VK2KRR website updates

[VK3MEG]

nice leigh I might have to put my yagi up on the tower vertical

[VK2KRR]

Thanks Steve, depends what u want to use the antenna for? Ive got both polarities available. I mainly use FM as another source of signals from many different locations to provide more of an idea of what the propagation is doing. Have repeaters and stations on simplex. Its also fairly handy for me to be able to help promote long distance communication on 2m and above to people who wouldn't usually be exposed to it, like those who only use the local repeater or think that 2m or 70cm only goes across town Some people are quite amazed to hear a station coming into their local repeater from hundreds or thousands of km away, which hopefully could spur some of them on to look into it further and put up some yagis or even venture onto SSB operation one day.

[VK2ZRH]

Keep up the good work, Leigh

73, Roger Harrison VK2ZRH

[VK2KRR]

Thanks Roger

[VK2KRR]

A sneak peak at the new antennas here, 4 x 17 element LFA yagis by Innovantenna UK. Boom length is 40 ft or about 12m. Antenna spacing on the frame is 4.6m horizontally and 4.4m vertically. Moves about a bit in the wind but hopefully will stay up there OK.
Only got them up last night. Need a bit more testing time to get more of an idea of how they perform, but, seems promising.

[VK3SMC]

Nice!!!!

[VK5BC]

Look huge Leigh, great work. Is the horizontal support between yagi's fibreglass.

Brian
VK5BC

[VK3CM]

I would expect no less from you Leigh haha,
Well done mate, cant wait to get back up there and see them in real life.
cheers
Brenton
VK3CM

[VK2KRR]

Thanks all, its taken about 9 months to get to this stage! All going well, these will stay up for as long as possible.

[VK3BA]

Excellent! No need for me to have more than three elements to work you in future

[VK2KRR]

yeh I'll do all the work for you Nik

[VK2KRR]

Image I took from the top of The Rock Hill, toward Mt Gambier on the weekend. My QTH is down lower left of screen a bit.

Top of The Rock summit toward Mt Gambier

[VK4FP]

Nice location Leigh...Flat terrain...Good ground gain effect ....Lucky you...You could always move up here in suburbia ,heaps of obstructions, plenty of QRM , and PLI....LOL...

[VK2KRR]

Photo of the antennas here before the sun comes up above the hill, Tues 18th March 2014. Most antennas beaming generally in western Melbourne direction or slightly further west.

VK2KRR Antennas 18.03.14

From left to right.

On the north tower 4 x 17 ele 2m SSB yagis 40ft booms, about 80ft to the top yagis. Around 35ft mark is 12ft dish for 23cm band. If you look close enough you will see the 160m Inverted V dipole starting down a few meters from the top of the tower and heading to the left. This is also used for 6m WSPR monitoring.
Middle tower holds 4 x 13 ele 2m FM yagis around 40ft at top. Above this is 2 x 19 element 70cm FM yagis at 45ft or so.
South tower holding 2 x 10 ele AIS 162 MHz marine tracking yagis about 50ft and above this is a 38 ele 70cm SSB yagi with 30ft boom about 60ft level.

[VK2KRR]

Install of XRef board for locking the IC910 to GPS 10 MHz Ref signal. See http://www.vk3hz.net/XRef/XRef_Home.html

Will allow use of 70cm and 23cm on WSPR now. Thanks David VK3HZ & Andy VK5LA for the advice and encouragement.

XRef to IC910 wiring

Xref secured in place in IC910

BNC installed for GPS 10 MHz input

Datum GPS Receiver

[VK2KRR]

Thought I would pop a photo up from 2013 before I removed my HF & 6m Yagis. Dont think i've posted it up before.
The top is the 6m Optibeam yagi OB6-6. Which I now have another one of, waiting for a spot to be put into service.
Under that is the HF yagi OB17-4 for 40,20,15 & 10m bands. To big of an antenna to be above the house with the 3 lowest bands getting little use and a huge wind catching area, was decided to be removed.
In this evening photo they are beaming out towards Europe.

Optibeam Yagis OB17-4 & OB6-6

Thats the 3.8m dish for 23cm down below. And notice the 11kV (22?) lines and transformer, not far away. If correctly installed and maintained, power poles/transformers/insulators dont make any RF QRM.

