Category Archives: VK5ARG On The Air

Horus 63 – Flight Report

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Project Horus’s 63rd launch was run on the 1st of December 2024. This was the first flight of our new 2m/70cm cross-band repeater payload, and also flew an experimental imagery payload. The flight reached an altitude of 31359m before landing in a paddock to the east of Walker Flat. 68 different stations were heard on the cross-band repeater throughout the flight – a great result, and one that we hope to best on a future launch!

Launch, Chase & Recovery

Launch was a fairly relaxed affair, with a fairly small launch crew and fairly good weather at the launch site. A large flock of corellas did cause us a bit of concern, but thankfully they stayed clear of the balloon.

A time-lapse of preparations and launch is shown here:

After launch, the chase teams headed off towards the landing area, via a quick stop at Bowhill for coffee. This launch had Mark VK5QI and Will VK5AHV; Autumn VK5CLD; and Peter VK5APR chasing from the launch site.

The balloon reached a peak altitude of 31359 m above Younghusband, before bursting and descending for a landing to the east of Walker Flat.

Horus 63 Flight Profile

As the chase teams from Mt Barker arrived near the landing area, they met up with Darin VK5IX and family (Glenys, Greg and Cameron), who were also out chasing. Everyone pulled over on the side of the road and were able to just catch a glimpse of the payloads landing on a paddock about 500m from the road.

Horus 63 payloads, as found – note the cross-band repeater antenna pointing up!

The repeater was found to still be operational after landing, and the team were able to use this while coordinating the recovery. After obtaining permission from the landowners, the paddock was entered carefully (very sandy!) and the payloads recovered – with the obligatory Wenet payload team photo!

Cross-band Repeater Payload

The cross-band repeater performed flawlessly on its first outing, with contacts quickly filling up the log books of VK5ARG net control, run by Grant VK5GR. A big thanks to Grant for managing the repeater so the chase teams could focus on recovery!

The following stations were recorded in the log during the flight (displayed in alphabetical order):

VK3MTV, VK3TNU, VK5AAD, VK5AAF, VK5AAJ, VK5ABI, VK5AI, VK5ALG, VK5AVQ, VK5BB, VK5BBW, VK5BD, VK5CAT, VK5CJG, VK5CLD, VK5COL, VK5CV, VK5DBR, VK5FI, VK5FQ, VK5GA, VK5GAZ, VK5GF, VK5GH, VK5GX, VK5GY, VK5HMV, VK5HS, VK5IR, VK5IS, VK5IX, VK5JP, VK5JSA, VK5KA, VK5KFG, VK5KLD, VK5KVA, VK5KX, VK5LA, VK5LI, VK5LN, VK5MHZ, VK5MLO, VK5MN, VK5MRB, VK5MSD, VK5NE, VK5OI, VK5PET, VK5QI, VK5RK, VK5SC, VK5SFA, VK5SFA/R, VK5SPJ, VK5ST, VK5TRM, VK5TUX, VK5UW, VK5WA, VK5WV, VK5ZAR, VK5ZD, VK5ZKR, VK5ZLR, VK5ZM, VK5ZRK, VK5ZTS

Based on the log, we believe the furthest contacts were to Michael (VK5LN) in Pt Lincoln, and Tim (VK3TNU) in Horsham, Victoria – both around 325 km! Unfortunately the flight didn’t quite get high enough for reliable contacts in to Melbourne.

Theo VK5IR live-streamed the repeater contacts on Facebook throughout the flight – a recording of this is available on Youtube here:

One of the concerns with this payload was how hot (or cold!) it would get throughout the flight. Peter VK5KX provided a temperature logger which was installed into the payload box. This showed that the payload’s temperature stayed in a fairly reasonable range, dropping down to -10˚C during the ascent, and rising up to 30˚C after landing.

We’re still finalising our QSL card design for this flight – these will most likely get sent by the WIA QSL bureau to save on costs. If you’re not a members of the WIA and would like to be sent a card directly, please contact Mark at vk5qi@rfhead.net.

