VI5MCP Special Event Station

 

MorialtaCP_QSL_Card_2

VI5MCP QSL Card

Between the 11th and the 26th of July Members of AREG will be activating a special event station VI5MCP.

The Special event is in celebration of the 100 years of Proclamation of the Morialta Falls Pleasure Resort, which we now know as Morialta Conservation Park.  The 100th anniversary of the park is on Wednesday the 15th of July 2015.

Morialta CP is located in the Hills to the East of Adelaide and is a popular location for Portable operations.  Activations of this park qualify for the SANPCPA – South Australia National Parks and Conservations Parks Award and also for WWFF and VKFF as VKFF-783

The Aim of this special event station is to celebrate the 100th anniversary and to  further promote awareness of portable operations and awards.

We are planning on Activations  from the park over the 2 week period and at the moment we have some confirmed and some tentative activations scheduled, please keep an eye on this post as we will update the schedule in the coming days.

VI5MCP Calendar July 2015

Planned activation dates and frequencies/bands

DATE LOCAL TIME / UTC BAND/FREQ NOTES
Saturday 11th
Sunday 12th 10:00 / 00:30UTC 7.140 SSB /147.500 FM then 14.240 or 14.310 Around 2 hours
Monday 13th
Tuesday 14th
Wednesday 15th 10:00 / 00:30UTC 7.140 / 10.130 /14.240 or 14.310 Around 2 hours or longer if a lot of chasers
Thursday 16th
Friday 17th
Saturday 18th 13:00 -17:30 / 03:30 – 08:00 UTC 14.240 or 14.310 and
7.140
Looking for EU DX on 20M * running a 2Element on 20M
Sunday 19th 10:00 / 00:30UTC 7.140 SSB /147.500 FM then 14.240 or 14.310 Around 2 hours
Monday 20th
Tuesday 21st
Wednesday 22nd 10:00 / 00:30UTC 7.140 / 10.130 /14.240 or 14.310 Around 2 hours or longer if a lot of chasers
Thursday 23rd
Friday 24th
Saturday 25th
Sunday 26th 10:00 / 00:30UTC 7.140 SSB /147.500 FM then 14.240 or 14.310 Around 2 hours

*Note Mode will be SSB unless specifically noted as otherwise.

VI5ANZAC AREG Operation – Activity Summary

AREG has now reviewed all of the activity we were able to undertake as part of the commemorative activation of VI5ANZAC, remembering 100 years since the ANZAC force landed on the shores of Gallipoli in World War One. In total, the AREG team worked a total 1290 QSOs over 10 Bands, 48 DXCC entities, 43 US States, 21 CQ Zones, and 40 IOTA in the spirit of fostering international friendship and peace.

Band QSOs
160m 2
80m 12
40m 412
20m 364
17m 44
15m 235
12m 16
10m 194
2m 6
70cm
5

You can see here how far our signals reached.

[wpgmza id=”3″]

The highlights of the activation for us were working a number of the Turkish special event stations! It was great to make these contacts.

Turkey Stations Worked 2We also made contact with many of the Australian VIxANZAC stations during the weekend.

VI$ANZAC

Detailed information on the locations we worked is available from the following links:

AREG would like to thank the Wireless Institute of Australia for all of the efforts they have made to arrange for and coordinate the state based commemorative callsigns. This event remembering  the 100th anniversary of the ANZAC landing at Gallipoli in Turkey during World War One is certainly one of international significance. Through the global friendship of amateur radio and our communications with stations across the globe, we hope that by putting these stations on air that we have strengthened global peace through remembering the impact and abomination of war.

image_1_hiresFinally, look out for more activations of VI5ANZAC from other clubs across South Australia throughout the rest of the year..

Details are available on the WIA Website.

 

VI5ANZAC Thursday 30th April Results

The last evening of operating VI5ANZAC by members of AREG has now come and gone. This operation was headed up by Theo VK5MTM and covered a wide range of bands as well as some digital modes including PSK63, CW and RTTY. Here is Theo’s description of the evening (relayed from his Facebook accoiunt).

Last night I had the pleasure of operating the special event callsign VI5ANZAC from my house.

Being a special event callsign brings much demand for amateur radio operators (hams) all over the world to “work” or make contact with the special event station.

