Last Sunday, in the middle of a long weekend, chasers of the Keith Roget Memorial Award got together at the Churchill National Park for a ‘show & tell’ and BBQ day. There were five award chasers there, each with stories to tell and equipment to show off. Tony, VK3VTH, had a most impressive collection of gear aimed at getting on air from National Parks. Tony’s wife, Sheryl, came along as well and presented a beautiful platter of cheese and biscuits ahead of the BBQ. Sheryl was also very helpful with enquiring park goers wondering what the antennas were for.
I had set up my usual antenna and the FT-7 got a run on a 7 Ah SLA battery.
David, VK3JDA, Johnno, VK3FMPB, Peter, VK3PF and Tony, VK3VTH all activated the National Park, also working Allen, VK3HTA, and Ian, VK3FD, who couldn’t make it to the event. Allen was working SOTA from Mt Buninyong and was pleased to make his required four contacts, all with KRMNP award chasers.
Peter, VK3PF and David had both made their own switched inverted vee antennas, from the plans here, and we hung them up and tested them with Tony’s MFJ antenna analyser. Johnno also cut and tuned a new 40m dipole.
After the BBQ Johnno and Tony headed off to activate the Dandenong Ranges National Park on their way home. Peter VK3PF was going to do likewise but was missing an important part of his set up. 🙂
We’ll do it again next a year but probably not on a long weekend. Long weekends are the ideal time to go away and work more parks, or summits, or whatever.
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