This repeater (after a few repairs) will certainly make an appearance on future launches, with the next aim to get it up to >35km to allow more contacts into VK3. We may also look into increasing the transmit power from 0.5W to 1.5W.

Primary Tracking Station – VK5KX & VK5ZM

Up on Angas Valley Road, overlooking the Murray-lands area, Peter VK5KX and Matt VK5ZM had set up a portable ‘super station’, which provided reliable reception of the imagery and telemetry throughout the flight. Peter’s station used a Wimo 70cm X-Quad beam on a Az/El rotator, while Matt’s used a vinnant.sk 70cm turnstile. Peter was able to receive almost all of the imagery transmitted during the flight! Grant VK5GR was also setup nearby running net control for the repeater – thanks guys!

Thanks to Glenys Roberts for the photos from the receiver site.

Wenet Imagery Payload

This flight aimed to evaluate the PiCam v3 camera (previously tried on Horus 59) in auto-focus mode, with lots of software improvements and additions from the previous flights. Many more telemetry datapoints were transmitted in realtime during the flight, including RPi CPU and Radio temperature, and even the live lens position as the PiCam v3 attempted to autofocus.

Sadly we still had autofocus issues resulting in many blurry images, however the additional telemetry transmitted to the ground during this flight provided a lot of data to help improve performance on future launches. The full telemetry from this payload is available on a Grafana dashboard here.

A big thanks to the stations that set up to receive Wenet imagery and telemetry on this flight:

VK3TNUpi, VK5ALG, VK5CLD-9, VK5DSP, VK5KX-9, VK5QI-9, VK5ST, VK5ZM

We’d also like to thank the Raspberry Pi foundation developers for providing lots of advice on how to best optimise the autofocusing system, and we plan to continue working with them to push the limits on what a PiCam v3 can do!

Horus Binary Telemetry Payloads

Our trusty Horus Binary telemetry payloads worked fine throughout the flight, providing our primary flight tracking ability. Thanks to the following stations that helped track these payloads:

HORUS-V2 Payload: BARC-RRR, VK3APJ, VK3GP, VK3TNU, VK5AAF, VK5AI, VK5ALG, VK5ALG-9, VK5APR, VK5ARG, VK5BD, VK5CLD-9, VK5COL, VK5DSP, VK5GA, VK5GY, VK5HS, VK5IS, VK5IX, VK5KX-9, VK5KX-i5, VK5LA, VK5LN, VK5MSD, VK5NEX, VK5NTM, VK5OI, VK5PE, VK5QI-9, VK5RK, VK5SPJ, VK5ST-4, VK5TRM, VK5TUX, VK5ZM, VK5ZQV, vk5cv, vk5mhz

VK5ARG Payload: BARC-RRR, VK3TNU, VK5ALG, VK5ALG-9, VK5APR, VK5ARG, VK5BD, VK5CLD-9, VK5HS, VK5KX-9, VK5NTM, VK5QI-9, VK5ST-4, VK5TRM, VK5TUX, VK5ZM

Full statistics on how many packets each station received, and their reported Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR), are available on the flight dashboard here.

TheThingsNetwork Payload

Liam’s TheThingsNetwork payload flew again, with a total of 98 gateways receiving telemetry. The furthest receiver was located near Finley, NSW, at a distance of 557km.

A map showing the receiver locations is below, with more detail available on the flight dashboard.

Conclusion

Thanks to everyone that participated in this flight, through helping at the launch, tracking, chasing, or calling into the repeater!

We hope to do a re-fly of this launch in the new year (towards the end of summer), aiming to get the repeater payload up high enough to give coverage further into VK2 and VK3 – stay tuned!

Next Project Horus Launch – Horus 63 – 1st December 2024 – Cross-band Repeater – Mt Barker Launch!

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AREG’s High-Altitude Ballooning sub-group, Project Horus, is planning their next launch for Sunday the 1st of December, with a planned launch time of 10 AM ACDST. If we have to scrub due to poor weather, the backup launch date will be the 8th of December.

UPDATE 27th Nov: This launch is currently planned to be performed from the Mt Barker High School Oval with the launch team arriving on site from around 9:15 AM. Note that access to the oval is via Stephenson street, and parking near the oval is extremely limited. 

