The Girl Guides have a site based in Callemondah, Brookfield in New South Wales. The link to their website for this location is ->here<-
This is also being developed as a JOTA site VK2PV, VK2SD, VK2ON, VK2HPV and my contributions have been a little beer and money to help the cause along. The brains of the outfit is Peter - VK2PV. The hardware development director is Jaye VK2SD. The Committee Chairperson is Aaron - VK2ON.
It turns out this is an excellent radio site and we are all privileged to be supporting the Girl Guides in their work with the young girls that come through the site for their JOTA weekends.
My FT-101Z seems to have developed a fault on TX. Low Power output up to 35 watts and then the power takes off to about 150 or more. I put this down to the power output tubes going into oscillation. I note there is a comment on the Fox Tango site about replacing a coupling cap in the PA stage. I will look into this further and update my progress. If anyone as suggestions please feel free to leave comments below.
I have had several Olviia contacts with Danny - ON4VT on 30m. I had a brief CW chat with him last night on 40m and this morning he emailed a QSL card he designed for my eQSL.cc. It was a very kind and generous gift... so thank you Danny.
I don't often get the chance to run my old FT-101Z radio. Yesterday I hooked it up to a soundcard interface and ran APRS packet on 40m for a few hours. I was pleased that it was able to hold frequency and didn't drift once it warmed up. Here's a picture.
This weekend is the ARRL 10m CW/SSB contest. The noise on the band is making it difficult. Here on the scope is it about S5 - S6 level. This is fairly typical noise at this time of the day and it makes me suspect a rooftop solar power system in the street may be the cause. So far I am hearing VR2's, JA, VK7, and ZL stations.
I have been good friends with Aaron - VK2ON for quite some time, at least 17 years or so. He called me one day to tell me he has been asked to play in a Dire Straits Tribute band with a bunch of famous guys that I have never heard of. My response was, 'You play the drums?' Well... Alethea, friends, Brett and Jodie Ryan attend the Lizottes concert and I was completely dumbfounded. I didn't know Aaron played the drums... and this is how I find this out.
I have lost track of time but about 10 years ago I met G4APL on AMTOR. I was using an MFJ-1278 TNC at the time and he convinced me to spend a huge sum of money on a Pactor modem. After much thought and shopping around I purchased an SCS-PTCII-Pro from a Sailing Business in Canada. Here the model with Pactor 3 license for the best price I could find at the time.
Now the bands are picking up, Paul and I are able to resume our Pactor QSO's almost every night.
This photo was taken a few years ago. When I had the camera out I didn't realise what I had captured until I arrived home. According to an Australian National University dinosaur expert this is not a dinosaur.
NEWS: The possibility of VK amateurs having access to the 5 MHz (60m) band has receded with the ACMA, our communications regulator, refusing an amateur allocation.
The main reason given was interference to other users, including defence, who also use 5 MHz frequencies.
Meanwhile, across the Tasman, New Zealand amateurs did have 60m access but their trial was not renewed.
