On Saturday of the weekend just past VK2FBOB and I decided that it was a great day to go and do some field testing of our newly finished, dismantlable, dual-guy supported, reinforced 20-odd foot PVC mast. We had decided early that we would scout around for some other accessible mountain top spots to set up and try, instead of our usual destination.

So some heavier gauge tent pegs were organised, Bobs car was packed and we were away. The first port of call was a truck stop on the outskirts of Bathurst, where we picked up some subsistence (ie. some coke, burgers and fries) to get us through the afternoon.

We decided that the best place for us to eat our lunch, was to detour out to... you guessed it; Mt Ovens. A field trip wouldnt be a field trip without at least a quick visit to our favorite spot. At this stage we were thinking we could go up to our usual spot, eat our lunch, have a quick flick through some repeaters and then continue on to another destination. The first suprise of the day came as we approached our not-so-secret setup spot up near the Stoney Road Trig. We noticed something was different... something was missing! Bob had picked it early; the great big (weather?) tower near our spot was gone! Not missing a piece, not moved... gone! We both commented on how strange it was. As soon as we got up there, we jumped out and inspected the now covered over tower site. It defintely didnt look the same with it gone, it was almost earie. This was also the first reminder just how cold the site is. We gain almost 700m over Bathurst, and also lose a few degrees celcius at the same time. It was now that I realised I had forgotten a bigger jumper, gloves and a beanie... again! Luckily Bob was better prepared and all of them checked (why he didnt bring an extra jumper for me to steal is beyond me :P). On a positive note, though, with the tower now removed we have unobstructed 360-degree views. With the trig being one of the highest points in the whole area, it is now the perfect place (more so) for us to fishing for a little bit of VHF DX. Some how I dont think this is the reason the tower was taken down, but we arent going to complain either.

After the initial suprise of the missing tower had faded, and our lunch had been consumed, we quickly flicked around some of the usual repeaters to see what was happening using the dual-band vertical conveniently perched on the front of Bobs car. At this stage there wasnt too much chatter around (other than some chatter on Mt Bindo), and most of the repeaters were silent. Not to be out-done, we decided to unpack our mast, hoist up the little 4-element yagi and give the whole package its debut field test. This was probably about the same time that we realised that Mt Ovens was going to be where we were for the next few hours. Anyway the equipment was unpacked, and we quickly realised that we had forgot to pack our new tent pegs. Doh! The only option we had was some smaller tent pegs that we had used for testing in Bobs backyard. How ever we both knew how fragile they were. Some guy points were picked out and the mast was raised. After some problems with the pegs bending requiring a temporary workbence provided by a nearby stump to straighten out we had 2x2 of the guys locked down. How ever the third peg was now damaged beyond usability. The ground was too hard for it. This required some quick thinking by Bob (as the mast was now starting to get heavy!). He employed the helping hand of some local flora, which provided the last tie-down point. This saw the mast up, and now tied down and ready to use. What normally took us 5mins to do, had taken us upwards of 30mins. This can serve as a reminder for us to pack those tent pegs right now.

With everything now in place, and the yagi now high-up on its temporary home we did another quick sweep through the band towards the east, south and west. This time around there was lots more chatter going on. Mt Ginini down in VK1 territory was coming through well over S9, and a whole bunch of the Sydney repeaters were now also coming through, including some we dont normally get even with the 6-element yagi. Things were starting to heat up. There was now talk of the excellent conditions now on offer on a few of the repeaters, and a quick chat to (I think it was) VK2HBJ (Keith) who mentioned that there had been some VK3's and VK5's on Mt Ginini earlier.

As the afternoon progressed, the temperature continued to drop, our list of reachable repeaters was increasing and we found we had a problem. The little yagi wasnt directional enough. With the conditions as good as they were, the little yagi was acting more like omni-directional vertical. We were getting repeaters off the front, side and back of it, all at the same time. Some frequencies had anywhere upto 5 repeaters coming back, at different audible levels. You are probably now thinking to yourself that the yagi wasnt working properly. Well from the testing we (VK2FBOB, VK2JDS and myself) did when it was first modified for 2m (from VHF televsion), we knew that the beam width was quite wide, but not anything like this. This was also the reason that a 6-element yagi was also built at the same time, which has a narrow beam width. We also started pondering racing into town to get the 6-element, but we decided to persist with the little 4-element.

It wasnt long after we had gone through the band again that we decided to make some contact. We firstly aimed at the repeaters we needed confirmation of identity on. By now we have both become better at picking up the idents of repeaters to decode them, but we had a problem with some of the repeaters we were getting were either populated (requiring a QSO for identification), or were not identing at all. For example there is a repeater we seem to get each trip out there on 146.925 (pointing north) that doesnt appear to ident. Even after around half a dozen CQ calls at various times (over various days) have yet to raise a QSO. So you may notice in the listing below, it shows as unidentified. If someone reads this knows what it may be, feel free to contact us as we are both interested.

Anyway, back on to the report. The earlier problem with had with multiple repeaters on the yagi now posed a problem with us trying to raise QSO's. This first happened when we tried to get into the Coonabarabran repeater on 146.800. Normally from our spot we are able to get into VK2RLE (Heathcoate) on the same frequency. How ever with the conditions, we were now getting it off the back end of the yagi. We tried to call for people on the Coonabarabran repeater, but we also had people on Heathcote wondering what we were doing calling for people that they couldnt hear. This was just the start of it, as we found there was a lot of repeater frequencies where this would happen. It was both confusing and frustrating for both us, and other people listening on repeaters that were not being used, but were getting our signal back at the same time. That 6-element was getting more and more enticing, but it was getting well into the afternoon by this stage.

We were also fortunate enough to stumble in on a simplex QSO that was happening on 146.550, with the yagi pointed east towards Sydney. We were able to have a conversation with VK2SS (Ross), VK2BGL (Steve) and VK2ZDD (Chris). From their reports our signal into Sydney was strong, and they were coming back excellent as well. Unfortunately towards the end of our conversation the conditions changed just enough that we could no longer link with them on simplex.

Another big high-light for us came late in the afternoon when a window opened up to the south. With the yagi pointed due-south we swept through the band again listening for anything and heard an ident came back that sounded a little different from normal. On decoding and closer inspection we realised it was a VK3 repeater! A CQ in and we found vk3gv (Geoff) who confirmed the repeater as being in Victoria. We were also joined soon after by fellow Bathurst resident VK2JDS (Dave) who also had a quick chat to VK3GV on the same repeater. It was a real buzz getting into Victoria using such low power with the setup we had. Again the multiple repeater problem rose up again as both vk2fbob and myself, and VK2JDS were also getting into the Rylstone repeater on the same frequency. This lead to some confusion as another operator came in on Rylstone wondering why we were calling VK3 callsigns. I dont think we managed to record his callsign, but we were thankful for his patience while the contact was made.

Here is a complete list of the repeaters we were able to either work or get an ident from using a handheld Kenwood TH-205A and a 4-element VHF yagi 20 feet off the ground:

And a map showing our location (shown as a box), and the location of the repeaters (shown as a crossed box) in the list above:

We were also able to obtain an MSL map from Sunday 9/7. We werent able to obtain one from Saturday (8/7), but this gives an idea of the high pressure system that gave us the excellent conditions:

Any further questions or comments can be direct to either Bob or myself using the contact form on this page.

73,

VK2FSJE (Simon) and VK2FBOB (Bob)