TRACKING LINKS

This flight will feature a new cross-band repeater payload, enabling amateur radio operators around the state to communicate via the balloon! Along with this will be a newly built Wenet Imagery payload, using a PiCam v3 in autofocus mode.

  • FM Crossband Repeater: 145.075 MHz Input (91.5 Hz CTCSS), 438.975 MHz output.
  • Wenet Imagery on 443.5 MHz.
  • Primary Horus Binary telemetry on 434.200 MHz
  • Backup Horus Binary payload, on 434.210 MHz
  • TheThingsNetwork tracking payload, using the AU915 band-plan.

During the flight, all the payloads can be tracked lived on the SondeHub-Amateur tracker here!

FM Cross-band Repeater Payload

This is the first test flight of a new experimental FM cross band voice repeater based around a Yaesu FT-530 handheld transceiver.The balloon repeater should be heard on:

  • INPUT: 145.075MHz with 91.5Hz CTCSS
  • OUTPUT: 438.975MHz  – 0.5W into 1/2-wave omni

Please note that this repeater is experimental, and may have performance issues or even fail completely during the flight!

To transmit to the balloon at the maximum range of 800km (once the balloon reaches 100,000ft ++) you should only need approximately 10-20W and an 2-4dB gain antenna.

Receiving the balloon at 400km range in a handheld environment should be achievable, but to hear the repeater at the maximum range of 800km you should expect to need a 10dB gain Yagi for a 0.4uV capable receiver and 2dB feeder loss

This setup is much the same as the LEO satellites but without the doppler shift.

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU CAN HEAR IT BEFORE YOU TRANSMIT!

This repeater will be operated as a controlled net, with the net control callsign VK5ARG – please listen out for net control before calling!

We will be offering QSL cards to stations that make a contact with net control during the flight, so get your stations setup and give it a go!

Primary Telemetry – Horus Binary 434.200 MHz – HORUS-V2

Reprogrammed RS41The primary tracking telemetry will be transmitted on 434.200 MHz using the Horus Binary 4FSK data mode. Amateurs in the Adelaide and Central SA region are also encouraged to get involved with the flight through receiving and uploading flight telemetry from our 70cm band tracking beacons. Every piece of telemetry data is valuable to the flight tracking and recovery teams so if you can help join the distributed receiver network to collect that data you will be making an important contribution to the project!

If you try receiving the telemetry from this flight, you’ll need a SSB-capable 70cm receiver (or a SDR), and the Horus-GUI telemetry decoder software. A brief guide on setting this up is available here: https://github.com/projecthorus/horusdemodlib/wiki/1.1-Horus-GUI-Reception-Guide-(Windows-Linux-OSX)

Listeners that already have Horus-GUI installed are encouraged to update to the latest version, which is available at this link.

Note that you will need to use a USB ‘dial’ frequency of 434.199 MHz for the 4FSK signal to be centred in your receiver passband and hence be decodable.

Backup Telemetry – Horus Binary 434.210 MHz – VK5ARG

A backup tracking payload will be transmitting on 434.210 MHz using the Horus Binary 4FSK data mode, and can be received in the same way as the primary tracking payload, with information above. For this payload you will need to use a USB ‘dial’ frequency of 434.209 MHz.

Wenet Imagery – 443.500 MHz

Imagery on this flight will be transmitted via the Wenet downlink system, which uses 115kbit/s Frequency-Shift-Keying to send HD snapshots. Reception of the Wenet imagery requires a Linux computer, a RTLSDR, and a 70cm antenna with some gain (a 5-element Yagi is usually enough).

This payload will be experimenting with a PiCam v, which we previously flew with only partial success on Horus 59. This time around many software updates have been written, hopefully allowing the PiCam v3’s autofocus to work on a balloon launch. This flight aims to test out these software changes, and gather data to help improve performance on future launches.

Wenet imagery from Horus 62

A guide on how to get set up to receive the Wenet signal is available here: https://github.com/projecthorus/wenet/wiki/Wenet-RX-Instructions-(Linux-using-Docker)

Please note the transmit frequency of 443.5 MHz, which may require listeners to re-configure their Wenet setup. 