All up I made 134 contacts across Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Italy, Russia, Spain, Wales, Ukraine, England, Germany, Lithuania, Belgium, France, Netherlands, USA, Ireland, Isle of Man, Slovenia, Azores and Switzerland.

VI5ANZAC has been “activated” by different hams everyday this week via roster and I am extremely grateful to have had this opportunity.

page_white_sound-vflzFJPnC

Attached is a snippet of audio one of my “pile-ups” of several European stations all calling me at the same time to make contact with me.

My station is quite modest with only 100 watts of transmitter power and a basic antenna made from speaker wire strung across my backyard so I am extremely happy with my results.

The following is some of the statistics from Theo’s activation:

SSB FM PSK63 RTTY CW
10M 11
20M 69 3
40M 43 2 5
2M 1
Sub Totals 112 1 11 5 5 Total Q’s 134

A copy of the log from this activation can be accessed here!

 

VI5ANZAC Wednesday 29th April Results

K3 on black_760I had the pleasure of activating the VI5ANZAC special event call sign as a single operator station on Wednesday the 29th of April from my home QTH in Highbury South Australia.

I managed to get home from work at a decent hour, get the family commitments out of the way and then sit down at the Radio and call CQ.  I started on 40m at 20:00 ACST using my trust Elecraft K3 plus borrowed KPA500 running 200W and a resonant mono-band dipole.  I worked a number of local and interstate stations from VK2, VK3, VK4 and VK5.  I fell out of the chair when I heard a Japanese station in there calling.  The noise and QRM on 40m wasn’t brilliant making communications difficult at times.

I switched to 20m at 21:00 ACST and continued beaming East using 250W.   Again I worked a number of local and interstate stations from VK2, VK3, VK4, VK5 and VK6 and now the DX stations started with stations from Canada, the USA, Finland and Japan being logged.   Propagation into Europe short path late in the evening didn’t eventuate on 17m, 15m or 10m which was unfortunate.

In total I logged 44 QSO’s on two bands over a three and a half our period, not a bad night for some fun an excitement.  Here’s the breakdown of the stations worked;

[table “” not found /]

All logs have been submitted to the WIA for EQSL processing.  Thanks to everyone that made last night a lot of fun activating a VI5 callsign from home.

73, Matthew VK5ZM

VI5ANZAC Tuesday 28th April Results

AREG has been looking for many and varied opportunities to activate the VI5ANZAC callsign during our time allocation this week. Tuesday evening (28th April) saw a small group of us put the special event call on air with a QRP portable activation from Morialta Conservation Park.This was seen as a nice contrast to the QRO operation carried out over the weekend near Mannum (which was very successful with over 1000 contacts).

DSC_0006The QRP operation was lead by Bob VK5FO, Two HF stations were established plus a VHF/UHF operation later in the evening (taking advantage of the elevated position above the Adelaide metropolitan area). As the operation qualified for conservation park also being activated, Bob invited the founder of the VK5 Parks award, Paul VK5PAS to also attend and join in the fun.

Operation  was planned on 20m, 40m, 80m and 160m as well as 2m and 70cm FM. The only variable during the planning beyond our control was going to be the weather. Fortunately the weather gods smiled on us and it was a beautiful (if a bit cold) still evening.

On Tuesday afternoon, Bob VK5FO met Gary, VK5FGRY on site at around 17:00 local time and we started getting set up for the evening. A quick review of where to set up antenna’s and we got started.

DSC_0007

Bob VK5FO and Gary VK5FGRY

Paul VK5PAS arrived as we were setting up and assisted with the final details and we had the station ready to go and started calling at around and the first contact was logged at 08:49UTC.

DSC_0013

Andy (front) and Paul (back) operating the 2 stations

Just as we got underway, Andy, VK5AKH arrived, and Ray VK5RR arrived about 20 minutes later.The initial flurry on 40m was to be expected and we worked at a steady pace, rotating thru the operators on 40m for the next 90 minutes or so.   As the calls dried up on 40m we wound down the calling somewhat and 40m did in fact close out for all local contacts as well.  We could hear quite a bit of DX, but not work it.

The 2nd station started out on 20m and it was very slow – as feared, we had only just caught the tail end of 20m and had just a handful of contacts.

