VK3/VN-015
21st April, 2013
Mt Hickey is an easy drive from Melbourne.
It is situated just south east of Seymour. You turn right off the Hume Highway at Ennis Road and just follow the road up until you get to Phone Track. Turn right and follow it up to the summit.
It goes to dirt fairly quickly, but it is well maintained and any vehicle should be able to get to the summit in the dry. When wet, I would advise caution in a normal car, though you probably should still be able to make it.
There is a couple of commercial installations at the top, and room to park the car just down the road. I walked over to the west side where there are some nice trees to throw an antenna into.
It was late and cold when I got there. I set up my ft-817 and wire dipole for 40 metres and called CQ for a while with no success. Finally I got a contact with weak signal levels, and the conversation attracted a couple of others who could only just hear me. In the end I only got the required 4 contacts before dark was falling and it was starting to drizzle.
I called it a day, packed up, and drove down to the highway in the dark.
Not the best activation as I also forgot to take some photo's, but at least I got the points on the board.
73
Cambo