Geocaching stuff

The annual Geocaching event held in Wedderburn each year is nearly upon us! I ordered a magnetic name badge specifically for this year’s event as I have seen most cachers sporting name badges at other events…I guess the sticky white label with permanent marker just doesn’t cut it anymore! I have my name stamp for signing logs and a handful of my original pathtags for trading with other pathtag enthusiasts. My new pathtag is being designed by someone else and will incorporate SOTA, WWFF, geocaching and butterflies; just a few of my favourite things. 🙂 I should have them very soon, but unfortunately, not in time for the Wedderburn event. I’ve already been the tester for all the caches that have been put out for this year and the kids got a kick out of the ‘night cache’ so I think it will be another enjoyable event for those that attend! 🙂

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SANPCPA 2nd year Anniversary weekend

For most people reading this blog, you would know by now that I am a regular hunter/chaser in all things radio! So, it will probably be of no surprise to you, that over the weekend I chased a whole bunch of activators out and about in VK5 for the 2nd year anniversary of the SANPCPA (South Australia National Park and Conservation Park Award). I managed to score 22 unique parks and had a total of 61 contacts ..a successful weekend of radio I say! 🙂

I honestly can’t remember the first time I heard of the SANPCPA program, but I was hooked from then on. I don’t know what it is that appeals to me about these sorts of award programs with radio, but I like it. Perhaps it is the ongoing sense of achievement when one more park is crossed off my master list or maybe it is the short and concise (for the most part :p ) exchange for the contacts; I’m not really one to chat for extended times on air, I usually either have nothing to say, or too much to say, that I fumble as my mouth tries to play catch-up with my brain. I’m essentially a very shy person and even hate to talk on my phone most of the time, so why the radio bug has hit me, I’m not sure but I am very glad. I’ve met and talked with some wonderful people, all of whom I would never have known existed if it wasn’t for amateur radio.

Since gaining my F-call, I have filled up a few logbooks with many contacts, mostly VK but some DX…I am studying for my upgrade but I guess that I am having too much fun with my measly 10W, that it is not really foremost in my mind…not to mention that I have a family and household to run as well so my time is limited (except of course, when it comes to chasing/hunting :p). I would love to have access to the 20m band so I will get there eventually, I just need to devote as much time to studying as I do to chasing/hunting because electronics has never been a part of my life until now so it’s a sharp learning curve!!

Anyway, I digress..I get the easy job of sitting in my comfy shack at home whilst, you the activator, slug it out getting to the top of a summit or going portable in a park somewhere around the country and ultimately aid me in getting more certificates for my shack walls. THANK YOU!! I hope to repay you later on down the track. 🙂

JMMFD Contest 2015

Yesterday I took part in the John Moyle Memorial Field Day (JMMFD) contest. The contest is run each year in memory of the late John Moyle who was a long term editor of the Wireless Weekly, (later: Radio & Hobbies; later: Radio Television & Hobbies), from 1947 until his untimely death in 1960. He served in the RAAF with distinction and was responsible for a number of innovative solutions in keeping radio and radar equipment working under wartime conditions and difficult working conditions. The WIA, (Wireless Institute of Australia), decided that a suitable long term memorial to John Moyle would be a Field Day with a focus on portable or field operation. The contest has been conducted annually ever since.

Whilst it is essentially a contest for Portable operators, Home stations can also participate and so that is what I did. I decided early Saturday morning that I would take part, so a little planning was needed on my behalf to ensure that the kids were fed dinner at the usual time as I wanted to start at 3:30 UTC and go through until 9:30 UTC and be done in time to put the kids to bed. My “shack” is now set-up in the living room, so I was able to keep an eye on the kids even whilst contesting. Whilst not a stranger to contesting, this was the first time I had been in the JMMFD so I read the rules, had a listen on air to the exchanges, downloaded the newest version of VKCL and popped on my headphones and got to work. It was a little hard going at some stages, I stuck to the 40m band only, SSB and was able to make contacts with all states except VK6 and VK7, although I did make a SOTA contact with Kerry, VK7PAK in the early stages of the contest but this did not count towards the JMMFD. Some stations had a hard time hearing me with my 10W but we persevered and were able to make the exchanges needed to validate the contacts. I managed to get a few SOTA and VKFF contacts as well which was a bonus! I went “fishing” for contacts mostly, scrolling up and down the band grabbing contacts as I found them, although sometimes I set-up on a clear frequency and called for a while. I wasn’t being too serious, just happy to give numbers out and got up and left my station numerous times as I was needed by my kids, but did my 6 hour time limit and submitted my log electronically that night. Some of the numbers people were giving out were quite high which was a credit to their contesting stations and themselves…terrific effort! Everyone was very friendly and I enjoyed participating and look forward to next year. 🙂

