Over 25 years of poorly built and installed antennas, i have finally achieved #DXCC with 100 confirmed countries on Ham Radio. In the last couple of months with Covid19 Lockdown in Australia, i repaired my poorly built HF wire antenna and have started playing FT8 when time permits. This mode divides opinion, is it real…
The national library of Australia has a 45min interview with Max , you can listen to the interview on the NLA website using this link http://nla.gov.au/nla.oh-vn2239852 This week marks a very important milestone in global communications for Australia. No prizes for guessing that it was a major achievement of radio amateurs. The first direct two-way radio…
Sunday 19th was the Ballarat Ham radio clubs annual Hamfest!. I had walked past an item at the event last year and regretted it, so packed up the car and grabbed my big child Nathan, and we went for a daddy/son day out – road trip – Hamfest – Sota Activation!. Nathan had a busy…
The trouble with operating from a car is, modern cars with electronic systems can be RF noisy! The diesel D4D engine in my Prado 150 series is no exception. With many sources of noise on the HF bands. From throttle noise to electronic injector noise, and base car background noise. Operating on some parts of…
Another Project for the Raspberry Pi when I get a chance is to try WSPR using the box. To make sure this works properly, it is recommended you use a filter of some sort. I ended up with a simple 10MHz (30m) bandpass filter as a kit from kits and parts in the US. it took 2 weeks…
So, you have a mac computer, but you are also into ham radio, they don’t mix, or do they? This post is a pointer to some mac solutions for your ham radio exploits (or the ones I’ve discovered). Not everything you would want to do is easy or simple on a mac, and some things…
In an effort to better understand the performance of my ft817 and the ZM-2 ATU, I’ve been exploring different random length wire antennas while camping. I read an article posted on a sota forum about random wire lengths and how to choose an efficient length, this article talks about the importance of choosing a length…
This year, I assisted the VK3ER/p (EMDRC) team comprising of Peter – VK3QI, Jack – VK3WWW, Mike VK3AVV and Jonas VK3VF in participating in the Spring 2013 VHF/UHF Field Day. The club has been a very active competitor in this contest over the years, and we have a very good spot at Mclaughlins Lookout near Blackwood…
Ticket Green D43, Green D43, as i quickly check my tickets, I won.. EMDRC club has a raffle each meeting, 3 tickets for $5 with a good selection of items raffled throughout the year typically around the $50 mark. My Prize this time, a cheap and cheerful Baofeng UV-5RE hand held, pre programmed and ham band…
PSB5 has been flown. The device was launched at around 11:30am north west of Bendigo and I was able to track the device from around 12:30 when it was heigh enough to be seen from home. The path was very different from that expected when they ran the prediction 2 weeks ago, the device headed…