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Brazing a Terminal to Stainless Steel Wire
As part of my HF gear, I would like to make some significantly more robust antennas. Most of my work has been done with heavy duty wire, but I would like to make antennas that I don’t have…
Read More »A New Antenna for 40M/20M
(or how I made a nice balun that should last a while) Inspired by an email I saw recently advertising the Chameleon 40/20 antenna (https://chameleonantenna.com/shop-here/ols/products/cha-4020-fd), as well as a review I saw on the HamRadioConcepts Youtube Channel by…
Read More »SOTA Activation Mt Stromlo VK1/AC-043
I am at the stage of life where I get to have Wednesdays off on a reliable basis – It is a wonderful privilege and an opportunity to do much pottering around the house. Last night (Tuesday) there…
Read More »Tuggeranong Hill Activation
Today, I activated Tuggeranong Hill (VK1/AC-038) again. Unfortunately, I was late leaving home, and the walk up took *much* longer than I expected, likely because of the staying inside with Covid (That’s my story, and I am sticking…
Read More »Xiegu G90
I recently gave myself a small Christmas gift of a Xiegu G90. I have been eyeing them off for a number of months, and a large client order associated with one of my businesses provided the funds to…
Read More »SOTA Winter Bonuses!
I just received an awesome email from the SOTA Manager here in the ACT. “The VK1 SOTA 3 point winter bonus period commences at 00:00h UTC 15 June, that’s 10:00 am Friday 15 June 2018 and concludes at 23:59h UTC on 14…
Read More »An Enclosure for the QRP Labs QCX 5W CW Transceiver
I have recently obtained a neat little radio from the clever folk at QRP Labs – the QCX-40. https://qrp-labs.com/qcx.html It is a single board CW transceiver, designed to operate on a single band from 80m through to 17m…
Read More »My First SOTA Activation – Tuggeranong Hill VK1/AC-038
Having attended the AGM for the local Canberra Region Amateur Radio Club, I discovered that a group of SOTA enthusiasts were planning on activating a number of hills in the Canberra region on 01Mar2018 at 0800UTC. This seemed…
Read More »An interesting portable NVIS antenna
I have been researching NVIS antennas and have encountered a few interesting military versions. The AS-2259 is one example which uses a 3m mast and set of two offset fed dipoles (7.56 m and 11.22 m) The dipoles…
Read More »SOTA Equipment
I’m relatively new to the whole SOTA hobby, so I am still learning as I go. My main portable gear is based on the following; FT817 – A beautiful 5W radio for HF, 15, 144 and 430 Mhz…
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