This year AREG has a keen sub-group of members who enjoy contesting. So much so we have named September 25 through October 26 Contesting Month! During this time the club is going to be active in three major contests, CQ WW RTTY, Oceania DX SSB and CW WW SSB.

This weekend is the RTTY contest and VK5ARG is on are calling CQ on all bands from 80 through 15m (and 10m if conditions work) . We operate on a farm about 100km north of Adelaide and build the station as a portable setup each year. (One day we hope to make it more permanent). The weather so far has severely hampered preparations this year, which meant that most of the antennas couldn’t be erected until the day of the contest (when we had the wind drop for the first time in 2 weeks). As of now, we are closing in on the half way mark of the contact target we set for the event.

The Station

We are running two Elecraft / Microham based stations, manned by VK5GR, VK5FR, VK5LA, VK5AKH, VK5ZQV, VK5ZM and VK5FJ. We had help from VK5SFA, VK5ANV, VK5FDEN, VK5JG, VK5KX, VK5XDX and VK5PH over 2 days to build the station as well!

It has been great to see the club members come together and work on a common project like this. I know we will also greatly appreciate not having to do the complete build for OCDX the day before the contest this year!