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!
AREG is pleased to announce that we hope to have a number of stations active during this year’s WIA Winter field day contest being held by the WIA over the weekend of June 20-21st 2026! At least 5 satations are expected to be active across most bands between 6m and 23cm, including portable activations from Ardrossan, Kulpara, Tarlee and Stirling as well as multiple home stations on the air as well!
We would love to see as many stations on the air on VHF/UHF Simplex in Adelaide during the contest so put it in your diary! Details of the contest can be found on the WIA Website. The event starts at 10:30 am ACST.
During the 2010’s AREG used to regularly enter the John Moyle Field Day contest hosted by the WIA. For various reasons that activity waned in the last 4-5 years. So this year, we felt it was time to re-enter the event and introduce the next generation of AREG members to domestic field day contesting.
VL5X Portable Hindmarsh Island – Multi-Op SSB Portable
Given this is a “Field Day”, it really needed to be a in the field club activity. That is what puts the “field” into the event after all. This year we were fortunate, through a friend of one of our members, to gain access to a 10 acre plot on Hindmarsh Island, about 90 minutes out of Adelaide. The site, which had a 10-15m hill at the back of the property and a couple of sheds in the middle was perfect and allowed us to spread the antennas out so we could operate a multi-operator station without causing interference between the bands.
Station Antenna Farm
Unique “Quick Deploy” Station experiment
One of the unique tricks used in this contest was Andy VK5AKH’s quick deployment station. He hired a van for the weekend, rolled his portable operating desk inside, loaded it up with gear and away he went. He was on air within an hour of arriving on site supporting our full 40m station.
Powering The Station
We set up three 400W portable contest stations on the site and then proceeded to power them as follows:
We had 3x Honda EU20i generators on site, originally planning that as our base load generation, given this contest did not permit us to use the mains to run the station. However, we also had something new that we had never tried before.
One of our members owns a Geely EX5 electric car. This car was unique in that it came equipped with a 3kW 240 Volt AC inverter, which we could use to draw power from the car’s 61kWh battery! Before the event, we were pretty trepidatious – concerned that the car would generate a lot of RFI and interference across HF. To our very happy surprise, however, the car was as quiet as a church mouse. In the end, we ran 2 of the three stations on the car inverter for the whole event. In the process, we invented a new unit of electrical consumption – “equivalent kilometres”. The two stations connected to the car, each with their respective 400W linear amplifiers, used a total of 65km worth of electricity. Not bad given the car has 410km of road range. This really does open up a whole new world for field day contesting into the future!
VL5X On The Air
As for operating the contest, we had a great turnout of operators, with VK5AKH, VK5QI, VK5FLY, VK5DUG, VK5VC, VK5FJ, VK5IR, VK5GR, VK5MN, VK5CIA. We also had a great roster of volunteers who helped construct and support the station including VK5ZM, VK5BX, VK5AG, VK5ZQV, VK5SAW, VK5KX, VK5AOK and others plus we had visits from Sue VK5AYL and David VK5ZL who were also interested to see what we were up to here at AREG.
We had operators as young as 10 yrs old (Douglas VK5DUG supported by dad Louis VK5FLY) right through to some in their mid 70s who remembered the John Moyle field day from a decade ago and wanted to come back and have another go. It was great to see them all getting into the spirit of the contest.
The crew was well looked after as well with support from Michael VK5MN who managed the catering and Jeremy VK5CIA who provided the bathroom facilities from his holiday home nearby. All the little things that become big issues when you are out in the field!
Thanks to Theo VK5IR, we also have a short film showing the setup including a few more details about the car we used to power the station and showing some of the on air activity including young Douglas VK5DUG who operated for us on several bands.
So how did we go?
Results are not out yet, but we were pretty happy with our score. We had the station manned for 22 of the 24hrs of the contest, and due to the lack of contestants during the night spent at least 2 hours calling with no answers. None the less, a great time was had by everyone. We look forward now to seeing the results and discussing what we might try next year!
2025 marked the year that the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group returned to the Oceania DX Contest after taking several years break. The aim was to put VL5X, the club contest call sign back on the air, and give our newer members a chance to participate in a world class contest. As the group does not have current access to a permanent contest grade station, our efforts revolved around building a portable station that was as competitive as possible yet achievable with only a small window for construction.
Planning & Site Selection
The event planning began back in March, when we started looking for suitable sites. Multiple factors played a part, including accessibility, weather destruction risks, operating environment and HF propagation performance. The weather featured highly in these considerations, given the destruction of the station that occurred back in 2022 when a severe storm front blew over the site mid contest, destroying several antennas in the process. The ability to operate multiple 400W transmitting stations in close proximity was also critical to the success, as we were planning a MULTI-MULTI entry – the aim of which being to give as many operating opportunities to as many members as we could during the contest.
We considered various sites and how they would perform from a terrain and antenna height perspective.
We also studied propagation charts so we could plan which bands we should be looking at and when. We aimed to enter the contest as well equipped as we could.
Final Location
Our final location was chosen because it could achieve our propagation objectives, as well as comfortably housing the contest crew. One of our members owns a home atop Willunga Hill, which in the end is where we chose to play!