Note: Stations that are already ready to receive Wenet are advised to update to the latest testing version for this flight. See here for instructions: https://gist.github.com/darksidelemm/cdc36a90ca96b87d148fdd7d68d5d5fe

During the flight, the live imagery will be available at this link: http://ssdv.habhub.org/

TheThingsNetwork Payload – 915 MHz LIPD Band

This flight will also fly a LoRaWAN payload built by Liam VK5ALG, relaying positions via TheThingsNetwork (TTN), a global Internet-of-Things network with hundreds of receiver gateways across Australia. You can find out more about how TheThingsNetwork works here.

The aim of this payload is to test a new antenna, and try and beat our previous range records on the 915 MHz band.

Next Project Horus Launch – Horus 60 – Sunday 20th August

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UPDATE 21/8: Thanks to all that helped track this flight, it was a great success! A blog post with more information, including lots of great images, will be up in about a week.

Horus 60 Flight path prediction as of 17th August

As part of the VI25AREG celebrations, AREG’s High-Altitude Ballooning sub-group, Project Horus, is planning their next launch for Sunday the 20th of August, with a planned launch time of 10 AM ACST. Backup dates if we have to slip due to weather are the 27th of August… and that’s it!

This launch is currently planned to be performed from the Mt Barker High School Oval with the launch team arriving on site from around 9:00 AM. Note that access to the oval is via Stephenson street, and parking near the oval is extremely limited. 

The payloads for this flight will include:

  • A FM-SSTV Transmitter on 145.100 MHz
  • A Wenet Imagery transmitter on 443.500 MHz
  • Primary Horus Binary telemetry on 434.200 MHz
  • Experimental Radiation Sensor payload (Horus Binary telemetry) on 434.210 MHz 

Details on these payloads are available further below.

Tracking of the flight will be via the SondeHub-Amateur tracker, available by clicking this link.

A dashboard showing telemetry from the payloads is available at this link.

Details on the payloads flying are available below:

Primary Telemetry – 434.200 MHz – VI25AREG

Reprogrammed RS41The primary tracking telemetry will be transmitted on 434.200 MHz using the Horus Binary 4FSK data mode. Amateurs in the Adelaide and Central SA region are also encouraged to get involved with the flight through receiving and uploading flight telemetry from our 70cm band tracking beacons. Every piece of telemetry data is valuable to the flight tracking and recovery teams so if you can help join the distributed receiver network to collect that data you will be making an important contribution to the project!

If you try receiving the telemetry from this flight, you’ll need a SSB-capable 70cm receiver (or a SDR), and the Horus-GUI telemetry decoder software. A brief guide on setting this up is available here: https://github.com/projecthorus/horusdemodlib/wiki/1.1-Horus-GUI-Reception-Guide-(Windows-Linux-OSX)

Listeners that already have Horus-GUI installed are encouraged to update to the latest version, which is available at this link.

Note that you will need to use a USB ‘dial’ frequency of 434.199 MHz for the 4FSK signal to be centred in your receiver passband and hence be decodable.

There will also be an experimental radiation sensor payload (HORUSRADMON) on 434.210 MHz (434.209 MHz USB dial frequency). If you can only receive one, prioritise the 434.200 MHz signal.

FM SSTV Imagery – 145.100 MHz

This launch will most likely be flying a FM SSTV transmitter operating on 145.100 MHz FM. It will run approximately 200mW transmit power. The transmitter will have 1 minute gaps between image transmissions to avoid overheating the transmitter. This payload last flew on Horus 59 with good results.

SSTV image from Horus 59

The payload will be transmitting images using the PD120 SSTV mode throughout the flight, and can be decoded using any SSTV software capable of decoding this mode (pretty much all of them!). This mode is what was commonly broadcast from the International Space Station.

Examples of suitable software you can use to decode the SSTV pictures include:

Any FM receiver (including handhelds) should be capable of receiving this payload, though as with the cross-band repeater, a Yagi antenna may be necessary for reliable reception at the edges of the transmitter footprint.

