2011 Spring VHF/UHF Field Day

[VK3YE]

Talking about six, I wasn't seriously in the field day but it was too good an opportunity not to test a new pedestrian mobile antenna for 15 - 6m.

Today's weather was a pleasant change to yesterday.

So first thing this morning I jumped out the shower, ran up the street and climbed the area's highest structure near there (after an unsuccessful attempt with maritime mobile).

The video shows the result.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HddeCGOpQbY



Thanks to all who participated and made it a success.

[VK5ZD]

Hi

As a last minute decision and with the assistance of two of our club members (Peter, VK5KX and Scott, VK5FSKS), I decided to operate under the club callsign of VK5LZ. There were a couple of problems on the day, but overall we had a good time

The weather was cool and windy but, thankfully, remained dry. We made a site change during the late afternoon to activate a different grid square and continued operating until 10pm.

Me braving the elements at the microwave desk.

Scott (VK5FSKS) in more comfortable surroundings at the 6m/2m/70cm desk.

73
Iain

[VK3BQ]

Wet..

i visited/helped the vk3er/p guys for the first leg of saturday, and it was very wet!.

it rained all the time i was at the hill. all the way to the hill, all the way home saturday night. but they have a nice / well organised setup, an it works very well, inside the tent, you wouldn't know it was raining.

thanks for letting me pop in/assist.

12 photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/asphotos/s ... 177439957/

Peter with the microwave gear

_MG_2530-6 by asphotos, on Flickr

The antenna setup.

_MG_2553-12 by asphotos, on Flickr

microwave setup

_MG_2543-9 by asphotos, on Flickr

my time-lapse video of the antennas moving around seems to have failed (wonder if the camera didn't like the large shf power anyway a video of the weather/antennas arriving and leaving the site (that it won't let me imbed)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... qyGW1O9-fw

[VK5ZT]

Hi all

As usual I was out and about in the van carrying all bands to 24 Ghz.

I trialled a new mount system on the van so that I did not have to deploy tripods etc. when arriving at a site.
This included three dishes and a yagi on a frame on the back of the van and other antennas on the roof.

Unfortunately pressures of work meant I had little preparation time and could not include the rotator I wanted to install.
This proved to be a frustration when dealing with stations that were anywhere within a 180 degree arc. I had to move the van sometimes to get good signals.

I started out at the bottom of Yorke Peninsula at the Port Giles silos PF84 (see the photo on the WIA VHF/UHF Contests page, if its still there!)

Conditions were pretty poor for some reason. I was beaming into a raincloud to get across St Vincents Gulf. Only a few contact on 23 and 9 cms were made, along with a few on the VHF bands. Realising I was getting nowhere, I moved north, calling in on Andy VK5LA who was operating out of a beachshack at Wool Bay. On arrival at Ardrossan PF85 I found the lookout was closed for maintenance so had to move up into the hills behind the town. I found a likely spot and was able to work Iain VK5ZD operating as VK5LZ in PF96 on all bands to 10 Ghz. We could hear signals on 24 Ghz but there was some sort of noise problem and we were not able to exchange numbers. I also worked John VK5NI across the gulf on various bands up to 10 Ghz and a collection of VHF stations around Adelaide.

Moving north, I stopped at Port Clinton, just across the transition to PF95. My initial site turned out to be in the middle of the world's largest bullant nest and they were somewhat upset with my presence. Rapid redeployment was required!!! From here I managed all bands to 10 Ghz up to Iain who was still in PF96 at Nantawarra and also a few contacts to VK5NI and others north of Adelaide. 24 Ghz was no better...plenty of signal but all noise!!

I continued my northward travel until I crossed into PF96, just south of Iain's location. Working him was easy at the range involved. Made a few other contacts on bands up to 23 cm before moving on to meet Iain and the 5LZ crew at Nantawarra. This is a favorite site of mine and only about 20 mins south of my home in Snowtown. As the 23 cm beam had suffered a mechanical failure and 24 Ghz was a dead loss I decided to go home to make repairs and do some tests on the 12 Ghz synthesiser in the 24 Ghz unit. All this took about an hour with no joy on the 24 Ghz setup. While I did that, VK5LZ relocated to a site we have used before near Kulpara in PF95.

Hitting the road again at around 1930 local, I headed west into the fields northwest of Kulpara in PF86. From a low hill I could work back to VK5LZ on all bands to 10 Ghz. The hill I was on was actually in the middle of a wheat field which fortunately had recently been harvested. I did not come to the attention of the local farmer who lived just down the hill so avoided the usual lengthy explanation of what I was doing. Not many other contacts out there as it is shielded from the city by low hills. By now it was around 2100 local so I relocated to PF95, just down the road and worked VK5LZ on all bands again before joining them at Kulpara and enjoyed a coffee with the crew. As things were pretty quiet, I headed back home at around 2200 for some much needed rest.

