Blogospheric Refraction

I’ve now been on-air since January, mainly on 2m and 70cm, but more recently on HF too.

The equipment

VHF/UHF Setup

• Transceiver: Kenwood TH-F7E handheld
• Antennas used:
  • Kenwood-supplied rubber ducky antenna
  • Comet SMA3 rubber ducky
  • Homebrew end-fed vertical (pictured here in the foreground… the white stick)
  • Homebrew slim-jim antenna
  • Nagoya magnetic-mount mobile antenna, NL-77BH
  • Homebrew 2m/70cm whip
• Feedline: RG58/U BNC-terminated coax

HF Setup

• Transceiver: Kenwood TS-120S
• Tuner: Yaesu Musen FC-700
• Antenna: 40m/10m dipole, running roughly northeast-southwest
• Feedline: ~3m 300? antenna ribbon, soldered to 10cm length of PL259-terminated RG-58 via 1:1 voltage balun.

Where to get me

VHF/UHF

At my home QTH, I can only be reached on the following repeaters:

• VK4RBC (438.525MHz -5MHz offset) at Mt. Coot-Tha
• VK4RBN (147.000MHz -600kHz offset) at Mt. Glorious
• VK4RAX (147.075MHz +600kHz offset) at Mt. Cotton

To a very limited extent, I can also kinda reach these repeaters, but it’s very unreliable.

• VK4RBR (147.950MHz -600kHz offset) at Mt. Gravatt
• VK4RBS (146.875MHz -600kHz offset) at Alex Hills, Bayside
• VK4RZB (438.200MHz -5MHz offset, 91.5Hz CTCSS) at Mt. Coot-Tha

I can reach the following repeaters when I’m operating portable at Tarragindi, typically I do this every Wednesday night…

• VK4RBR, VK4RBS, VK4RZB (above)
• VK4RAI (146.900MHz -600kHz offset, and 438.425MHz -5MHz offset) at The Knobby, Ipswich

HF

I typically monitor the WICEN frequencies of 80m and 40m, but will sometimes check out 15m and 10m. I seem to have difficulties tuning up 10m (despite the presence of a 10m dipole. My main frequencies are:

• 80m: 3.600MHz LSB
• 40m: 7.075MHz LSB
• 20m: 14.125MHz USB
• 15m: 21.190MHz USB

I haven’t yet learned CW, but that’s on the TODO list. So for now, it’s SSB only.  But having just upgraded my license, I can now do digital modes — but first I need to set up an interface between the radio and the computer.