We’ve also setup a temporary 2m SSTV skimmer up at AREG’s remote HF receive site, which (if it works!) will post received images here: https://botsin.space/@aregsstv/tagged/PD120

We will have some digital certificates available for listeners that submit an image from the highest 1km of the flight (to be determined after the flight has finished). Email your images to vi25areg@areg.org.au !

Wenet Imagery – 443.500 MHz

Imagery on this flight will be transmitted via the Wenet downlink system, which uses 115kbit/s Frequency-Shift-Keying to send HD snapshots. Reception of the Wenet imagery requires a Linux computer, a RTLSDR, and a 70cm antenna with some gain (a 5-element Yagi is usually enough).

This payload will be trialing a PiCamera HQ, with a much larger lens. This will hopefully give us much higher quality imagery than we’ve seen previously, so long as we don’t hit focus drift issues like we have seen on previous flights.

Wenet imagery from a previous launch.

A guide on how to get set up to receive the Wenet signal is available here: https://github.com/projecthorus/wenet/wiki/Wenet-RX-Instructions-(Linux-using-Docker)

Please note the transmit frequency of 443.5 MHz, which may require listeners to re-configure their Wenet setup. Listeners who are already setup to receive Wenet should consider updating their decoding software to the latest version (Due to be released at the beginning of August 2023), with update instructions available here.

During the flight, the live imagery will be available at this link: http://ssdv.habhub.org/

75th Oceania DX Contest: AREG on the air as VK5ARG

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Calling all contesters – help the Oceania DX Contest celebrate it’s 75th year!

First established in 1934 and earlier known as the VK/ZL contest, the Oceania DX Contest continues to grow. Please join us here in Oceania from all over the world for the 75th running of our international HF radio activity over the first two weekends of October.

PHONE: 06:00 UTC Saturday 3rd Oct to 06:00 UTC Sunday 4th Oct 2020
CW: 06:00 UTC Saturday 10th Oct to 06:00 UTC Sunday 11th Oct 2020

NOTE: New Start times!

See www.oceaniadxcontest.com for the latest version of the rules and list of plaques.

AREG Will be there as VK5ARG!

The Amateur Radio Experimenters Group will be running again this year as VK5ARG in a Multi-Multi entry in the PHONE contest this weekend. Our station is a large portable effort, constructed over the past 2 weeks at our remote contesting site (~100km north of Adelaide , the capital city of VK5). We would love to get you in our logs and will be looking for contacts on all bands from 160m to 10m.

ocdx18_IMG_5436 (Large)
IMG_7346 (Large)
ocdx18_IMG_5417 (Large)

Members who have never contested before and those that just like to come for the view and to socialize are asked to let the president know you are coming for catering purposes. We will then let you know the protocols for accessing the site (which is locked away on remote farmland). If you want to operate the station, please make sure you have registered with Matt VK5ZM who is coordinating the roster.

More Reasons to Join In!

Oceania DX Contest Plaque

The OCDX Committee have advised that there are a number of new plaques on offer this year thanks to their generous sponsors. Here are the new ones available for 2020:

  • Ron Wright ZL1AMO Memorial Award:
  • WORLD (non-Oceania) Phone + CW Single-Op Plaque
  • OCEANIA Phone MM (Multiple-Operators and Multiple-Transmitters) Plaque
  • OCEANIA SOUTHEAST ASIA Phone Single-Op Plaque (Philippines, East Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, and East Timor)
  • AUSTRALIA Phone Single-Op YL Plaque
  • AUSTRALIA CW Single-Op All Band QRP Plaque
  • INDONESIA Phone Single-Op 40M Plaque for Advanced and Extra Class licensees

Everyone is encouraged to have a go and submit a log, even if you only make one or two QSOs, so the contest organisers can verify these QSOs when calculating the final scores for all entrants. Upload your log via http://www.oceaniadxcontest.com/html/enter.html .

Oceania DX Contest Committee (ZL3GA, VK3GK, VK3MI/ZL1AZE, VK3TZ, VK4FH, VK4QS, VK7GN, YB0NDT)

AREG Nets: On Line and On Air!

