And now from Spud VK8ZWM
Saturday was threatening rain so the thought of working in a hall was great. There was a good back fence with 2.5 meter posts under 40 meters long but good for 40m and above near the back of the hall and access was easy. These are all good things for a portable setup.
I came prepared with a proven 80, 40, 30 m dipole array and a 20, 10m dipole array and a 2m 70cm x200 vertical as well covering all bands I thought we may use. To support the antennas I had purchased what I used in Snowtown SA a full length of 25mm 3mm wall aluminium tube with a pulley attached at the top and a 32mm 3mm walled tube as the bottom section. A hose clamp to set the height. I telescoped the poles and set the height at around 10 meters and attached the poles with rope through the pulley to the back fence with 50 kg cable ties. They work. Laid out the
dipoles and attached them to the halyard, fitted the new lengths of RG58 and tried to pull them up.
Now the story goes that the 80/40/30 was on this same pole down south so I reckoned it would be ok here. It
wasn’t. The 25mm pipe bent into a near L shape. Mmmm problem. I had brought the older poles I have used for
years and another length of 32 mm tube for the VHF antenna as well. So I packed up the bent pole, put the 7.7
meter steel electrical conduit pole up with the pulley at the top and away we went. Coaxial baluns up, feeders up
untangle the wires and attach to the corner posts and I hope they work!!! After all that.
Up with the X200 with RG213 on it in amongst a tree but ok by the gate. Voila!
7300 transceiver, desk microphone, IC706 backup transceiver, new Waverly power distribution, Meanwell 500w 12v
supply new and never tried, coax switch in line. Yaesu Fusion VHF, UHF transceiver and speaker up and access to
7000 checked. All good. I had my DSE 0 – 15v 60 amp variable supply well used as well as a cover. Lets check the hf with the VNA, yep all good the antennas will work within the auto tuner in the 7300. I had a tuner anyway just in
case.
I was ready to go before roll call. Phew!
HF conditions haven’t changed over the last few years of doing JOTA and the Moyle portable. Terrible! I heard
VK4CNS in Cairns as really the only HF station on the bands all day and they were too weak to work with the 10 or so
joeys, cubs and scouts at the hall. Brian VK8BDM at Howard Springs camp was a saviour really, in fact we were to
each other. All those there managed to get started talking to someone they didn’t know over the radio.
“Conversationalese” doesn’t exist in the kids of today (Ed. Did it ever?). Coaching them to talk and start a
conversation was hard work. Nerves was another. I had one joey who was happy enough with a lot of thought
breaks and coaching to converse but he was climbing all over the chair. Thankful for the desk mic and a good bit of
gain and compression he was heard. We had a lot of fun with the kids, Nigel VK8FNAH the leader there helped out
with some of the cubs as well which was great.
Overall a good day, lesson learnt with the 25mm pole, back to the steel ones. Radios worked well.
On VHF I was able to talk through the 3 vhf repeaters available from the site, 7000, 6800, and 7100 noise free. I tried
C4FM through 7000 when I worked out how to do it again into a few known rooms that I had written in my diary but
no response from any of them, I didn’t try any overseas rooms though just Australian ones. Pity.
I did shake hands with them all using my left hand (Scout shake) so they knew I was an old scout (Queens). (Ed. I
hope you sanitised that hand!) More learning for them. A great day and thanks Nigel for the invite to assist the
Alawa Group with JOTA