SOTA vk3/ve-237 Huon Hill 4th March 2016

Sadly, the last of the summits to be activated in my short VK ‘Road Trip’, Huon Hill (vk3/ve-237) turned out to be a whole lot of fun!

Driving across from Albury I was quickly at the start of the dirt road that would take me virtually up to the summit. driving past the new housing development at the bottom of the hill, I saw my first lot of kangaroos! (live ones that is, I have seen lots of dead ones at the side of the road!)
Did i mention I’m easily pleased? I got excited at the sight of 9 inch high penguins scurrying up a beach in Dunedin last week:)

Anyway, I digress, getting to the top, it was 37c in the shade, and i wasn’t too keen on sitting on one of the exposed viewing platforms that most other activators seem to have used. There is a picnic table, underneath a small roof that provided a little shade on the grass beside it. I didn’t have enough cable to run from here to the viewing platform, so i ended up velcro-ing the pole to the wire fence surrounding the small mast nearby. Discovering I’d left the pegs back in the hotel, i ended up just laying the ends of the dipole on the ground. . Not ideal.

bodged lash up of pole to the mesh enclosure

bodged lash up of pole to the mesh enclosure

In the shade, it was still showing 33c, but at least i was out of the sun!

Starting off on 40m, a range of vk chasers who had help qualify the previous summits did the same again, before drying up (well it was Friday evening, real people probably have better things to do!)

Switching to 20m provided lots of fun! 17 European contacts, one JA, one ZL and 2 further VK contacts ensued. Some of the European ones were particularly difficult to complete, so thanks to those who showed the patience to complete the contacts, it was appreciated.
There were, unfortunately some chasers who were just too weak, I could pick out the odd bit of audio, but not enough to get any details at all.
Half way through, a huge orangey-pink looking spider ran across the ground… no idea what it was, but having heard all about spiders here 😉 , I moved all the stuff up onto the picnic table 🙂

(Perhaps the spider was one of these Badge (Huntsman) Spiders Then again, maybe not, as they’re supposed to be nocturnal… I wasn’t going to ask it 🙂

shack on the table away from the scary spiders.......

shack on the table away from the scary spiders…….

Finally briefly back on 40m for any outstanding locals who missed 40m earlier, before packing up before sunset as i didn’t have a torch with me.

view from the top

view from the top

Time Call Band Mode Notes
06:28z VK2IO 7MHz SSB s57 r32
06:30z VK1AD 7MHz SSB s57 r57
06:32z VK4RF 7MHz SSB s58 r52
06:32z VK4HA 7MHz SSB s58 r52
06:41z VK2YK 7MHz SSB s59 r57
06:50z S57S 14MHz SSB s33 r53
06:51z I5FLN 14MHz SSB s55 r53
06:52z IW2NOI 14MHz SSB s32 r55
06:54z RA3PCI 14MHz SSB s32 r57
06:55z DF1YQ 14MHz SSB s59 r57
06:56z S52KM 14MHz SSB s33 r33
06:56z F1BLL 14MHz SSB s55 r55
06:57z HA6OB 14MHz SSB s34 r55
06:58z VK4RF 14MHz SSB s59 r59
06:58z VK4HA 14MHz SSB s59 r59
07:02z ZL2AJ 14MHz SSB s57 r53
07:04z SA4BLM 14MHz SSB s46 r31
07:08z DL1EBR 14MHz SSB s32 r53
07:17z UT5PI 14MHz SSB s44 r55
07:18z ON4BB 14MHz SSB s44 r44
07:19z IK1GPG 14MHz SSB s58 r55
07:20z SV1IZY 14MHz SSB s58 r54
07:20z VK6JON 14MHz SSB s57 r57
07:25z EA4DTV 14MHz SSB s44 r55
07:26z ON4VT 14MHz SSB s33 r44
07:38z VK3PF 7MHz SSB s44 r57
07:41z VK3FQSO 7MHz SSB s59 r56
07:51z JA8RJE 14MHz SSB s57 r55

Many thanks to everyone who took their time to chase on all of the ZL and VK summits, it was greatly appreciated!

Equipment used 817nd, mp-817 amplifier and linked dipole

As an added bonus, driving back in the gathering gloom, I managed to take a pic of the roos too!

Real, live, kangaroos :)

Real, live, kangaroos 🙂