Summer 2019 Field Day VHF/UHF Contest and Ross Hull 2019 Contest logs due

the WIA Summer 2019 Field Day VHF/UHF Contest logs were due in by midnight 28th Jan 2019,

and the Ross Hull 2019 Contest logs are due in by 11th Feb 2019.

Coming Up:

There is a ZL based VHF-UHF-SHF-EHF contest  called the NZART  "DX Weekend Contest". 
All bands 6m and up. Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th February 2019 ..

http://www.nzart.org.nz/activities/contests/vhf-uhf-shf-ehf-contest-dates/

and the next contest here in VK  is the John Moyle Field Day Contest on 16th and 17th  March 2019.

http://www.wia.org.au/members/contests/johnmoyle/

post mortem summary of the WIA Summer VHF/UHF/SHF Field Day Contest 12th/13th January 2019

here is summary of the weekend:

operated  from Mt.Lambie (QF46xm) on Saturday afternoon, 2m SSB, 23cm SSB,  9cm SSB, 6m (52.525) FM, 70cm (439.000) FM.   At last minute we didnt take 6m yagi or multimode.  The 70cm yagi for SSB did not work, later finding a damaged centre pin in connector, and did not take 10 GHz unit as too big to fit it.  It was clear skies, so solar panel & battery adequately provided power, so did not need to run generator. Packed up and left Mt.Lambie at 5pm.

Saturday night at QF46pu, we did some portable microwave contacts with Dave VK2JDS (QF46pu) across to Justin VK2CU's location (QF46qu), worked all 11 x bands 50 Mhz to 76 GHz until midnight.

Sunday morning did not go to QF46xe, instead stayed at QF46pu to operate all bands again, then continued on after lunch  doing contacts for Ross Hull Contest. Also did some driving around looking for possible portable sites, ie. high spots that can be cleared.

DX Report 5th January 2018

I was out mobile today,  10metre FM and 6metre FM were buzzing, 28.620 Adelaide, 29.640 VK3RHF. and 29.680 presumably VK7 had a vk2 and a vk3 chatting on it, anyway, they were alive and active into Sydney, plus 52.525 FM into VK5, plus locals working interstate on 29.500 FM simplex and from the conversations it had been open on 6m and 10m into ZL solidly in the morning.

WIA Summer VHF/UHF/SHF Field Day Contest 12th/13th January 2019

check for latest status  here   on the day    https://www.contestradar.com/

or vk2kfj-9 on aprs,  or vklogger.com

of course the following are tentative, Wx permitting, failures, etc

Saturday afternoon QF46XM  1200m ASL
Sunday morning  QF46XE  1300m ASL
Sunday afternoon  back to QF46PU  900mASL  (non-contest mucking around if people need Ross Hull contest numbers)

50.150 USB Horiz
52.525 FM Vert
144.150 USB Horiz
146.500 FM Vert
432.150 USB Horiz
1296.150 USB Horiz
1294.00 FM simplex Vert  (or Horiz if reqd)
3398.150 USB or FM  Horiz     (or could be  .100 or .200  whatever!)
10.368.1xx USB (or FM if reqd)  (.100 or .150, or  somewhere there

Actually Ross Hull Contest runs whole of January and overlaps Summer contest.

Summer VHF/UHF Field Day Contest - 12th / 13th January 2019

almost end of 2018 and just realised that it only two weeks until the 2019 Summer VHF/UHF/SHF Field Day Contest.   I missed the Spring Field Day for 2018, so more effort required to ensure I go portable to operate VHF through SHF, obviously a mountain in the western side of Blue Mtns. The plan is to go Saturday morning setup for 12noon start, do 6 hrs stint will be enough. Not serious to win, it's about just getting out portable to give out some numbers to others and build up microwave skillset. I got everything for 6metres and above, but primary focus is on microwave bands.

viewed the demise of a star last night 26th Dec 2018 at 21:57 AEDST

I was out walking dogs last night, just happened to look up towards the saucepan, which was roughly +10deg off TN with elevation of around 60deg, clear skies, I see one star in a constellation, in a direction of about 8 o'clock from the saucepan, it swells up then shrinks until it disappeared, all over the period of about 5 seconds. there was no sideways movement, so not a satellite. It flared up bright white, larger than any other star in the sky, then  it disappeared.  I ripped the phone out of my pocket  to note the time. Amazing.

Internet Speedtest results - Frenchs Forest NSW - pathetic

Here is typical sample  of the Speedtest results at Frenchs Forest, NSW, AU for ADSL connection,
note, I seen much worse than this lately, and  this is after we had the NBN FTTN infrastructure installed, some 12 months or more ago,  I have not seen any difference in speed for past 4 years,  the highest  download speed I have seen is 8Mbps download some time ago, but after rolling out FTTN infrastructure and the FTTN box is sitting 500m cable distance (not direct distance) that I expected that even ADSL would  be faster, up towards the maximum theoretical speed of 12Mbps, considering 500m should be a whole lot better than the 3km of twisted pair copper back to the local exchange, but no, its still poor performing ADSL.
We had the big handover of Telstra infrastructure here in Oct/Nov (handing over of wires and poles from Telstra to NBN Co.) nothing more nothing less, although the emails and letters from Telstra gave the impression that we were getting NBN  (fast NBN) but that was hype, checking both Telstra and NBN websites, it still shows  that "fast" NBN service won't be  available here until approx April-June 2019.  As for the NBN FTTN boxes installed around here, I not even sure now are they functional or not, maybe just sitting there doing nothing. I really need some test equipment to plugin to my phone line to tell me how long the copper pair is,  is it connected  to the FTTN node at 500m, or still connected to the FF exchange at 3km ? I suspect we still connected direct to the  FF Exchange because  the ADSL is still giving piss-poor performance.  No wonder the Kiwis are laughing at us, they got 1Gbps broadband and we still messing around with 5Mbps or less. It just proves that Australia is a 3rd world country.

VKLogger.com to be discontinued

news just received that VKLogger.com to be closed down on 25th March, 2019, due to outdated software technology used to create the application, rendering the application be un-maintainable, without a major rewrite of the code.  Waiting to see if someone else willing to create and/or run a similar type propagation reporting system for Oceanic region. A real shame as VKLogger been running or 14years. Thanks goes to Adam VK4GHZ for creating it and running it all these years.

DX Report 19th December 2018

another opening to ZL yesterday from VK2, on 2metres  and FM broadcast band across Tasman Sea.
ZL2WHO beacons heard into Sydney and Newcastle areas. Interestingly, Hepburn didnt predict much tropo for the day.
For the day before (18th December) good opening  on 2metres between VK4 and VK5 a few contacts.

DX Report 14th December 2018

there been some openings to ZL on 2metres in past couple days, FM broadcast stations from Norfolk Island and ZL received in vk2.

Also open again this afternoon is 6m and 10m, hearing vk3 chatting to vk2's on 52.525 MHz  FM
and some people repetitively keying up 29.620 MHz repeater (VK5RSC) nice strong signal 20/9 for the duration I was driving home and calling on it.