoon with increasing strong winds and a change on the way but this worked to my advantage for a quick activation.
After leaving our friends we drove to the Kalorama end of Ridge Road and strolled up towards Sky High via Kyeema Track. Last time I was here on 26 April last year it was quiet mid week activation and I was able to set up on a picnic table in the gardens but this time the place was teeming with people. I found a sloping area of grass at the eastern end of the carpark away from the crowd where my antenna wasn't going to be in the way of others. I set up for 40 metres as the stiff winds picked up even more and the cold front blew in dropping the temperature sharply in a few minutes.
With good mobile phone coverage I was able to self spot which resulted in Matt VK2DAG being the first logged at 0505z. I was on air for only 12 minutes as rain started to fall and made 12 contacts in this time including two S2S contacts including Greg VK2FGJW on VK1/AC-035 and Bernard VK2IB on VK3/VE189 before leaving the frequency to Bernard.