Mornington Peninsula National Park

The weekend of November 17/18, 2012 was the Victorian National Parks Weekend to promote activation by radio amateurs operating portable from these parks to earn points toward the Keith Roget Memorial National Parks Award and also to give others the chance to work the National Parks to earn points toward the award also.



The award is managed by Amateur Radio Victoria and is popularly sort after here in VK.

There are 45 parks on the award list, with 23 of them being known to be activated by VK hams for the weekend.

I decided to activate the Mornington Peninsula National Park as it is not too far (2 hours drive) from my QTH, and also it had not been activated much in the past.

I made 8 contacts QRP (less than 5 watts) including 2 other parks - Barmah N.P. and Kinglake N.P.

Rig was my Yaesu FT-817 and a 1/2 wave dipole tuned for 40 metres.

Wx was great and enjoyed the day.

73

Cambo

SOTA Operating Practices

Being new to Summits On The Air, I posted a few questions on the SotaWatch reflector (link to SOTA sites in Footer) and got some great replies from experienced operators.

The Questions I asked were:

1. I was wondering if there is a "standard" and/or recognisable way to call CQ for both SSB and CW for SOTA activations, and also give the summit number.
    
2. As there are no band or mode multipliers for SOTA, how do activators decide on frequency and mode for the activation? Do you try to do multiple bands and modes, or just one band/mode?
    
3. As there are no multipliers for the number of contacts, do activators just get the required number of contacts for official activation, or spend time on the summit to give as many chasers a point as possible?
    
4. And lastly, if you are some distance from the peak, say because the peak is on private property and you cant get any closer, but are still within 25M of the summit HASL, does that still count as an official activation?

SOTA: Mount Rouse VK3/VS-048

Mt Rouse, in Western Victoria, is an extinct volcano that is now 367 metres above sea level at the summit. When it was active, its lava flows extended 60km's to the sea at the current coastal township of Port Fairy.

Mt Rouse coming from the South along Penshurst Road.

Entrance to Mt Rouse.

As it is relatively low in height, it only rates 1 point for SOTA activation, however it has fantastic views, and is an easy activation. The car park is only about 100 metres down from the summit, with the final ascent up a flight of steps.

A Bit Of Personal Radio History

It all started with my fathers portable radio in the 1960's when I was about 8 or 9. He used to listen to the ABC (AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION)for the news every morning, but left it on the bench turned off for the rest of the day. Being a curious kid, I used to turn it on and, after making sure I knew where to put the line on the dial so my father could hear his station ok when he turned it on, turn the dial to hear other local radio stations. I noticed it had various switches and a big panel with lots of lines marked mw, sw1,sw2,sw3. Not knowing what these meant I changed the switch to see what happened. Tuning through these "sw" bands I found lots of strange and unintelligible noises. Sometimes thudding sounds(cw. the radio was am only. no ssb, no bfo.), sometimes diddly sounds (rtty), and sometimes music and voices in strange languages. To a 10 year old in the sixties, that was magical and amazing. I was hooked!

The Radio Shack Dog

 Meet KURO, the shack dog. He's great company but always seems to be under my feet when I am working on a project.

His callsign is K9Mobile. It was allocated to him by Robert, VK3ARM, at one of our early ILLW activation weekends at Flagstaff Hill in Warrnambool.

Even though he has a callsign, he doesn't seem to get too excited when I log another country, so I don't think he is too interested in ham radio.

He shows more interest when I am having coffee and a snack. I always have to give him some of my snack otherwise he sits there and looks grumpy. Hi!

2018: Kuro now S.K. He lived a busy life with many ILLW, SOTA, and portable activations. He was always busy. His main activities were getting under every-ones feet, getting tangled up in guy wires, breaking antennas, sleeping in the middle of the operating area, stealing the bed in the tent, and hanging around the dinner table for scraps. He was a true ham. 

73

Cambo