Cape Liptrap Weekend 2010

About six weeks before the lighthouse weekend Lino VK3EI, Les VK3MLM and myself John VK3DQ made the trip to Cape Liptrap to investigate sites for operation for the Lighthouse weekend. On arrival in the area on quite a nice sunny day we were rather dismayed to find the area very wet, the official camping area at Bear Gully was waterlogged with large pools of water, up at the lighthouse itself there was evidence of erosion and the newly erected “no camping” signs together with the lack on either power, water or toilets combined with the single wire high voltage freed to the lighthouse itself soon made us decide that operations at the lighthouse would not be possible.

So we decided to make a tour of the area to see what alternatives we could find and the reader will understand our delight when we found a complex of four cottages, Bear Gull Coastal Cottages, approximately 5 km from the lighthouse between the camping ground and the Cape situated overlooking the ocean with a large area to allow the “Antenna Farm” to be erected.

We introduced ourselves to Garry the operator of the complex and were given a friendly welcome a tour of the cottages and grounds. So back to Melbourne we headed and over a meal break at the Inverloch Hotel we made our plans for a major radio weekend.

Within a week we had our team all organized and ready to go and there was much discussion about the event on our local repeater. The Team were a total of eleven hams staying for the weekend and another who joined us for a day visit They were:

Jean VK3VIP, Les VK3MLM, Lino VK3EI, John VK3DQ, Peter VK3ADO, Bob VK3TKZ, Fred VK3JM, Graham VK3DOG, Keith VK3FT, Craig VK3NCR & Mark VK3FMGF.

Saturday morning dawned cloudy in Melbourne and at 7am the group met at the bakery at Tooradin for coffee and to pick up fresh bread and soon after the “convoy” was assembled, we headed off down the Bass Highway via Kilcunda, Wonthaggi, Inverloch and Tarwin Lower. As the journey progressed the weather became worse and worse with heavy rain and strong winds developing and on arrival at Cape Liptrap conditions were very wet and windy. However this did not slow our team of antenna erectors down for a moment with our action man Graham VK3DOG deciding to strip off and don his wetsuit and within the hour an impressive array of antennas and masts were erected in a very wet and soggy grassed area at the cottages.

The station team in the meantime had set up our three HF station and an 2m / 70cm station and at 11am hot soup and crusty bread was the order of the day as the station came on the air.

Equipment used: Two operating positions using IC706MKIIG both exciting solid state liner amplifiers and a Flex Radio 3000 operating at 100watts with a 26in LCD display covered the HF side of things with a Yeasu 7800r and a Yeasu 2800m for 2m and 70cm.

The cottages were warm and comfortable, our station was set up in “The Rookery” which is a large three bedroom house and we were able to have a separate area in which to operate the station and another in which to socialize when not operating , this worked very well and many good stories were told in the warm glow of the wood fire.

Saturday dinner was a BBQ of eye fillet steak with pork and beef snags and salad and of course a couple of “dusty” bottles of red.

The station operated late into the night and Sunday morning dawned fine and clear and the early risers were able to capture some good DX contacts before breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon ( not bad two dozen eggs and a kilo of bacon vanished in very quick time and was followed up by toast and tea and coffee).

The station operated solidly for all of Sunday with a nice sandwich lunch being provided by Jean VK3VIP and Coffee throughout the day was in the capable hands of Peter VK3ADO.

Jean VK3VIP lead the charge for the most contacts followed by our DX machine Keith VK3FT who's knowledge and experience was very useful and on return home the tally was some 387 Stations contacted with about 30% being overseas with 40m providing some great results.

We operated on 80m 40m 20m 17m and of course 2m and 70cm, we had equipped ourselves with band pass filters which enabled operations on three bands at the same time. All the radio's and equipment worked faultlessly for the entire weekend.

Sunday dinner saw the team sit down to a meal of Roast Pork, Roast Beef and Roast Chickens with all the trimmings followed by Chocolate orange cake and Cheesecake which was enough for most but some still had room for peaches and custard.

Again the station operated late into the night but was at some stage partially interrupted by Port and Havana Cigars taken on the patio, its a hard life but someone has to do it .

Monday morning dawned fine and clear and after breakfast the task of taking down the antennas and packing up proceeded smoothly, although Graham VK3DOG had to be dragged off 40m he just had to make a couple more contacts.

So off we went in convoy for a last look at the lighthouse which was quite difficult as the path into the lighthouse was flooded in several places so not everyone made it . . thence we traveled to Wonthaggi where lunch and coffee were taken at the “Working Mans club” with its interesting displays of the regions coal mining past . . after lunch it was all aboard for the drive back to home with memories of a great weekend.

John VK3DQ