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To help keep our members connected during this time of social distancing and COVID-19, the club is moving to increase the amount of on air contact opportunities. We are planning on holding an alternating on air net one week and a Zoom round-table chat on the alternate weeks.

The next event will be held this coming Friday, 8th May. Starting at 7.30pm it will be held on the club’s VK5RSB repeater 439.900 which will be linked to the IRLP network via node 6214 to reflector 9558 (which is also linked to the EchoLink node *VK3JED*

This will help to keep our interstate members connected too!

VK5RSB 70cm Coverage Map

The following dates will also have an on air net:

  • May 22nd
  • June 5th

Visitor check-ins are most welcome on the on air nets. The net control station is VK5ARG.

In between the on air weeks, there will be a separate video round table using Zoom Meeting online for members only.

The club just held one of these which was hugely successful as everyone got to see, hear and participate in the free discussions that en-shewed. Members will be provided details of the Zoom logins for each of these on our internal mailing list.

Currently the next scheduled Zoom round table for members is May 29th, also starting at 7.30pm.

Details of our monthly meeting for this month are in a separate post.

We hope to see you all on the air!

AREG in the 2017 Trans Tasman Low Band Challenge

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UPDATE: The results have been published – VK5ARG came second in our multi-op division! Well done team!

On Saturday July 15th, AREG members VK5GR, VK5QI, VK5MTM and VK5IX gathered together with Steve VK5SFA at his QTH to participate in the Trans Tasman Low Band Challenge Contest  as VK5ARG. Originally planned as a portable operation, the portable activity was cancelled at the last minute due to a critical piece of equipment not being ready (the new club portable 160m loop antenna). The change of venue was deemed a fantastic outcome by all who participated as outside temperatures plummeted into the low single digits. Steve and his wife were fantastic hosts and we were able to operate the full 6 hours in luxurious conditions.

The station consisted of Steve’s IC7700 running either 80 or 160m on the Magnetic Loop antenna, while Grant’s K3 ran on 160/80/40m either on the 40m rotatable dipole or the 80/160m trapped dipole, depending on the combination we selected. We had hoped to also have a IC7000 dedicated to 40m, however the RFI from the MagLoop (one of their drawbacks it seems) was severe and rendered the second 40m station unusable. Something to learn from there when using the loop in later contests.

Four of us operated whilst one was there for moral support (guess which one (chuckle)). Activity came in bursts although there were times when the pickings were very slim and we called for many minutes without a bite. 40m was completely dead after dark, but not for want of propagation. When we did find someone (VK4HH) they were easily workable. It seems that 7MHz is forgotten in this contest after dark – perhaps unwisely so.

We also ran CW (having two gun CW operators helped) which filled in the dead patches  calling on SSB. We were going to try RTTY, but were still configuring the MicroHam keyer and hadn’t cracked the code of how to make it run with MMTTY and N1MM in time for the contest.

A highlight was the a number of contacts made with New Zealand stations this year. ZL contacts were achieved on 40, 80 and 160m, although on 160m it was often hard going.

The Transmitting Magnetic Loop Antenna we used for this contest on 80/160m

All up we made 211 contacts. Here is the map of where we worked

Thanks to everyone who participated from AREG and thanks also to all of the stations across VK/ZL who participated in this unique contest!

VK5ARG/P Para Wirra Park This Weekend Cancelled

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AREG OCDX Contest Field Day Event

CANCELLED!

Due to the unprecedented weather in SA over the last few days, National Parks South Australia have advised that Para Wirra Park will again be closed today. This has lead to AREG making the decision to cancel the planned activities in the park.

Operation in the contest will still go ahead but from a private location. See further reports for updates.

The Amateur Radio Experimenters Group is again entering the Oceania DX SSB Contest over the October long weekend (October 1st and 2nd).

The club is once more mounting a major portable operation from Para Wirra Recreation Park. VK5ARG will be active on all bands from 160-10m during the contest using 5 QRO (high power) stations.

Station Visitors Most Welcome!