[VK3BA]

Nice pic. Might have to borrow it for the desktop on my pc...

[VK2KRR]

This is from a post I made on the World Tropo Ducting Network today and will probably put it more permanently on my website soon:

El-Nino Tracker on BoM site-
Mostly for Australian and Pacific areas, if your interested to see if some of your Tropo duct openings were in periods of El Nino or La Nina or Neutral climatic periods, this link could be a good thing for you.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/tracker/

You can look right back to January 2000 and see what the status was in each month.
Im going to have a look back in my logs, see if I can make out any correlation of openings to certain ESNO periods.

Looking at my Tropo Logs since 2002 http://www.vk2krr.com/vhf_signal_enhancement_log.htm and comparing with the ESNO graph. I wont analyse the VK6 openings as the VK6 activity can be very sporadic. This has been increasing but is probably due to the station improvements and use of digital modes like WSPR into VK6DZ (thanks Derek!). VK5 openings are easier to gauge.

VK5 Tropo Openings Per Season - (season covers from 1st July to end of June which covers a full summer season southern hemisphere)

2002/2003 - 19 : El NINO. Recoverd from a previous La Nina period in 2001 and Neutral early 2002, breaking into a full El Nino over summer of 02/03. I had a basic set up for this period and conditions were super!

2003/2004 - 30 : NEUTRAL. Broke off from El Nino and was Neutral most of the time. The highest amt of VK5 openings Ive recorded.

2004/2005 - 18 : NEUTRAL. This period was mostly Neutral.

2005/2006 - 25+ : NEUTRAL. This period was mostly Neutral. This period could have also equalled 03/04 season, I didn't record things to well and lost count at 25. There was a lot.

2006/2007 - 3 : EL NINO. This period was Neutral but built to El Nino by summer, but also dropped to La Nina alert status by the end of the season. Very poor season.

2007/2008 - 3 : La NINA. Another poor season, mostly La Nina.

2008/2009 - 8 : La NINA. This was mostly Neutral with a dip to La Nina over the summer months. Another reasonably poor period. Everyone getting very depressed lol.

2009/2010 - 12 : EL NINO. Rise from mostly Neutral state to El Nino. Some improvement in the amt of openings.

2010/2011 - 15 : La NINA. Mostly La Nina state. A few more openings than the previous season.

2011/2012 - 10 : La NINA. Neutral into La Nina, and back to Neutral later iin season. Openings dropped back.

2012/2013 - 22 : NEUTRAL. Neutral period. Big jump in openings.

2013/2014 - 26 : NEUTRAL. Neutral period. Beginning to move toward El Nino in the last few months. Another good season.

Its possible to draw a conclusion from this that mostly Neutral seasons are good seasons for openings in southern Australia, west of the great dividing range.
It could possibly be further broken down to state that Neutral (to El Nino) seasons following periods of La Nina (higher rainfall/inland humidity) can produce better chances of tropospheric openings in these southern areas.

We are currently heading toward an El Nino period again, so it could well be that the coming 2014/2015 season could again produce numerous good openings.
Time will tell.

[VK2KRR]

Tropo opening on Tuesday 13th October.

Some great Tropospheric Radio conditions this morning from here.
Monitoring 70cm WSPR during the night the band didn't look real good, until the sun rose and spurred things along, maybe heating an upper layer above the cooler ground air. The humidity was also up to 89%. Things picked up and I was lucky to have 5 stations on 70cm WSPR looking this way. Listed below are the stations and the max reported signal strength of my 10 watt WSPR signal.
Peter VK5PJ @ 733 km +19dB!!
Jeff VK5GF @ 763 km +12dB
Phil VK5AKK @ 758 km -3dB (Phil came on late)
Michael VK5ZEA @ 1018 km -4dB
Derek VK6DZ @ 2664 km. Nil reports.

A few long distance 12 watt, 162 MHz Marine Tracking signals were picked up as follows:
Ship ID No 005030276 @ 2322 km, near Esperance WA.
Coral Sea @ 2222 km.
Galloway Express @ 2065 km.
Coral Bay @ 1701 km.
ANL Waratah @ 1107 km.

Numerous 2m repeaters were heard, including a contact on VK5RAC at Port Lincoln @1020 km with Michael VK5ZEA.