DSC_0017

Bob VK5FO operating with Ray VK5RR and Gary VK5FGRY

Given the conditions, we decided to move the 2nd station over to 80M earlier than we had initially planned and started calling there as well.  It was a slow and steady trickle of takers on 80m and we had an unusual request – could we try 160m!

Well, this was a bit of a challenge in itself as we were not at all prepared to have any sort of antenna on top band, but being challenged, we jury-rigged an EFHW as an extension onto the end of 1 of the 80M dipole elements, hit the tune button on the KX3 and managed to get it to tune! Two contacts was the result, one in Adelaide and one in Mt Gambier – worth the effort!

The 2 stations for this operation were both KX3 Transceivers  with a headset running 10 watts on SSB, each set up with a laptop for logging.

DSC_0015Grant, VK5GR was a very late arrival and his plan was to set up and see how many local contacts we could get on 2m and 70cm to add to the mix.After announcements on every repeater within ~100km a further 10 contacts were added to the logs on 146.55 and 439.025.

Once everything really slowed down, we decided to call it quits just on 21:30 local time (12:00 UTC) and started pulling the station down.  Within 30 minutes we had everything down and packed up, with the final task to check the logs and upload them.

The final tally for the Tuesday Evening QRP* activation  (QRP on HF) was as follows.

Total contacts logged:  73

[table “” not found /]

In the mix we had 1x US, 2 x ZL and remaining VK1 (VI1ANZAC), VK2, VK3, VK4, VK5, VK6 and VK7 -so a good representation right across the country, and we only missed on getting a VK8 in the logs.

Operators for the evening

VK5FO, Bob
VK5PAS, Paul
VK5AKH, Andy
VK5RR, Ray
and Grant VK5GR (VHF/UHF)

Without the awesome logistical support from Gary VK5FGRY we would not have been as comfortable in the heated tent!

Bob (l) Andy (mid) and Paul (r) in the heated operating tent
Bob (l) Andy (mid) and Paul (r) in the heated operating tent

A big thanks to all the chasers who make such an activation even more enjoyable, and yes, all of the logs will be uploaded to WWFF in the coming days as the HF operation was compliant with VKFF and from a recognized park.

Thanks To Paul for the photos from the Evening’s Event.

More details can be obtained from Bob VK5FO and Paul VK5PAS websites!

VI5ANZAC Activation Saturday 25th/Sunday 26th April – Wrapup

11148551_10152850687341188_1061654771402084287_nThe Amateur Radio Experimenters Group (AREG) had the pleasure of co-operating the VI5ANZAC special event callsign on ANZAC day 2015 commemorating the 100th anniversary since the landing at ANZAC cove at Gallipoli in World War One. The AREG crew for these two days was based at a location ~100km east of Adelaide on the banks of the River Murray.

The operators of this activation were:

Chris VK5CP
Mark VK5QI
Matt VK5ZM
Andrew VK5AKH
Gary VK5FGRY
Grant VK5GR
Theo VK5MTM

Bob VK5FO

Ray VK5RR

AREG operated two stations at this location covering most HF bands. The primary station setup was as follows:

  • Rig: Icom IC-7700 (200W)
  • Antenna: SteppIR MonstIR – 4 element beam (3 full-size elements on 40m)

There is a webcam setup on the MonstIR boom, giving us a wonderful view of wherever the antenna is pointing! A live view is available here.

The view from the MonstIR Yagi!

The view from the MonstIR Yagi!

The MonstIR Yagi

The MonstIR Yagi, with the (tiny!) HB35 in the background.

The second station consisted of a:

  • Rig: Elecraft K3
  • Antenna: Werner Wulf HB35 Yagi

Over 1000 contacts were made including to many of the other VI%ANZAC stations, plus VI100ANZAC, ZL100ANZAC and also to the special event stations operated by the Turkish Radio Amateur Club.

Theo even managed to film some of the action while working Europe on Sunday morning!

Not to mention the pileups he encountered on 10m!

Full details, log extracts and graphic visualisations of where we worked will be added as soon as they can be post processed.

– Mark VK5QI & Grant VK5GR

AREG VI5ANZAC Activation Plans

As previously advised, the Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will be activating the special event callsign VI5ANZAC to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the landing of the ANZAC force on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey during World War One.