As has been the case the last couple of years, the station construction will commence from Friday morning, with the aim of having the major components operational no later than midday Saturday. This provides an ideal opportunity for members, but more importantly general amateurs and members of the community, to come along and “have a try”. AREG will be turning the station over to all takers for the hours before the contest so that people can experience operating the station.

To come and visit, you will need to head to Para Wirra Recreation Park, You will find us here. For those who pre-register, there will be catering available on a “Pay as you Go” basis for modest prices. The station will be active for the full 24hrs from 0800 UTC Saturday to 0800UTC Sunday. Visitors should call the station on 2m (146.550) when you reach the park.

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OCDX-StationLocationMap-2015

Para Wirra Park Map

The Station: VK5ARG/P

The station will be substantial with full size rotatable dipoles on 40m, a 3 element beam on 20m, a Spiderbeam for 15m and 10m and full size dipoles on 160m and 80m. All stations will be running 400W. It is certainly impressive to see the arrays of antennas in use during the event…..

Qualification of World Wide Flora and Fauna park: VKFF-1739

Back in May 2016, the Para Wirra Recreation Park was redesignated a conservation park, and so it now qualifies for the world wide flora and fauna awards program as well. As the station is operating in the OCDX contest we wont be conducting the usual publicity of a parks activations. However, contacts with VK5ARG/P will still qualify for the VKFF-1739 park! We will ensure the log is uploaded to the Parks and Peaks database at the conclusion of the activation. You may also find us on air testing from as early as Friday night through to Sunday night.

So look out for us calling CQ during the contest, and if you are in the Adelaide area, come on up to Para Wirra Conservation Park and say hello! We would love to see you!

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10/15m Station illuminated at night – Starlapse by VK5GR

 

AREG Participation in the SPDX RTTY Contest: Report

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RYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRYRY
CQ SPDX TEST DE VK5ARG VK5ARG KK

The AREG team tried something new on Sunday April 24th 2016, operating portable from the Morialta Conservation Park just east of Adelaide hexbeamin the Polish Radiovideography Club’s SPDX RTTY contest . A lot of fun was had by those members who operated and visited us during the activation. 29 valid contacts were made including 5 out of 17 Polish provinces. Andy VK5AKH provided the bulk of the station equipment and was assisted by Grant VK5GR, Dennis VK5FDEN, Gary VK5FGRY and Mark VK5QI in setting up the station in the early afternoon.

By the time we were ready to go, long path Europe was already open, and the first station we called answered on the first try. We were running an IC7600 at about 90W FSK power with the HexBeam and the Fl-Digi software for RTTY. We also experimented with the GRITTY software which has some advanced decoding capabilities.

vk5akh-working rttydx

40m Loop Antenna

40m-loop-vk5sfaSteve VK5SFA also brought along his new 40m magnetic loop antenna for us to experiment with. We were very impressed with it’s noise performance and efficiency for such a small antenna. While we were working 20m RTTY long path EU, Matt VK5ZM, Gary VK5FGRY and Mark VK5QI experimented with the loop. Contacts on it were had across SE Australia, including 10W to 10W to Chris VK5CP who was portable in Parachilna in the Flinders Ranges.

(Stay tuned – a talk is planned at the next AREG meeting on these very unique antennas).

Contest Progressed

As the RTTY contest progressed, the team attempted 15m as well with limited success before returning to 20m to close out the EU LP opening.

We were then treated to the “AREG Catering Service” in the form of Sharon VK5FSAW who brought up baked potatoes and condiments, which were very welcome considering it was getting quite cold as the sun went down.

Finally we dropped down to 40m and put the loop to use on RTTY. We picked up a contact with the USA – after spending a while learning how to tune it! (It is only ~3-4kHz wide).

40m-rtty-cq

Who we worked

While we were not competitive we had a lot of fun working RTTY stations in Europe, and we are sure we helped a few polish stations with a continental multiplier. The stations we worked were:

[table “” not found /]

This has certainly whetted our appetite to try another attempt at RTTY later in the year (perhaps the CQ WW or CQ WPX RTTY contests).

A big thank you to everyone who participated and in particular to Andy VK5AKH who brought his portable HF station.