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RD Contest 2015

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This weekend I participated in my first radio contest in at least 3 years with the annual WIA Remembrance Day Contest. This is a 24 hour points based contest, open to all VK, ZL and P2 stations. The first thing that was noticeably different was that the rules had changed. The biggest change is that … Read more

Back on 6m

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I’m finally back on the 6m band. It wasn’t a cakewalk, with the dipole generally un-cooperative with the element parting ways with the Acro-bat insulator, and then finding the masthead pulley rope (pictured to the right in the photo) was no longer going up to the masthead, meaning that I needed to lower the mast to … Read more

Attack of the RFI

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After having a successful setup of the radio shack over the weekend, I took the HF rig to the local radio club, but when I returned, and plugged everything back in, BUZZZZZZZZZ. S20 over 9 noise. not good.

Troubleshooting kicked in. Whats changed? Earlier in the afternoon I had put up the 6m dipole antenna and finished working on installing an earthing stake and earth wires back to the rig. By process of elimination, I removed each. Noise still there.
It was late in the night by this point so I made an assumption that the noise was in fact being caused by nearby power lines having damp insulators, so went to bed with the though of investigating the issue if it existed the following day. Yes, it did exist the following day.

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Day 1

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Today is the first day of getting back on air. It’s been a pretty full on day actually as I never anticipated the amount of things I needed to do to get everything working. I guess before I continue, I should mention one of these arrived in the mail for me yesterday: The Yaesu FT-DX1200 … Read more

Reactivating the Station

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Realistically, I haven’t been on air much in the last 7 years. Other interests and real life have seen tinkering with amateur radio come a distance last to everything else. Occasionally I would have a listen around the band, make a half-hearted CQ DX call, or try to contact that station in amongst the pileup, … Read more