The AREG activation window is between 1200 ACST 25th April through to 2359 ACST 30th April

VI5ANZAC is based in South Australia which was also the home state of the 10th Battalion which was raised in August 1914. On 25 April 1915, the 10th Battalion took part in the Landing at Anzac Cove, coming ashore during the initial stages of the operation as part of the covering force. Members from the 10th Battalion penetrated the furthest inland of any Australian troops during the initial fighting, before the Allied advance inland was checked. AWM_C01101_Australian_10th_Bn_Gallipoli_1915

Photo: 10th Battalion Troops at Gallipoli – August 1915 (Information sourced from Wikipedia)

To work this special event callsign AREG will be active during the following times:

  • Saturday 25th April 0230UTC (1200ACST) – Sunday 26th April ~0830UTC (1800ACST) 
    • 7.150MHz (+ QRM) (Primary)
    • 14.150MHz (+QRM) (Primary – Beaming Long Path Europe)
    • 21.250MHz (+ QRM) (Secondary)
    • 28.450MHz (+QRM) (Secondary)\
      • Operators: VK5CP + Many others

        MOnstIR @ VK5CP

        40-6m MonstIR Beam – part of the VI5ANZAC station on Saturday25th/Sunday 26th April 2015

  • Tuesday 28th April 0830UTC (1800ACST) 1200UTC (2130ACST) – QRP Portable from Morialta Conservation Park 
  • Wednesday 29th April 1030UTC (2000ACST) – 1430UTC (0000ACST)
    • 14.150MHz (+QRM) Beaming LP Europe (subject to leaving work early)
    • 7.150MHz (+ QRM) Beginning 1030UTC (40m dipole)
    • 14.263MHz (+QRM) Beaming SP USA (2el Hexbeam)
    • 14.150MHz, 18.145MHz, 21.250MHz, (+QRM) Beaming SP Europe (2el Hexbeam)
    • With only two element Hexbeam I should be heard in Japan when beaming SP USA and Europe
    • Operator: Matt VK5ZM
  • Thursday 30th April – 0830 UTC (1800ACST) – sometime before 2359 UTC
    • SSB: 28.450, 21.250, 14.150, 7.150
    • RTTY: 28.085, 21.085, 14.085, 7.040
    • PSK63: 28.120, 21.070, 14.070, 7.070
    • CW (maybe)28.025, 21.025, 14.025, 7.025
      • Note: Obviously I won’t be able to work all of these bands and modes on the night but if I can these will be the frequencies you will find us on.
      • Operator: Theo VK5MTM

Members of AREG may also activate the callsign at other times during the club’s operating window. QSL will only be via CLUB Log, EQSL and LOTW –  No hard copy.

We look forward to working you all using this historic callsign!

AREG activation of VI5ANZAC 25th – 30th April 2015

The Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will be participating in the WIA organised special event callsign activation of VI5ANZAC. The major commemoration is on the 25th April 2015, which is when Australian and New Zealand troops landed at Gallipoli, marking 100 years since our nation’s involvement in WWI.

The club has secured the window from 0000UTC (9:30am CST) Friday 24th April through to 2359UTC 30th April (9:30am CST Friday 1st May) to activate the callsign. After interest was also expressed from the Elizabeth Amateur Radio club to operate portable from an RSL hall on ANZAC day, AREG has cooperated and agreed to EARC operating the callsign up until 12.00pm CST on April 25th, so that operators from both clubs can share in the experience.

The principle goal of AREG with the callsign is to contact Turkey on HF after 12:00pm CST (0230UTC) on the 25th of April (Anzac Day) as well as provide an easily reachable signal across VK/ZL (and all points in between). A large construction project is underway at one of the club members stations aimed at installing a 3 element 40m beam and 4 element 20m beam in time for the event. The AREG also intends for it’s members to activate it as often as possible from AREG members stations thereafter within the club’s operating window on HF and VHF/UHF as far as possible.

More details of AREG’s exact plans will be released closer to the event. At this stage, members are asked to contact the committee to place their details on the club roster for activating VI5ANZAC between Sunday 26th April and Friday 1st May 9:30am.