Equipment Plan
Antennas & Filters/Combiners
80m Band 1/4 wave vertical DK9IP Design – mounted on an 18m Spiderbeam pole
40m Band 4-square Phased Array – designed by Oly VK5XDX
20-10m Portable HexBeam – MW0JZE design on a 10m Spiderbeam Aluminium Tower
20-10m Spiderbeam (3el on 20/15m and 4el on 10m) on a 10m Spiderbeam HD Aluminium Mast
Our secret weapon was our set of VA6AM Filter Combiners for 20-10m which allowed us to run 3 stations on the one antenna.
VA6AM High Power Bandpass Filter / Combiner set
The Team
None of this gear achieves much without an operator team. We had a great turnout from the membership, with 13 operators taking turns running the station for the 24hrs of the contest. A huge thanks to VK5AKH, VK5CIA, VK5EDY, VK5FR, VK5GLD, VK5GR, VK5IR, VK5KT, VK5MN, VK5QI, VK5XDX, VK5ZM and VK5ZQV. We also had construction help additionally from VK5SFA, and site support thanks to VK5ABG.
VK5GLD
VK5XDX
VK5KT & VK5EDY
VK5GR & VK5MN
VK5FR
VK5QI
VK5GR & VK5ZM
VK5CIA & VK5QI
VK5KT & VK5AKH
The Result
So what did we achieve? From AREG’s perspective, we achieved our best ever score in the OCDX contest since we first participated in 2012. Our raw score was over 1.9 million points. This was despite what turned into some of the worst SSB contesting ionospheric conditions we have ever encountered. Much of Sunday’s daylight hours were lost due to extremely high absorption, leaving us calling often into dead bands for only 1-2 QSOs an hour. Its a credit to the team’s determination and perseverance to have scored so well.
In the end, the effort was worthwhile, with VL5X victorious in the Multi-Multi category for 2025. We just managed to hold off the team from T32AZ on Kiribati to retain first place in our category this year even after count-backs for scoring errors. A very happy outcome for our return to this event after a 3 year hiatus.
Thanks must go to the entire team who was involved in this activity. It was great to see so many AREG members get involved in what was a really great fun weekend!
The next AREG meeting will be held on Friday the 18th of July at the Fulham Community Centre – Phelps Court, Fulham. (Not at last month’s venue in St Peters – we’ll probably be back there at a future meeting!)
This month’s presentation is from Grant VK5GR, on considerations around setting up a station for a large worldwide amateur radio contest!
Grant will take you through various considerations when designing a HF contest station, starting with HF Propagation analysis and station location selection (and how to use the ARRL HF Terrain Analysis package). We will then take us through some station design ideas intended to maximise your ability to be heard at the right times and on the right bands to maximise your competitiveness. Ways of operating multiple HF transmitters from one location will also be discussed, as well as the types of gear to consider. Finally, he will take a look at contest logging systems and show how easy it is to record your QSOs. During the evening, Grant will specifically work through the planning that has so far taken place around the AREG effort to activate VL5X in this year’s 80th Oceania DX Contest during the October long weekend.
Doors open at 7.00pm and the presentations kick off at 7.30. Everyone is welcome to attend. If you’ve never come along to one of our meetings, we’d love to see you there, all guests are welcome. For our remote members, the meeting will be broadcast via Zoom, and the talk will be recorded for later viewing on Youtube.
After the talks we’ll all be given an opportunity to have an eyeball QSO among ourselves whilst enjoying a tea or coffee and a biscuit.
The next AREG meeting will be held on Friday the 19th of January at the Fulham Community Centre – Phelps Court, Fulham, with doors opening at 7:00 PM, and the presentation kicking off at 7:30 PM. Everyone is welcome!
This month’s talk is by Andy VK5AKH, titled “Contesting – a 10 year journey, from Foundation to 2×1 call sign”.
A look back on the last 10 years of contesting, from being bitten by the bug as a Foundation Licence holder, to VHF/UHF/Microwave, grid square hopping, to large multi-op stations.
Where to from here, Ideas and thoughts on contesting going forward, then open discussion from the floor.
If you’ve never come along to one of our meetings, we’d love to see you there, all guests are welcome. For our remote members, the meeting will be broadcast via Zoom.
After the talks we’ll all be given an opportunity to have an eyeball QSO among ourselves whilst enjoying a tea or coffee and a biscuit.
The Amateur Radio Experiments Group is looking to stimulate VHFsimplex activity with a 2m Sprint. In the first year, the frequency will be limited to the 2m band and the FM Mode. This is the most accessible with most hams having an HT or FM mobile radio at hand. The Plan is to have fun and introduce or reintroduce people to VHF and carry the newfound love of VHF into other Field days and Contests.
Sprint Contest Rules
Single Operator stations only, one call sign per operator/station. Different station types are permitted and encouraged eg Portable or Maritime Mobile. One point per contact, no reworking, 5 bonus points for working the AREG contest call; VL5X. Exchange is a Signal report and serial number starting from 1. e.g. 59001. Stations are to adhere to the VK band plan and operate in the FM Simplex range of 146.425 -146.600, stations may liaise on the call channel, but contest exchanges should occur somewhere either side of the call channel. Stations are encouraged to spread out, call CQ and search up and down the band.
Log Submission
Logs to be submitted in the calibro format using www.vklogchecker.com logs close 2 weeks after the contest.
AREG supports a fun and inclusive environment for the contest, please remember we are here to have fun.
Questions and feedback to: VHFSprint@areg.org.au
Spread the word, the more stations that participate the more fun it will be. #AREGVHFSPRINT
Please keep watching the website for any further news or developments prior to the contest.
Other AREG On Air Activity
