Peter, VK2TTP handled 6-meters during the contest.
In Australia it is late spring, with some pretty unsettled weather, as a bunch of Aussie ham radio operators from the Sydney area set up camp on Mount Tomah, in the Blue Mountains for the November 2011 VHF/UHF Field Day radio contest. The hot weather has been showing itself for a few days, and then disappearing, then coming back again; and parts of the state are in flood from recent heavy rain.
The two early birds in the amateur radio group, all members of the HADARC (Hornsby and Districts Amateur Radio Club) arrived on Friday afternoon. First was Justin VK2CU, who even checked the site earlier in the week, and then I arrived just after 5pm on Friday evening. The rain was pounding down, so we both set up our tents and prepared to settle in for the night. Our chosen location was near the Mount Tomah Rural Fire Brigade shed close to Charley’s Road and off the Bells Line of Road.
Our Grid Square locator was FG56fk. Amateur Radio operators use Grid Squares to award points for distance and difficulty during Field Days and Radio Contests. Each time a contact is made with another licensed radio ham, the two stations exchange their callsigns, their location (by grid square) and a combined signal-report and an index number.
This data is fed into a software program that keeps tally and warns if you are trying to make another contact with someone you have already contacted. The rules state you have to wait three hours before speaking to them again on the same band and mode; but if you change mode, the band, or both — then it is allowed to score more points for you both.
Several club members dropped in to chat on Saturday.
By ten o’clock Friday night, our third member, David, drove up in his station-wagon with his 20 x 30 foot canvas tarpaulin that we use as sheltered working area for our radio equipment. By this time I was dry and snug inside my tent and in my sleeping bag, so I was very glad to confirm over the VHF radio that the guys were going to wait until morning before setting up all the gear.
Fortunately the rain lightened up considerably by 7:00 am when I wondered over with my mug of hot tea in hand. So we all had a cuppa before erecting the tarp, rigging up the tables and the radio transceivers, and erecting the poles and tripods which steadied the VHF and UHF antennas which would be on air in single-sideband mode. The microwave circuits were handled by Jason VK2CU, who used his little Yaesu FT-817 all-band transceiver to inject a low-powered signal into a set of homebrew transverters and matching linear amplifiers that broadcast the signal into his trailer-mounted dish antenna.
Jason used an ancient 2-meter band FM radio to liaise with the hams he was sending to, so they could line up their antennas on each other and make the microwave band links — on the ham 23 cm and 13 cm bands and beyond.
I sat on the 2m VHF band and called CQ Contest on upper sideband on 144.150 MHz and sometimes moved up slightly to avoid QRM from other stations. Once I had exchanged details with a contact, I was meant to tell them that they could make contact with the club station (callsign VK2MA Portable) on six meters and 70 cms as well. And if they had the microwave bands too, then there would be extra points as well by communicating with Justin and his microwave transverters.
We played radio until 10:30pm on the Saturday and then went to bed. No rain overnight, but howling winds non-stop. But we slept soundly, Justin and I in our separate tents. Peter and Dave had not brought tents but had mattresses and slept in their station wagons.
The contest ran from noon Saturday to noon Sunday, but we had to start dismantling the station more than an hour ahead of schedule because the strong wind was threatening to bring the tarpaulin (plus its metal frame and strip lights) down onto the radio equipment, which could have been a costly disaster. So we finished the weekend a bit earlier than planned.
I still haven’t passed on the data file from the logging program we all used, the excellent VKCL contest logger that is designed especially for Australian amateur radio contests. I guess I had better contact Justin soon, so all our results can be merged and the whole shebang entered in the contest. Then we will find out how we scored. The club, HADARC, usually does pretty well, thanks mostly to the high scores that Justin earns for us with all his microwave band equipment for 23 cm, 13cm and beyond.
73 de David VK2DMH
PS: Feel free to enjoy my short video of the event below, and you can click this link to see the rest of my photographs on Google Plus as well.
Update, Christmas Eve (Dec 24th) 2011.
I have just received an email from Justin that contains a pdf of our certificate from the Wireless Institute of Australia for the VHF/UHF Competition. We scored sixth place for the whole of Australia (all states and territories) and were top of the list (First) for New South Wales. Well done, everybody! I shall attach the pdf certificate below, in case you want to see what it looks like.
And, oh yes… I wish everybody out there a very enjoyable Christmas to you, your family and friends, whatever your faith may be, and whether you are an Amateur Radio operator or not. This is meant to be a time of goodwill for all men and women. And I also hope that you and your loved ones have a peaceful and a prosperous new year in 2012.
