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Saturday, 16 May 2015

SOTA Isaacs Ridge VK1/AC-041

With a nice sunny Saturday morning decided to activate another local SOTA peak, VK1/AC-041, Isaacs Ridge.

As per previous activations parked off Long Gully Road and walked up a track through the pine forest. This seems to be a part of the Canberra Bicentennial Trail, although it swung off to the left at the end of this track. I continued up the steep road straight ahead. Reached the top, then walked to the Northern knoll where I set up last time to work EU DX, and get away from the RF noisy towers. Set up the squid pole on the cable marker. I ran my 6/10 m linked dipole East-West, to favour the US, with the 20/40 m linked dipole North-South along the road. Looking North Looking South Set up the SOTA shack at the base on the cable access slab. Got on 6 m first. Found lots of RF birdies up and down the band, so some interference from the nearby towers. Despite spotting and several calls no chasers, so changed to 10 m.

Had a bit more luck on 10 m. Worked Mick VK6AY and Mike VK6MB. Then Andrew VK1MBE and Al VK1RX mobile. They also gave me a couple of 6 m contacts.

Set up on 20 m, as 40 m was a complete wipe out with S8 noise across the band. Worked Paul VK5PAS with a massive signal, VK4DD Dave, and VK6MB Mike with a better signal than on 10 m. Also VK5HEL Geoff.

Having no more calls on 20 m returned to 10 m to try and build my score for the SOTA MTs 6 and 10 m challenge. On the Australian 10 m calling frequency 28.490 mhz worked Matt VK1MT then Andrew VK1NAM, who also gave me another 6 m contact.

Tried to work 9M2MDX on 10 m, he was weak and misheard my call as VK1GI so the contact didn't count. Also a contact with Steve VK2NSS mobile in North Canberra. So 7 unique stations for the challenge.

Headed down for lunch. Checked out a quieter RF spot Andrew VK1NAM mentioned at the Southern end of the activation zone, must try this one next year. Track log of walk Labels: Isaacs Ridge, SOTA, VK1/AC-041