On Sunday I went back to Nantawarra PF96 and worked a few stations up to 23 cms and a solid contact to Keith VK5AKM at Wasleys on 9 cms. The Nantawarra site is just north of a grid transition so a 5 minute drive put me into PF95 to work everyone again! I discovered I had left some items of clothing on the roadside the previous night at Kulpara when I was getting changed into warmer clothing. I decided to retrieve them before returning to Nantawarra for the last half hour of the contest and 3 hours since I was last there. This turned out to be a messy exercise as I took a wrong turn when coming back on an unfamiliar road and when trying to correct the error without retracing my steps I found myself in a huge wheat field and ended up crossing it to get to a convenient exit....Remember, I am not in a four wheel drive!! Some interesting moments were had dealing with very sandy soil and deep weeds!!

I made it back to PF96 with 15 mins to go and managed contacts with everyone I could hear including Keith at Wasleys again on 9 cms.

Total travelling distance...just under 600Kms. Equipment failures...broken 23 cm beam which I fixed, 24 Ghz non-functional...still under investigation.
Interference from computer monitor in the van on 2 metres. I will be replacing that with an industrial RF screened unit with a touchscreen before the next outing. All other microwave gear worked well and the dishes survived the rough roads (around 100 ks of dirt and paddocks!)

In terms of numbers, there seemed to be a lack of operators around but a couple of new faces on the microwave bands. Not checked the final score but it was just short of about 5000 points I think.

Just another roving weekend......

Cheers

Tim VK5ZT

[VK3QI]

Tim,

Sounds like a great time was had!

I would be interested to see how you have gone about setting up the dishes on the van, so that they portable.

I have been toying with the idea of how to mount all our 4 dishes on my trailer so that they can be transported assembled, rather than having to assemble them each time we setup.

Rotation seems to be the problem

Cheers

Peter VK3QI (VK3ER/p)

[VK2KRR]

G'day folks, sorry I was not available to provide contacts for the field day, but some fool organised their wedding on the same weekend!
Hope you all had fun.
The wedding was in Canberra, I did see someone with a white 4x4 with a heap of antennas on it heading toward Yass direction on Saturday morning early.
Unfortunately it rained heaps over in VK1 late in the afternoon and evening, so I think anyone who did go portable over there would have got rather wet!

[VK3QI]

Leigh,

We certainly missed you - with many of the usual suspects out of action due to rain events etc. we really had to scratch for some of those further afield grid squares. Nevertheless we did manage to improve on our 2010 Spring Field Day score, so all was not lost.

Having setup our tent and most of the gear from 1.30 p.m. onwards on Friday, we were ready for the heavy rain and wind when it set in late Friday afternoon - consequently we spent a relatively warm and dry weekend in the tent.

Thanks to all those hardy souls who went out and to all the home stations who came up to give out contacts.

One particular thing we noticed, was the dearth of VK4 stations on 6 mx this time. We worked VK5, VK6 and ZL, but no VK4 at all. This is quite different to the last 5 Spring Field days since 2007.

CU in the summer FD in 7 weeks time!

Peter VK3QI (VK3ER/p)

[VK4ADC]

Guys

I noticed the lack of sporadic E prop on 6m too, as did other VK4s who were looking south-ward for contacts. It's not that were weren't operating 6m, it was just that the ionosphere wasn't helping us out.

I have put up a report of my doings, plus a few of the photos, on my website at http://www.vk4adc.com/web/index.php/fie ... -spfd.html

To all who operated, many thanks - and looking forward now to the Summer FD on Jan 14/15 2012 !

[VK3QI]

Doug,

You are quite correct - the sporadic E cloud was hanging out further south than usual.

There was short skip from Melbourne to Adelaide, (but not from our qth 100 kms west of Melbourne and closer to Adelaide)

There was skip from us to ZL and VK6, but nothing into VK4 Brisbane, northern VK4 or northern NSW like there usually is.

That is a great report and some nice pictures on your website.

Cheers

Peter VK3QI (VK3ER/p)

[VK5AKH]

Hi All

I went backpack portable, carried everything in and ran QRP. Was active on 6m 2m 70cm 23cm. I have a blog entry with photos:
http://vk5.akh.id.au/Radio_Blog/Entries ... t_is..html

Looking to improve my 2m station a lot (adding 2x 4el beams) and hope to get across into VK3 during the summer field day as well as adding a microwave band or two.

73
Andy
VK5AKH

[VK4ADC]

The official results are now out for the Spring 2011 FD : http://www.wia.org.au/members/contests/ ... esults.pdf

The Summer 2012 FD is coming up on the 14/15th January so start your preparations...

[VK2ZIW]

Sleep, we ALL need sleep, so, how about 11pm to 5am curfew. I'm 60 and NOT getting any younger. (full stop)

FM activity is almost GONE. Reason, once a contact is made on SSB, no further points can be made by doing FM.
I suggest, if the transceiver at either end is ONLY FM or AM, then points, as for another band. 53.866 AM anybody?
This would encourage field stations to put up two sets of antenna, horizontal and vertical and take along
FM only radios, for the vertical antenna.
This would encourage mobiles to make a short trip to a hill and be 'in the game'.

Hand Helds, could make points from high buildings etc...