VHF-UHF Spring Field Day 2010

Over the weekend of 20th - 21st November a small group of EMDRC Members traveled to Mclaughlans lookout to contest the VHF/UHF Spring Field Day.

On Friday 19th Peter VK3QI and Mike VK3AVV left early to setup 6m and the microwave bands. Early Saturday morning Jack VK3WWW and Steve VK3QW arrived to setup 2m and 70cm. Max VK3WT was unable to attend this event and Steve offered to fill his spot on 70cm. Weather was excellent, clear skies and no wind. We were 'on air' ready to go by 11:00 am. Our usual setup is 6m VK3AVV, 2m VK3WWW, 70cm VK3QW and 23cm + VK3QI. We operated on bands up to 24ghz but microwave conditions were very poor over the weekend so a lot of the contacts were extremely difficult. Fortunately some of the keen operators are competent at CW which helped with some of the contacts.

All of the station setup worked well except for 2m FM. Before the event Peter VK3QI and Jack VK2WWW had checked out the 2m yagis, repairing a couple of faults with the gamma matches. These antennas only go out on field days but the constant transporting of them caused some damage to the gamma arm connection. I am planning a rework of the harness and switch box arrangement for this band so with luck by the Summer Field Day the 2m antenna will not be an issue.

Some members said they had difficulty in locating us on the bands, reason for this would be that we rarely operate on FM. It is very difficult to arrange skeds or just sit there listening for signals. If you are looking for the club station or any other station, I suggest you log into VKLOGGER or coming up on VK3REC and ask where we are.

Even though propagation was poor we still managed to work into VK1, VK2, VK5 and VK7 signals were not great (with the exception of VK2KRR always strong) but we did manage to get them in the log.

If you are available over the weekend of 15th & 16th January 2011 we would love to have you come along to visit or even stay and assist with the operation of the club station. If you are staying at home maybe over the holidays it might be a time to consider improving the VHF/UHF station to include working simplex rather than only repeaters.

Thanks to all who took the time to give us some contacts, and also thanks to Peter Mike and Steve for operating the station. Jack VK3WWW

VHF-UHF Spring Field Day - Slide Show Link