AREG members made the effort to head out into the field for the 2026 WIA WInter VHF/UHF Field Day contest, setting up a portable VHF/UHF station at the club’s HF receive site west of Tarlee. The hill that the site is located on is very well placed for VHF/UHF activity with at least a 100km path back into Adelaide for many stations.

The Station

The station operated as VL5X for the day, and consisted of a tri-band 2m/70cm/23cm colinear on a roughly 5m pole strapped to the fence, plus a 6m end fed half wave vertical also strapped to the fence.

The eqiupment used was an Elecraft K3 running 100W on 6m and an Icom IC-9700 operating across the 2m, 70cm and 23cm bands.

On Air Activity

The majority of activity was on FM, although several contacts were achieved with SSB on 2m and 23cm as well. 6m was almost exclusively an SSB operation, although there were a couple of contacts on 6m FM as well on 52.525 MHz.

VL5X (Green) and where we worked during the event

Other AREG On Air Activity

Members participated in various ways in the event. On site we had visits from Nathan VK5OG, Mark VK5QI and Dean VK5HQ, whilst out and about we had Michael VK5MN operating from Yorke Peninsula and Steve VK5AG operating from Stirling. We also had several members activate from their home QTHs including Steve VK5SFA (VL5L) and Charlie VK5VC.

All up, combined with the other amateurs across Adelaide also participating we were provided with a steady flow of QSOs across the day. Thanks to everyone who took part and we wait with interest to see how we placed!