Mt Moliagul – VK3/VN-024

We had to make a shopping excursion to Maryborough so I took the opportunity to activate Mt Moliagul as it was on our way. It also has a geocache at the summit and another 2 caches close by. Mt Moliagul is clearly visible as you are driving towards it; is 525m high and is worth 2 points. I had a quick look at other SOTA blogs who had previously activated the summit and had an idea of what to expect.

The town of Moliagul is famous for the discovery of the world’s largest gold nugget, the Welcome Stranger in 1869. Numerous other nugget finds have been made in the area and in its heyday was quite a large bustling town but these days it is a quiet little place with a hotel, museum and church. There is also a monument erected in honour of Reverend John Flynn, the founder of the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia who was born in Moliagul in 1880.

Exploring the summit

The lookout to Mt Moliagul is quite easy to find, just look for the big brown tourist signpost, turn off the hwy at this point and follow the road which will come to a fork, take the left with the Moliagul sign and follow this one all the way to the top. It is accessible by 2 wheel drive although there is quite a lot of large rocks strewn over the road which you would have to avoid. It’s a steady climb and winds a bit, but then opens up nicely when the communication towers come into view. As you can drive up to the summit, the “walk out and back into the activation zone” approach was taken to activate the summit. It was extremely windy at the top and the views are phenomenal. Driving up you don’t realise how high you really are until you reach the summit. An eagle flew over us to say hi and honestly, I don’t think I will ever tire of seeing these glorious birds. It’s a delight each and every time I see one! 🙂

An Eagle having a sticky-beak at what we were up to

I gave the kids my Dakota 20 so they could go and hunt down the cache while the “shack” was erected. The squid pole was strapped to the sign post at the top. The antenna set-up was the typical inverted V and there was a handy pile of rocks that I was able to sit on for the activation. I used the X1M and signal reports were great, and almost everyone was a 59 from where I was set up with no noticeable noise from all the communications gear nearby. I was struggling a little (alot!!) with the wind to stop it from whipping up my logbook pages..so note to self, to throw a couple more bulldog clips in the backpack for next time! My first call was answered by Phil, VK3BHR and he kindly put up a spot for me because I didn’t have any coverage on my phone (Optus) and then the chaser calls came in quickly. I started at 2:14 UTC and by 2:30 UTC I was done! Thanks to everyone that called in and also to John, VK2YW who gave me some suggestions on my audio. It would seem that more investigation with the X1M microphone needs to be done. Drilling a hole through the casing did help, but obviously not enough and speaking sideways onto the mic sounded the best. Perhaps, I will try another mic and see how it sounds, as the workmanship on the X1M microphone is quite cheap. When I opened it up, there was very little to it, and most solder joints were dry indicating a less than perfect job was done on the mic in the first place.

My operating position

Activation completed, time for caching! Off the kids took me to the other side of the towers and down the mountain a little to…a tree stump. Seriously, the amount of cache hides I have found in tree stump hollows is beyond a joke! Anyway, suffice to say, cache was found, log signed, the kids didn’t take any swag, but we left my usual small butterfly bag of swag and popped the cache back in it’s spot. We packed up not long after, and drove on down the mountain. We missed the turn for the next cache, so left that one for another time. We did stop on the way home not far from Moliagul to get another cache which turned out to be a magnetic one, very easy to find. I had the log signed about 1 minute from leaving the car to look for the cache. Short and sweet which is great, as we had frozen stuff in the car so didn’t want to take all day.

We found it!

Checking out all the cache swag

All in all, it was a great day with the objectives of shopping, SOTA and geocaching all achieved in record time! 😛

Stations worked:

VK3BHR, VK5WG, VK3PF, VK3JBL, VK2IO, VK3NBL, VK2MWP, VK3EK, VK3DAC, VK2HFS, VK3FPSR, VK2YW, VK5EE

Geocaches found:

GC20KD1: High on Moliagul

GC3Y7D8: Watch out for Kangaroos

Mt Korong – VK3/VU-012

I decided that I wanted to activate Mt Korong as it is only about 10 minutes drive from home and this was to be my first solo activation so if anything went horribly wrong, my husband wouldn’t be too far away! My walk up the hill would be put to good use by grabbing three geocaches along the way. I, rather foolishly, assumed that would be the three stops I would need to make it to the top: One cache at the start, the second halfway up and the third at the summit. More on that folly later!

