4th May 2013
Today was one of those regular Saturday Morning family orientated run-a rounds where I had to get some household shopping done and drop one of my daughters off at choir practice while my wife was also working.
I was keen to make at least one contact with Paul VK5PAS on one of his summit activations during the week. Until now my work commitments precluded me from any HF radio play so as soon as I had dropped of my daughter at choir, with a window of opportunity of one hour, I went to find the closest parkland possible to set up the FT817 and vertical HF antenna.
I was quickly set up but S6 noise blanketed my reception on 40m – similar to the level I have to endure at home. None the less, I found Paul just coming through the noise floor and logged a contact with him on summit VK5/NE-028. I then moved to another frequency and put out a couple of calls and then made contact with Greg VK2FGJW/p in the Blue Mountains. Light drizzle started then started to fall so I quickly pulled the station apart and packed up.
I only logged these two contacts this time in the space of 10 minutes of air time but it was still a worthwhile exercise in testing out how quickly I could set up, make contacts, pull the station down quickly and move on in trying conditions.
Today was one of those regular Saturday Morning family orientated run-a rounds where I had to get some household shopping done and drop one of my daughters off at choir practice while my wife was also working.
I was keen to make at least one contact with Paul VK5PAS on one of his summit activations during the week. Until now my work commitments precluded me from any HF radio play so as soon as I had dropped of my daughter at choir, with a window of opportunity of one hour, I went to find the closest parkland possible to set up the FT817 and vertical HF antenna.
I was quickly set up but S6 noise blanketed my reception on 40m – similar to the level I have to endure at home. None the less, I found Paul just coming through the noise floor and logged a contact with him on summit VK5/NE-028. I then moved to another frequency and put out a couple of calls and then made contact with Greg VK2FGJW/p in the Blue Mountains. Light drizzle started then started to fall so I quickly pulled the station apart and packed up.
I only logged these two contacts this time in the space of 10 minutes of air time but it was still a worthwhile exercise in testing out how quickly I could set up, make contacts, pull the station down quickly and move on in trying conditions.