In the end, it was a whole family outing instead…more hands to carry more stuff up the hill! Mt Korong is 364 metres above sea level and is a prominent sight when driving along the Calder Highway from Wedderburn to Inglewood. We pulled into the Picnic Area and parked under some shade, unloaded the backpack and squid pole and I got my Dakota 20 set to the first geocache. It was about 130m from where we were, so off we went. The granite boulders were a little tricky to navigate but we scrambled up and after a bit of searching, the cache was located, log signed, swag exchanged, cache put back in it’s hidey spot for the next cacher to find all within about 10 minutes. Beauty!! 1 down, 2 more to go. Easy peasy!

Half-way

Taking a breather

Cache number 2 set on the Dakota and off we set out on a steep climb for the next 330 metres! I consider myself sort of fit, in that I walk around our hilly (steep in some places) property for 2kms most days but I was stopping for breathers more than I liked! This hill is deceptively tough-going! My hubby was barely puffing, my girls (10 and 9 years old) seemed to be making it okay, but my little boy (7 years old) and myself were having a bit of struggle and we weren’t even halfway there! On we trudged, finding shade when we could to catch our breath. The single lane track is actually quite good all the way up, it is dirt and rock and fairly open in some parts although it is easy to veer off but if you stick to the brown dirt path, it is easy to follow. Someone has placed white markers all along the main track from the “Bat Cave” to the summit which is quite helpful.

Bat Cave!

We finally made it to the aptly named “Bat Cave” which is home to the second geocache of this trip. After checking out the rock formations, the cache was an easy find 4 metres from the cave entrance. After the obligatory log signing and replacing, we looked up and assumed the summit was just ahead. A quick input of the coordinates for the final cache which is on the summit, showed us as being another 300+ metres from our final destination…aarrgghh! By this time, I think the joy of climbing Mt Donkey Kong (my kids nick-name for the Mt, and for those that don’t know Donkey Kong, he is the main character from a game on SNES!) had lost it’s shine. At this stage, Daddy decided to make his way to the top with most of the gear to get a head start on putting up the antenna as we were running about a half hour behind schedule so the kids and I made our way slowly up to the top. About 80metres from the summit, the track disappears for the most part and you have to channel your inner mountain goat to scramble up the granite boulders. I don’t think you would want to venture up here in the wet unless you were on a suicide mission so glad that we choose a nice, sunny day to tackle it. There are numerous cairns placed along the face of the rocks to mark the path to the summit and finally the trig point comes into view and you know that the end is near!

Antenna set up on the Trig point. Inverted V.

My operating position in a hollow amongst the granite. The march flies didn’t seem too interested in us which was terrific!

On reaching the top, WOW! 360 degree views of beautiful landscape. Well worth the effort! We were even rewarded by seeing 3 eagles soaring above us! We had a bite to eat, coffee made, plugged in the X1M and I made my way to 7.095 as 7.090 was in use. My first contact was Peter, VK3PF who gave me a 4 and 5 which I was quite happy with as I knew the X1M really only puts out about 4.5W so I wasn’t expecting my signal reports to be as great as I usually get on the TS 120V which is what I have used on previous activations in parks. Peter kindly put up a spot for me and then for the next half an hour, the calls came in steadly and when I finally went QRT to find the last geocache, I had 23 contacts in the log. The third geocache ended up being 6 metres from where we were set-up so a successful day had been had. It’s great when I can combine two of my hobbies together and portable radio and geocaching really do seem to work nicely together, getting you outdoors in lovely places. 🙂

Siesta Time! 🙂

Stations worked:

VK3PF, VK2IB/P (S2S), VK3EK, VK3DBP, VK7BO, VK5CZ, VK3MTB/P (VKFF-771), VK2YW, VK3YAR, VK5WG, VK2YK, VK2LX, VK3LED, VK3FPSR, VK1NAM, VK3HRA, VK3XL, VK5XR, VK5BJE/P (VKFF-788), VK3YSP, VK3FOWL, VK2UH, VK3CRG/P (VKFF-055)

Geocaches found:

GC25PMR – Mount Korong #1: Base Camp

GC25PMX – Mount Korong #2: Batman’s Cave

GC25PNO – Mount Korong #3: The Summit